Page 56 - Çevre Şehir ve İklim Dergisi İngilizce - Özel Sayı

Türkiye Towards the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Cop16

PRAIS Reporting covers the monitoring of activities of the countries in the
scope of realizing the target 15.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (to
combat desertification by 2030, to restore degraded land and soil including
the land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and to put efforts
to achieve a world without land destruction); following up the indicator
15.3.1 (proportion of land that is degraded over total land area); as well as
monitoring the activities performed by countries in line with the Sustainable
Development Goals (UNCCD PRAIS, 2024).
In this scope, Türkiye has established the LDN Decision Support System
(DSS), one of the components of LDN Project that are spatially significant,
through the General Directorate of the ÇEM and with the support of the
FAO. Türkiye is also the first country to establish and develop DSS and guides
all current/future studies related to DSS by leading by example for other
countries (Erpul et al., 2023).
Using the LDN-DSS; following trends have been identified in PRAIS4 Reporting
by taking into account UNCCD’s ”Good Practice Guidance” (Sims, 2021):
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• Trends in Land Cover
CORINE data were used in the calculations of Trends in Land Cover, and
the land cover classifications were harmonized by taking into account the
UASIS Land Cover Classes. DSS was used for the comparison and evaluation
of CORINE data (Erpul et al., 2023).
• Trends in land productivity / functioning of the land
5 different land productivity models used globally were evaluated during
the workshop, which was organized with a participatory approach, and
the model that best represents the country was determined by the joint
opinion of the participants. This model was selected by comparing 5
different models based on the application developed for this workshop
(Erpul et al., 2023).
• Trends in carbon stocks
The national soil organic carbon map was used as a basis in the trend
calculations of carbon stocks; and the decrease/increase in soil organic carbon
caused by changes in land cover was estimated using the change factors
determined by national experts instead of the change factors designated by
the IPCC and UNCCD based on land use changes (Erpul et al., 2023).

2 Sims, N.C., Newnham, G.J., England, J.R., Guerschman, J., Cox, S.J.D., Roxburgh, S.H., Viscarra
Rossel, R.A., Fritz, S. and Wheeler, I. 2021. Good Practice Guidance. SDG Indicator 15.3.1, Proportion
of Land That Is Degraded Over Total Land Area. Version 2.0. United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification, Bonn, Germany.

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Special Issue / 2024