PROJECT ASSESSMENTS - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 127

Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality through the 'North-South'
programme.

B) Project objectives

1) What were the initial project objectives?

• Standardization of the methods of collection, storage and conservation of runoff

and sediment samples to obtain reliable and reproducible data.

• Comparison of the quality of nutrient measurement data of a national laboratory

with international standards, to guarantee a sufficient degree of accurateness.

• Quantification of the loss of soil, water and nutrients at the watershed level and

collection of the necessary soil, meteorological, topographical and land use
variables, which will form the basic input of the model.

• Extension of an existing state of the art soil erosion model with a submodel

capable of predicting the transport of nutrients at the watershed level.

• Calibration and validation of the extended model for the conditions met in the

Hilly Purple Area of the Sichuan province in China.

• Description of institutions, regulations, policies and factors influencing farm

management practices related to soil, water and nutrient management at the farm
and watershed level.

• Development of a methodology to combine participatory approaches with the

use of the extended model.

• To arrive at acceptable solutions to reduce soil, water and nutrient losses using

the developed work plan.

2) Have there been any (major) changes to these objectives and for what reason?

No

C) Project activities

1) Which activities were employed to meet the objectives?

• Standardization of nutrient erosion measurements in the study area in China and

development of a methodology to measure nutrient losses at the watershed level.

• Field survey to measure relevant watershed variables needed for model input and

to quantify the current soil, water and nutrient losses in the selected watershed in
the Hilly Purple area.

• Extension of the physically-based soil erosion and hydrological model LISEM

with a robust nutrient routine.

•

Determination of management constraints on both farm and watershed level and
development of possible alternative land use and soil and water conservation
measures, including preparation of LISEM input parameters.