The arid lands and desert restoration hub focuses on knowledge and dissemination of dryland restoration techniques, methods, principles, key people and key organisations as well, successful projects and facilitating new projects.
The Reasons
There is great need to restore existing despoiled drylands and to combat increasing desertification. Restoring habitats improves biodiversity, increases carbon sequestration, enhancing the quality of life for people. An essential measure is the planting of and reestablishment of vegetation. The successful establishment of vegetation in arid areas is complex requiring the multi-disciplinary skills of arid land experts with various capabilities, in soils, hydrology, ecology, agronomy, land management etc. However, vegetation restoration techniques in arid areas require review and development. Information on restoration is highly dispersed and often difficult to obtain.
The creation of the ‘Drylands and Desert Restoration Hub’ is thus aimed to bring together the expertise, knowledge and information on vegetation establishment and management that exists in the EU and around the world. The drylands and desert restoration hub provides a focus for information for all stakeholders.
Knowledge collection and dissemination is for stakeholders at all levels and is based on a ‘one stop shop’ where:
- Gathering traditional knowledge of existing and past land users;
- Gathering scientific information from publications;
- Bringing unpublished knowledge to light;
- Creating a discussion forum on new knowledge; and
- Presenting traditional, published new knowledge for easy access
Desert Restoration Hub 