Healthy, fertile soil is a precious and limited resource which often takes thousands of years to naturally develop. Despite our collective need for soil, human activity often accelerates the process of erosion through poor land management practices, including deforestation, overgrazing and the use of agrochemicals and pesticides.
Since 2013, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has organized an annual Scientific Conference to bring attention to the increasingly urgent issue of land degradation, and its effects on global poverty and food insecurity. This year's Conference will be held in Cancun, Mexico from 9-12 March, and will feature an IAEA side-event to highlight Agency activities in the fight against desertification.
Healthy soil is an indispensable good. Not only is it a vital resource for developing economies with large agricultural sectors, it is often the sole source of income for the world's 2.6 billion small-scale and subsistence farmers, whose very lives depend on fruitful topsoil. Due to the symbiotic relationship between land management and poverty reduction, the theme of this year's UNCCD Scientific Conference will be, "Combating desertification, land degradation and drought for poverty reduction and sustainable development-the contribution of science, technology, traditional knowledge and practices."
In support of this theme, the IAEA is organizing a side-event, entitled "The importance of quantitative soil erosion data: How isotopic techniques can provide evidence for combatting desertification and climate change," which will bring attention to a spectrum of nuclear techniques that can facilitate the assessment, management and restoration of over-tilled, overgrazed or otherwise poorly-managed soil. Through the application of isotope hydrology, soil and water experts can generate considerable bio-physical data, which can in turn reveal the current composition of the soil, shed light on recent changes, and foreshadow future erosion.
The side-event will focus on ongoing, regional technical cooperation (TC) projects that leverage isotope technologies to address soil retrogression. Through training events, expert missions, equipment procurement and other capacity building activities, the IAEA and its Member States are working to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of nuclear applications in the agricultural sector.
The IAEA's participation at the UNCCD Scientific Conference is the newest milestone in the recent history of cooperation between both organizations. Although the Agency has supported its Member States in their efforts to implement the Convention for more than two decades, the relationship was only formalized recently in a 2012 Practical Arrangement. Signed in Bonn, Germany, the document outlines the terms of collaboration between the IAEA and UNCCD, which include the provision of assistance to address desertification, drought, land degradation and climate change adaptation.
Background
Land degradation affects 1.9 billion hectares of land globally, representing around 65% of the global soil resources, and is increasing at a rate of 5 to 7 million hectares each year. Soil erosion is the main contributor to such land degradation. As much as 75 billion tons of fertile soil is lost from world agricultural systems each year through soil erosion. In order to minimize this loss, and for the sustainable use and management of this precious resource, there is an urgent need for reliable and quantitative data on the extent and actual rates of soil erosion, around the world. In addition, information on the key driving processes of erosion is needed, so that policy-makers can make wise decisions for sustainable soil conservation strategies. This quantitative data will prove even more important when integrated into effective climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation programmes.
In the aforementioned side-event, the IAEA and its project counterparts from Latin America and Asia and Pacific will present how nuclear and isotope techniques can provide the quantitative data for sustainable land management. They will be introducing these techniques (fallout radionuclides (FRNs) and compound specific stable isotopes (CSSI)) for estimating soil redistribution rates and for apportioning the source contribution from different land-uses. Through benchmark sites in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and Antarctica, the IAEA contributes to climate-smart science, as part of a global effort to address the impact of climate change in polar and mountainous regions.