UNCCD Terminology

Counter erosion or anti-erosion measures are all actions to reduce the vulnerability of landscapes to soil-erosion processes. The key to erosion control is preventing the detachment of soil particles and reducing the volume of runoff. These measures include a broad range of technical and biological soil-treating actions and the rehabilitation of degraded areas as well as changes in land-use planning and agricultural management. These measures often involve the creation of a physical barrier. Due to different environmental conditions anti-erosion measures vary accordingly to the specific ecological conditions

The provision of an equal and opposite effect, over a specified timeframe. In the context of LDN, the neutrality mechanism at the integrated land use planning stage, anticipated losses with measures designed to deliver gains, in order to achieve the LDN target (country level). Counterbalancing is generally managed within the same land type, and within a biophysical (e.g. catchment) or administrative (e.g., province) spatial domain.

Those Central and East European countries and former republics of Soviet Union that are in transition to a market economy.

For the purpose of UNCCD reporting, this land cover class includes any geographic areas with a predominant cultivated surface cover of either herbaceous crops or woody crops. The class is composed of a main layer of cultivated herbaceous plants (graminoids or forbs), including herbaceous crops used for hay, and/or of a main layer of permanent cultivated tree or shrub crops and includes all types of orchards and plantations (fruit trees, coffee and tea plantation, oil palms, rubber plantation, Christmas trees etc.). All the non-perennial crops that do not last for more than two growing seasons and crops like sugar cane where the upper part of the plant is regularly harvested while the root system can remain for more than one year in the field are included in this class. The class also includes croplands rain fed, irrigated or post-flooding and aquatic crops, which are standing in water over extensive periods during their cultivation time (e.g. paddy rice, tidal rice and deep water rice). This class also includes crop fields from small size (< 2ha) to medium large size (>2ha). Areas planted with trees for afforestation purposes and forest plantations are included in this class. The vegetative cover can be present, it depends from the time of observation during the crops period. This class also includes multiple or layered crops composed of at least two layers of cultivated woody and herbaceous crops. A common case is the presence of one layer of woody crops (trees or shrubs) and another layer of herbaceous crop, (such as for olive trees with wheat fields in the Mediterranean area and intense horticulture, oasis or typical coastal African agriculture, where herbaceous fields are covered by palm trees, etc. etc.). This class also includes different layers of cultivated plants combined with significant areas of natural vegetation: i) mixed herbaceous and woody crops; ii) mosaic crops (>50%) / natural vegetation (50%) / crops (< 50%).

A cross slope measure is the sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystem to reduce disaster risk and safeguard the direct and indirect benefits, people obtain from the ecosystems.

Characteristics of information, usually numerical, that are collected through observation.

Name of institution, individual or group of individuals owning the original data set.

An organized collection of data.

A formal agreement at the plenary that directs the work of the COP.

A person who makes decisions (Collins, n.d). In the context of LDN, decision makers include anyone making decisions related to land use and management (e.g., policy makers, planners, managers, practitioners, land users).

Conversion of forest to non-forest.

Land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities.

Summarizes the combined issues and impacts related to desertification, land degradation and drought. See also ‘Desertification’, ‘Land degradation’ and ‘Drought’.

Development assistance refers to aid flows to countries and to multilateral development institutions which are administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as their main objective. (Source: http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/)

The representation of continuous elevation values over a topographic surface by a regular array of z-values, referenced to a common vertical datum. DEMs are typically used to represent the bare-earth terrain, void of vegetation and manmade features.
(Source: https://support.esri.com/en/other-resources/gis-dictionary/search/dem) Desertification

Disaggregation is the breakdown of observations, usually within a common branch of a hierarchy, to a more detailed level to that at which detailed observations are taken.

Official meeting documents are placed on the website, as they become available. In-session documents are distributed on site and may include CRPs, and nonpapers. Informal documents are often distributed outside the meeting room by Parties or observers.