Viable measures for sustainable land management can only be designed and implemented if degradation processes are well understood, measured, described and modeled. Land degradation, in particular soil erosion due to water and wind, occurs in many parts of the world. Understanding these processes forms an essential component of integrated land development projects. Soil and water conservation measures are only viable and sustainable if local environmental and socio-economic conditions are taken into account and proper enabling conditions and policies can be achieved. Land degradation increasingly occurs because land use, and farming systems are subject to rapid environmental and socio-economic changes. Land use and its management are thus inextricably bound up with development; farmers must adapt in order to sustain the quality of their lives. In broader perspective, soil and water conservation is needed as food security and biodiversity are at risk because land degradation occurs in many parts of the world and threatens food production and environmental stability. Since land degradation affects least developed countries most, we especially encourage people from developing countries to submit their abstract to this session. The EGU has travel bursaries available to support some applicants (requires an early abstract submission) for whom we can also try to get funding for travel and registration costs.

We are especially encouraging researchers working on the following topics to submit their abstract to our session:
• Water-use efficiency for enhancing food security.
• Tackling land degradation on a variety of scales; from the field and farm level to the watershed and village level.
• Development of tools to monitor impact of land degradation on ecosystem goods and services.
• Understanding how farmers adapt to changes.
• Understand and implement the requirements to make (multi-scale) governance work for Sustainable Land Management.
• Development of scientific knowledge for successful land conservation.
• Synergies between successful land conservation and enhancement of biodiversity, especially at conservation hot spots of high natural values.
• Bridging the gap between scientific knowledge and its use by stakeholders and decision makers (e.g government).
• Tools to identify conservation hot spots for SLM adaptation practices.
• Operating in integrated projects to combine bio-physical and socio-economic aspects of sustainable land management.