Practical and cost-effective indicators and procedures for monitoring the impacts of rural development projects on land quality and sustainable land management

The impact(s) of development activities on land quality often become manife st only several years after termination of a project. Baseline studies and cost-effective monitoring needs to be initiated while activities are on-goi ng, and this needs to be continued in post-project activities. This is poss ible, however, only when relatively simple and cost-efficient monitoring me thods are available. These tools, however, are still rare and need to be fu rther developed. An international working group, initiated by GTZ and SDC (Swiss Development Co-operation) and strongly supported by the 'Land Quality Indicator Initia tive' of the World Bank, developed guidelines for impact monitoring to addr ess this constraint. These included a toolkit of relatively easy to handle and cost-effective methods. The impact monitoring procedure presented invol ves seven basic steps: identification of stakeholders, identification of co re issues, formulation of impact hypotheses, identification and selection o f indicators, selection and development of monitoring methods, data analysi s and assessment of sustainable land management, as well as information man agement. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.