User-Friendly and Integrated Landscape Simulation Tool for Support Sustainable Land Management Planning in Tunisia

Expanding soil and water conservation (SWC) practices faces decision-making problems that are mainly caused by diversities of the environment and stakeholder needs/preferences, as well as difficulties in anticipating planning outcomes. This study applies Integrated LAnd Management Planning Tool (iLAMPT) to examine possible management pathways to address potential soil erosion and costs–benefits driven from different sustainable land management planning scenarios across the Rmel catchment in Tunisia. iLAMPT is an end-user-oriented, spatially explicit modeling tool based on the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) adjusted for the sediment delivery ratio (SDR). Different databases and field characterization were used to calibrate the model for the Rmel catchment and validate model outputs at the catchment scale. The tool also has user-friendly interfaces that helped integrate users’ preferences. The tool is meant to integrate expert knowledge into the defining of SWC planning scenarios and related likely impact. A participatory grid-based appraisal was applied to validate the simulated spatial patterns of soil erosion at the catchment level. The first evaluation showed fairly good matching in erosion hotspots. Since the tool allows end-users define planning scenarios/options and provide outputs in a spatially explicit and timely responsive way, it assists effective discussions over landscape planning where land degradation neutrality is the ultimate goal.