World Overview of  Conservation Approaches  and Technologies

WOCAT, launched in 1992, is a project of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWC) in collaboration with several institutions and coordinated by the University of Bern, Switzerland. It aims to promote the integration of successful soil and water conservation approaches and techniques into land use systems world-wide.
After a series of international workshops and task force meetings WOCAT developed a framework for the evaluation of soil and water conservation. In early 1995 WOCAT initiated a data collection campaign in collaboration with several institutions and specialists. Questionnaires for collection of soil and water conservation data from the field have been elaborated. Based on these questionnaires, WOCAT aims to obtain insight into elements of soil and water conservation which have been successful under certain conditions, and elements which were considered failures.
WOCAT will have the following outputs: a report on soil and water conservation approaches, a handbook on soil and water conservation technologies, a map of successful soil and water conservation. This will be supplemented with a computer-based expert system.

FAO is involved in the ongoing regional workshops and data collection in Africa. The African overview now is taking shape and will serve as an entry point for the initiative of the International Scheme for Conservation and Rehabilitation of African Lands (ISCRAL) on a country by country basis. 

	WOCAT home site at the University of Berne
	WOCAT SWC Technologies database (provisional)
	WOCAT SWC Images database
	WOCAT Address database