Indicators for Assessing Changes in Natural Resources in Developing Countries

摘要

The sustainability of the natural resource base is being seriously threatened in many developing countries by local efforts to meet basic needs for food, fiber, and fuelwood. The paper suggests eight illustrative indicators for assessing the impact of A.I.D. agricultural and forestry projects on natural resources: soil productivity maintenance, land use and management, vegetative cover and plant health, agroforestry and fuelwood supply, rangeland conditions and trends, water supply, environmental quality, and accelerated general degradation processes. Appendices cover procedures, data items, and costs for natural resource inventories in the United States; Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with digitized map information; costs of soil surveys, digitized maps, and GISs; estimated costs for remote sensing of natural resources; and a U.S. Department of Agriculture water erosion prediction project being developed to replace the universal soil loss equation. Includes a 5-page bibliography.