In the West African drylands, SOC sequestration is seen as one of the prominent strategies to both enhance the resilience of agro-ecosystems and mitigate global greenhouse effects. However, there is a dearth of baseline data that impede the design of site-appropriate recommended management practices (RMPs) to improve and sustain SOC accrual.

Much of the native forest in the highlands of western Kenya has been converted to agricultural land in order to feed the growing population, and more land is being cleared. In tropical Africa, this land use change results in progressive soil degradation, as the period of cultivation increases. Both rates and variation in infiltration, soil carbon concentration and other soil parameters are influenced by management within agricultural systems, but they have rarely been well documented in East Africa.

Ecological restoration through exclosure establishment has become an increasingly important approach to reversing degraded ecosystems in rangelands worldwide. The present study was conducted in northwestern Ethiopia where policy programs are aiming to restore degraded lands. Changes in soil properties following establishing exclosures on communal grazing lands were investigated. A space-for-time substitution approach was used to monitor changes in soil properties after conversion of communal grazing lands to exclosures with ages of establishment ranging from 1 to 7-years.

Map details 50 land uses with a summary of the most common uses.

Geosoil permite almacenar, consultar e interpretar información tanto del suelo como de su entorno biofísico a diferentes escalas: parcela, finca, comunidad, municipio, departamento, región, país. Opera a partir de una base de datos relacional elaborada en ACCES 2000, compuesta por una serie de tablas principales estructuradas con información a diferentes niveles jerárquicos que permiten la caracterización de las propiedades del suelo.