Scaling up Land Restoration Approaches to Reclaim the Hardpans of Niger for Agriculture using Sentinel 2 ImageryMIrshad AhmedauthorHAnil KumarauthorSLaminouauthorI AMohammedauthorB VBadoauthorDFatondjiauthorA MWhitbreadauthorDegraded lands, widespread across sub-Saharan Africa, are used mainly for grazing and firewood harvesting and have low agricultural production potential. Such areas have become degraded through overuse and removal of surface cover and associated erosion processes and are termed hardpans. Hardpans with high clay content, high cation exchange capacity (CEC) and water holding capacity have productive potential. ICRISAT has developed and scaled a gender sensitive approach Bioreclamation of Degraded Land” (BDL) that combines water harvesting technologies (planting pits, half-moon and trenches), application of compost and plantation of high value fruit trees and annual drought tolerant indigenous vegetables. In partnership with CRS in Niger, BDL was scaled to over 3000 villages (2014-18) which led to many benefits in food security and income generation for the local population. To scale further multi-spectral remote sensing based imagery of high resolution (10 m) can identify and map hardpans and differentiate higher potential sites for the BDL approach. These maps will be used to quantify the area under hardpans and the potential area in which the interventions can be scaled up.Digital Soil MappingGIS Techniques/Remote SensingSoil FertilitySoil2019-07Conference or Workshop Item