Spatial assessments of soil organic carbon for stakeholder decision-making. A case study from Kenya

Abstract. Land degradation impacts the health and livelihoods of about 1.5 billion people worldwide. Given that the state of the environment and food security are strongly interlinked in tropical landscapes, the increasing need for land for food production, urbanization and other uses pose several threats to sustainability in the long term. There is increasing recognition that more integrated approaches to assessments and management of ecosystem health are needed to meet the targets of the 2030 Agenda, including SDG 15.3. In addition to systematic and reliable biophysical and socio-economic assessments, stakeholder engagement with evidence is crucial to support integrated approaches. This paper demonstrates the integration of land and soil health maps with socioeconomic datasets into an online, open-access platform called the Resilience Diagnostic and Decision Support Tool for Turkana County in Kenya, using the Stakeholder Approach to Risk Informed and Evidence Based Decision Making (SHARED) methodology. The paper highlights the utility of spatial assessments of soil organic carbon (SOC) for monitoring of land degradation neutrality (LDN) compliance, understanding the drivers of SOC dynamics, and inclusion in stakeholder decision-making. The main objectives of this paper were to: (1) demonstrate the application of a systematic approach for land health assessments, including spatial mapping of soil organic carbon; (2) show an operational interdisciplinary framework for assessing ecosystem health; and (3) showcase the application of evidence-based tools for stakeholder engagement using the SHARED approach.