This document proposes a generic policy and implementation model to address soil erosion on a global scale. The model takes a top-down, recursive approach, conducting comprehensive surveys to understand erosion types, extent, and causes. It identifies actions that result in erosion and maps them to the relevant policy domains. The model then establishes legal instruments for each domain to prevent erosion and require research into less harmful practices. Implementation is regionalized to account for uneven erosion distribution. The model's success depends on compatibility with sovereignty, policy harmony, and appropriate implementation means. It aims to unify surveys, research, and policy to holistically address the issue of soil erosion.

1. A Generic Policy and Implementation
Model to Address Soil Erosion
Lal Manavado
Senior Advisor, Norwegian Directorate of Health, Norway
Fig 1. A national policy on soil erosion and its implementation
INTRODUCTION, SCOPE
AND MAIN OBJECTIVES
The consequences of human activities have
exacerbated the erosive effect of daily
temperature fluctuations, wind and rain on
top soil leading to a quantitative and
qualitative loss of world’s arable land. This
has serious direct implications for global
nutrition and food security. Its impact on
climate reduces the ecosystems services
available to agriculture and ecological
recovery, creating a dangerous circular chain
reaction which progressively diminishes soil
fertility and worsens the climate. This paper
suggests a policy and implementation
framework to address the problem.
METHODOLOGY
A top-down approach is recursively used
throughout. Comprehensive surveys are
undertaken to ascertain the types, extent and
distribution of erosion. Successful methods of
soil restoration are compiled, and research
recommended filling the skill gaps.
Actions known to result in erosion are
identified and mapped onto the policy
domains involved. In the light of this
information, legal instruments each policy
domain should embody to prevent erosion
and require research into more benign
practises are ascertained. To whom the
responsibility for actual soil restoration and
further research may be delegated remains to
be established. Incorporation of the foregoing
into an appropriate institution is outlined in
figures 1 and 2.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE
POLICY AND
IMPLEMENTATION
FRAMEWORK
Deforestation resulting from agriculture, log
trade and transport lead to soil erosion.
Therefore, a policy to address it and its
implementation would have to be distributed
among all the policies involved. But,
restoration of the eroded land is beyond the
competence of most of those who design and
implement the policies responsible for it.
• Use of recursive policy design and
implementation would overcome the
limitations imposed by sovereignty.
• A world-wide policy will cover every known
cause of soil erosion, means of their
prevention and restoration. Pragmatism will
confine it to strategic persuasion and
incentives to better policy design, guidance,
technical and other help at regional and
national levels.
• A regional policy would have to be tailored
to address only the shareable aspects of the
problem.
• Uneven distribution of erosion in a country
makes it necessary to regionalize and localize
the design and implementation of the
national policy.
• Success of the present model depends on
three of its structural attributes and how
skillfully it is implemented.
• Compatibility of the model with the
sovereignty of the politico-geographic zone, to
which it applies,
• Harmony of erosion policy within and with
the elements of its policy ambience.
• Appropriateness of the means of
implementation.
• Effectiveness and practicability of a means
relative to the human and other resources
needed for its timely use indicate its
appropriateness.
Guided by the above criteria, causes of
erosion and legal means of its prevention are
mapped onto policy domain of each
organisation/ministry involved. Those
preventive measures become distributed
elements of the model.
Compilation of effective means of soil
restoration and research, and their practical
application would become an element of the
policy of the chosen institution.
CONCLUSIONS
This model unifies surveys, research, and
legal instruments, into a policy channel to
address soil erosion. It provides policy
makers a dynamic and flexible tool open to
evolutionary improvement, which enables
them to deploy the available expertise in
appropriate niches for their optimal
utilization.