Page 302 - 7. State Of Environment Report Of Türkiye

The aim of the project is to increase the awareness and capacity of all relevant stakeholders
regarding ATD, to prepare a Decision Support System (KDS) that will guide decision makers, to
carry out field applications and to disseminate the final results at the country level, as well as to
be an example for other countries in terms of technique and practice. The ATD Decision Support
System, one of the most important outputs of the Project, has been created and is being actively
used.

The Decision Support System (KDS) was developed within the scope of the “Land Degradation
Neutrality, Upper Sakarya Basin Project” carried out in cooperation with the General Directorate
of Combating Desertification and Erosion, which is the focal point of the United Nations Con-
vention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO).
This system, which was established to reveal the current situation in order to achieve voluntary
ATD targets, is an open source system based on Google Earth Engine, which allows decision
makers to make accurate and effective decisions with integrated data and models. Three basic
criteria have been determined by the UNCCD Secretariat in determining the changes in ATD over
time and reporting the progress made towards ATD targets. These are land cover, land producti-
vity dynamics and soil organic carbon.
Three-way interactions provide a detailed understanding of degradation and help identify areas
requiring urgent intervention. The “all but one” approach used in the ATD methodology assumes
that if any of the indicators show degradation, the entire area is considered degraded.

Building on the ATD Intervention Hierarchy adopted for Land Degradation Neutrality, the Sys-
tem provides a versatile platform for the interpretation of a wide range of inputs. These inputs
cover a variety of factors such as land use change, soil organic carbon (SOC), land productivity
index, erosion data specific to Türkiye, and desertification vulnerability maps. The System enab-
les comprehensive analysis through various interactive features.

This system shows decision makers which areas need to be taken into account within the fra-
mework of ATD indicators and subcomponents, which areas are stable or improving, and the
transitions between land covers.

By preparing the document “Decision Support System for Balancing Land Degradation with Sys-
tem Outputs, Provincial Statistics and Sustainable Land Management Approaches and Practi-
ces”, areas that are sensitive in terms of land degradation and need to be protected and areas
that need to be repaired through restoration and rehabilitation works have been determined
on a provincial basis.

Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) Stock Monitoring Project: Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) is an extremely
important and effective indicator in terms of balancing land degradation, sustainable use of
country lands and reducing and/or eliminating the negative effects of climate change. Deter-
mining the land use types where SOC stocks are low, sufficient or high at the national scale and
mapping their locations are also necessary for the development of national land use policies.

In this context, as a result of the “Türkiye Soil Organic Carbon (KARBON) Project” carried out in
cooperation with the General Directorate of Combating Desertification and Erosion (GDCDE)
and TÜBİTAK- Informatics and Information Security Advanced Technologies Research Center
(BİLGEM)-Software Technologies Research Institute (YTE), a high-resolution and very detailed
Türkiye Soil Organic Carbon Stock Map has been prepared.

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