This report presents a comprehensive land cover map of Tunisia, highlighting cultivated land, olive trees, dates and orchards while integrating information on land water management practices. [Author] A land cover map was derived using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and stratified with water management data from currently existing data. [Author] Statistics illustrating the area of each class regionally and nationally were produced to provide accurate information on land cover classes distribution. [Author] Land cover information is essential to understanding the diverse range of ecosystems and agricultural land in Tunisia, particularly when looking to address climactic and socioeconomic challenges in the country. [Author] An accurate representation of agricultural land use is imperative when developing strategies for natural resource management and sustainable agricultural practices. [Author] Land cover mapping within the SolaWISe initiative facilities access to essential information on soil, land water and crop management, thus informing decision-making processes for enhancing agricultural productivity and sustainability. [Author] This land cover map provides a robust foundation for developing insights into natural resource management and agricultural practices across Tunisia. [Author] It empowers stakeholders at national, regional and local levels to make informed decisions for sustainable crop production in the context of a changing climate. [Author] There is no information on water management practices in the south of Tunisia; producing these datasets would significantly improve our understanding of crop management systems and agricultural water productivity. [Author] In the future land cover maps can be expanded to include more intricate irrigation and crop type information, allowing stakeholders to develop a more intricate understanding of spatial variation in crop suitability and productivity. [Author]

This book focuses on monitoring and assessing various environmental processes in Tunisia using state-of-the-art remote sensing and GIS technologies. In addition to addressing the diversity of Tunisian landscapes and providing spatial analysis of natural, cultivated and urbanized environments. It presents and discusses several case studies on integrated RS / GIS approaches for mapping, modeling, monitoring and evaluation. Moreover, in this volume authored by experts in the topic from Tunisia and other countries, authors assess the agro-environmental applications from Tunisia and offer different methods and applications to environmental processes and risks including drought, degradation, flood, planning, Yield estimation, dust storm detection, dry land vulnerability, wetland dynamics and others. The material presented here will help decision-makers plan sustainable landscape and agricultural management policies that preserve biodiversity and contribute to achieving sustainability goals and for researchers, it will expose methodological approaches used in different fields of research. Graduate students and Practionioner engineers working in the field of RS/GIS will also benefit from the book. The book ends with a set of conclusions and recommendations to support researchers underscoring the need for further research in this area.

This book focuses on monitoring and assessing various environmental processes in Tunisia using state-of-the-art remote sensing and GIS technologies. In addition to addressing the diversity of Tunisian landscapes and providing spatial analysis of natural, cultivated and urbanized environments. It presents and discusses several case studies on integrated RS / GIS approaches for mapping, modeling, monitoring and evaluation. Moreover, in this volume authored by experts in the topic from Tunisia and other countries, authors assess the agro-environmental applications from Tunisia and offer different methods and applications to environmental processes and risks including drought, degradation, flood, planning, Yield estimation, dust storm detection, dry land vulnerability, wetland dynamics and others. The material presented here will help decision-makers plan sustainable landscape and agricultural management policies that preserve biodiversity and contribute to achieving sustainability goals and for researchers, it will expose methodological approaches used in different fields of research. Graduate students and Practionioner engineers working in the field of RS/GIS will also benefit from the book. The book ends with a set of conclusions and recommendations to support researchers underscoring the need for further research in this area. .

Drylands have been cradles to some of the world’s greatest civilizations, and contemporary dryland communities feature rich and unique cultures. Dryland ecosystems support a surprising amount of biodiversity. Desertification, however, is a significant land degradation problem in the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions of the world. Deterioration of soil and plant cover has adversely affected 70% of the world’s drylands as a result of extended droughts as well as mismanagement of range and cultivated lands. The situation is likely to worsen with high population growth rates and accompanying land-use conflicts. The contributions to The Future of Drylands – an international scientific conference held under the leadership of UNESCO – address these issues and offer practical solutions for combating desertification along with conserving and sustainably managing dryland ecosystems. Major themes include the conservation of dryland biological and cultural diversity and the human dryland interface. This volume documents how our improved understanding of drylands provides insight into the health and future prospects of these precious ecosystems that should help ensure that dryland communities enjoy a sustainable future.

This work becomes with methodological rigor a part of the innovative proposals for the characterization of the areas at risk of desertification. The complexity of the phenomenon of desertification, which involves extended surfaces in all continents, is one of the most alarming processes of the environmental degradation of our Planet and threatens the health and the living conditions of over a billion of persons. The food crisis, in continuous increase, ask for the world of research to urgently supply reassuring solutions concerning the acquisition of indicators, which are easy to monitor and concur to control the phenomenon in order to fight its acceleration. The constant but different combination that determines the diffusion of deserti- cation in the territories, attributable mostly to climatic changes and the activities of the man, makes our job challenging and complicated, since it varies from region to region. We are aware of all this and therefore we think that the methodological approach of survey of the data is an extremely important element to locate of the phenomenon and to monitor its course. This work, which is characterized for its multi-disciplinary approach, suggests solutions that we wish will quickly find concrete applications at international level. Prof. Bruno Dettori President CNLSD (Comitato Nazionale per la Lotta alla Siccità e alla Desertificazione) v

This publication is a product of the GEF-funded FAO project ‘Decision Support for Mainstreaming and Scaling Out Sustainable Land Management (DS-SLM)’ which has developed a decision support framework (DSF). The DSF integrates experience from work with land degradation (LD) and SLM into an overall strategy for mainstreaming and scaling out SLM at different spatial and temporal scales. This publication serves as a step-by-step guide for the application and implementation of the DSF during planning, design and implementation of SLM interventions. It includes elements – both in its modules and proposed tools and methods – which can support countries in pursuing land degradation neutrality (LDN).

This book presents most recent research studies on mapping and spatial analysis of socio-economic and environmental indicators used by various national and international contributors to regional development projects. It gathers the best contributions to the 1st International Conference on Mapping and Spatial Analysis of Socio-Economic and Environmental Indicators for the Local and Regional Sustainable Development. The conference was held in southern Tunisia, Tataouine in March 2015.The research studies focused on generating and analyzing indicators in various domains of Agriculture, Energy, Industry, Tourism, Transport, Urban Planning, Exploitation of Natural Resources, Infrastructure, Health, Environment, Education, Information and Communication Technologies, Social Affairs and Employability, and Culture and Sport. Socio-economic and environmental indicators are important in regional development plans and strategies as they allow to observe and analyze changes in the economic growth and to measure their impact on the environment and on social networks/daily life of citizens. On the basis of well-defined geomatic approaches, and particularly, through sophisticated digital mapping and spatio-temporal analyses, authors focused on retrieving indicators to evaluate the exploitation rate of natural resources, intensity of the energy consumption in various economic sector, net migratory flows, quality checking of the air in urban areas, adaptation to climate change, and vulnerability of the coastal domain and risk of marine submersion due to sea-level rise. The book is of interest not only to investors and contributors to regional development projects, but also to all relevant policy makers.