Monitoring Drylands Ecosystem Dynamics for Sustainable Development Policies: The Keita Experience

In recent years, the concept of watershed management has grown rapidly due to the importance of water as an increasingly precious natural resource that is, at the same time, very difficult to manage within the overall development of any nation. Watersheds integrate many physical, biological, social and economic processes and information. Water resource management is a continuous process requiring attention at various levels because of its inherent nature and the extent of interventions being made at various levels and scales. Small-scale interventions, at the village level, are mainly for soil and water conservation and fulfil the requirements of a small community. It is essential to generate biophysical information that can be used to generate scenarios, which in turn can help in local-level planning and management of land and water resources in the watersheds. The present study demonstrates the methodology for development of a decision support system for planning a sustainable watershed management programme at village level which can be used for sustainable root level planning for development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of watershed management programmes in semi-arid regions.