Land degradation is one of Lebanon’s pressing environmental problems with more than 39% of the national territory being highly exposed to land degradation. Assessing land degradation is essentially needed for decision-makers to monitor and mitigate degradation, implement sustainable land management practices and attain land degradation neutrality (LDN) as addressed by the Sustainable Development Goal 15 (i.e., SDG 15) and Lebanon’s voluntary national LDN targets.

In this context, the Land and Natural Resources Program at the Institute of Environment at the University (LNR-IOE-UOB) was awarded a contract for a value of 89,924 USD from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Lebanon to conduct a landscape-scale survey of land degradation in mountain lands and high-country areas in Akkar and Jbeil Cazas over a period of four years.

The Project’s main objective is to develop a Decision-Support System (DSS) which can contribute to the restoration of mountain lands to regain their valuable ecological functions and ecosystem services through mapping of land degradation and its causes, analysis of land uses, and through developing an overall ecological assessment for the high-country areas in the Cazas of Akkar and Jbeil.

Overall, this work requires adopting a precise methodology for assessing land degradation. Accordingly, the LNR-IOE-UOB will benefit from its extensive experience in this sector and from its peer-reviewed systematic approach and methodology for assessing land degradation at the subnational level with the combined use of geo-spatial information (e.g., including satellite imagery) and field data*.

*Mitri, G., Nasrallah, G., Gebrael, K., Bou Nassar, M., Abou Dagher, M., Nader, M., Masri, N., and Choueiter, D. (2019). Assessing land degradation and identifying potential sustainable land management practices at the subnational level in Lebanon. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 191: 567. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7739-y. ​