Land management

Land management is the process of managing the use and development of land resources. One aim of sustainable land management is to prevent or reverse land degradation. Another aim is to ensure water security by increasing soil moisture availability, decreasing surface runoff, and decreasing soil erosion. Land resources are used for a variety of purposes which may include for example agriculture, forestry, water resource management, human settlements and tourism. Unsustainable land managements leads to land being over- or misused which in turn degrades the land, reduces productivity and disrupts natural equilibriums.

Sustainable land management (SLM) refers to practices and technologies that aim to integrate the management of land, water, and other environmental resources to meet human needs while ensuring long-term sustainability, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and livelihoods. The term is used for example in regional planning and soil or environmental protection.

Definition

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) applies the term land management in a wide context. Besides agriculture and forestry, they include the mineral extraction sector, property and estate management: "Land management is the process by which the resources of land are put to good effect. It covers all activities concerned with the management of land as a resource both from an environmental and from an economic perspective. It can include farming, mineral extraction, property and estate management, and the physical planning of towns and the countryside.

The United Nations (UN) 1992 Rio Earth Summit defined sustainable land management as “the use of land resources, including soils, water, animals and plants, for the production of goods to meet changing human needs, while simultaneously ensuring the long-term productive potential of these resources and the maintenance of their environmental functions.”

The World Bank defines sustainable land management as a process in a charged environment between environmental protection and the guarantee claim of ecosystem services on the one hand. On the other hand, it is about productivity of agriculture and forestry with respect to demographic growth and increasing pressure in land use: "SLM is defined as a knowledge-based procedure that helps integrate land, water, biodiversity, and environmental management (including input and output externalities) to meet rising food and fiber demands while sustaining ecosystem services and livelihoods. SLM is necessary to meet the requirements of a growing population. Improper land management can lead to land degradation and a significant reduction in the productive and service (biodiversity niches, hydrology, carbon sequestration) functions of watersheds and landscapes."

In the European context, the definition of the European Network for Land Use Management for Sustainable European Cities (LUMASEC) may be used as a reference. It emphasizes the inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation on sustainable land management.

Methods

The current practices of sustainable land management (SLM) in Ethiopia involve a variety of structural and nonstructural elements integrated at the catchment scale, providing different roles in managing water resources. For instance, the structural measures (soil bunds, contour trenches, etc.) significantly improve infiltration and water storage potential of the agricultural landscapes. On the other hand, the nonstructural measures, such as the elimination of open grazing on communal grazing land and the abandonment of postharvest grazing on cultivated land, help improve the water retention capacity of the soils and reduce nonproductive evaporative water losses.

In addition, the current practices of SLM attempts to sustain diverse land use mosaics at the catchment scale, including protected areas (gullied lands and communal grazing lands), cultivated land and home gardens, with the aim of harnessing potential uses, services, and values from a catchment.

See also

• Agenda 21
• Conservation grazing
• Economics of Land Degradation Initiative
• Environmental management scheme
• Habitat conservation
• Holistic management
• Land change science
• Land use
• Land use, land-use change, and forestry
• Land registration
• Wildlife management