Objectives
SASCHA aims to provide system knowledge, strategies and tools to counteract the deterioration of globally relevant carbon sinks, agricultural resources and biodiversity values in the southern part of Western Siberia under future scenarios of climate and land-use change. To achieve this overall goal the following objectives can be defined:
- Analysis of land-cover and current land-use change (expansion and intensification of arable land use),
- Development and implementation of monitoring (remote sensing) tools adapted to regional requirements for an estimation of future land-use and land-cover change,
- Assessment of socio-economic driving forces of the current development,
- Quantification of carbon stocks and GHG emissions from ecosystems under different land use,
- Analysis of various types of agricultural management on soil carbon gains or losses through mineralization and/or wind and water erosion at patch and landscape level,
- Assessment of the impact of current land-use change on other ecosystem goods and services such as soil fertility, water resources and biodiversity,
- Development of indicators for sustainable land use and future land-use potential,
- Modelling the effects of the northwards shift of arable land use under climate warming on ecosystems of the Pre-Taiga and forest-steppe zone,
- Predicting the development of carbon stocks, GHG emissions, hydrological systems, soil fertility and biodiversity under different scenarios of future land-use and climate change,
- Determination of optimal win-win situations between the sustainability of ecosystem services and societal needs and benefits,
- Development of policy, planning, management and monitoring tools to optimize land use in terms of carbon sequestration, biodiversity and other ecosystem goods and services,
- definition of priority areas,
- Implementation and institutionalisation of these planning tools and management options through intense and adequate involvement of local and regional stakeholders during the entire process.
