security in rural areas. A framework of intervention is proposed to
ensure that the next cropping season can start in fairly good conditions for medium to low
damaged areas and that for badly affected areas rehabilitation works or plans for reorientation
of production are carried out soon.

Reclaiming field/soils affected by the tsunami will depend on the severity of the damage and the
resilience of the system. FAO proposes to confront this crisis with an approach developed in
three steps:
1. Classifying and zoning the damages and the resilience of the system.
2. Identifying the capacity of farmers and local communities in restoring progressively
their production capability.
3. Designing and scheduling a consistent set of targeted interventions for the short and
long term, for each zone, considering the above as well as the agro-climatic constraints
(rainfall, agricultural calendar and usual practices)

Given the extreme dispersion of sites to be investigated and rehabilitated, it is critical that local
expertise is engaged and strengthened to deal with the diagnosis and remediation.

Therefore FAO aims to help governments and regional authorities in increasing the local
capacity through:
a massive consistent training program of local staff;
by making available cheap salinometers (at least 100 per country for a start); and
assist farmers in reaching their pre-disaster agricultural production capacity or reorient
them towards diversified production activities.

A Framework for Reclamation Action Plan
for Affected Soils
[Version 1]

2
1. Assessing the needs

Damages differ
by nature:
Direct crop destruction by uprooting, salt poisoning, flood, etc...
Erosion and scouring that modifies the topography, land levelling and the elimination of bunds
(for paddy fields)
Soil fertility losses when upper layer is washed away
Deposition of salted sediment
Salt infiltration

Trash and debris accumulation.


or by
intensity
which depends on three main characteristics of the particular location:
the energy of the flood,
the type of soil coverage and vegetation, and
the soil hydraulic properties including drainage capacity .

FAO proposes a simple classification for assessing the damages based on 3 main subsets:
Field level
Infrastructure
Farming capacity

Methodology

Rationale: The level of support and the specific set of interventions required to return to
normal situation in affected areas depend on damages intensity, capacity of main
infrastructure to allow remediation, the farming capacity both human and material to reengage
in agricultural activities and reclamation works when required.


It is proposed to quantify the damages through ranked indicators for each subset using
the following tables.



FIELD DAMAGES

characterises the gravity of damages at field level
(see table 1)

INFRASTRUCTURE CAPACITY
indicates the constraints faced at system levels
that may impede carried out civil works and field works (land levelling and watering)
and returning to a normal situation (see Table 2).

Physical damages preventing from recovering the field production capacity are related to
irrigation and drainage infrastructures, but also to transportation infrastructure. Drainage
networks can be destroyed, silted or plugged, while irrigation structures may have been
damaged or destroyed. Irrigation networks may be silted up; no longer able to feed by gravity;
or fields may be un serviceable due to a significant increase of their elevation as a result of
sedimentation.

The presence of high, and/or saline, ground water tables will negatively affect the hydraulic and drainage
properties.

3
Table 1.
FIELD
DAMAGES
Low
Medium High Suggested ranking
Trash and debris
1
2
3
1 low or nil
2 medium scattered
3 massive impeding restart of field works
Erosion
1
4
6
1 small erosion here and there
2 medium erosion that needs some resurfacing
light works
3 major erosion problems such as erased
bunds, land levelling disturbances and/or soil
top layer washed out that requires major
intervention for restoring capacity/fertility
Sedimentation
1
4
6
1 several centimetres
4 more than 10 centimetres
6 more than 20 centimetres
Flood duration
1
4
6
1 limited to several hours,
4 flood lasted more than one day
6 flood lasted more than one week
Infiltration
(*)
1
2
3
(**)
1 Clay soil
2 medium
3 high vertical hydraulic characteristic (well
drained soil)
Total
Between 5 and 24
below 8 = Low damaged area
between 8 and 16 =Medium damaged area
above 16 = High damaged area

(*) Infiltration rate of upper soil layer influences the quantity of salt that contaminates the soil profile. Of course
this aspect also influences the ability for remediation, highly infiltrating soil such as the sandy soils in Maldives
are likely to be quickly leached and cleaned with fresh water.
(**) The ranking given here is considering the damages resulting from a small duration flood which makes sandy
soils more damaged than clay soils and more impacting the shallow fresh water aquifers. For long duration floods,
the damage intensity on soil is the reverse and so should be the ranking: clay soil will store much more salted
water and fix much more salt than sandy soils which can be easily leached out by fresh water. [Reverse ranking
for long duration floods: 1 sandy (high drainage); 2 medium (medium drainage); 3 clay-silt (low drainage)].


Table 2.
INFRASTRUCTURE
CAPACITY
Low Medium High Suggested ranking
Irrigation network
1
4
6
1 supply from irrigation network is
operational
2 supply is interrupted but can be restore with
minor interventions
3 supply is stopped and needs major
interventions
Drainage network
1
4
6
1 surface drainage capacity is operational
2 surface drainage is not functional but can
be restore with minor interventions
3 surface drainage is stopped and needs
major interventions
Transport and access
to fields
1
2
3
Access to fields and irrigation and drainage
infrastructures for farming equipment and
machinery is:
1 operational
2 non operational and requires short term
rehabilitation works to be re-established
3 non operational and requires major long
term rehabilitation works to be re-established

4

FARMING CAPACITY indicates the ability of farmers to re-engage in cultivation
(see Table 3).

Farmers, extension workers, staff of agricultural services may have suffered a lot from the
tsunami. Some are among the many that lost their lives, while many of survivors are in a state
of chock and trauma. In the worse stricken areas it might take some time for farmers to go
back to normal life and affected fields.

Furthermore draught animals, equipments and tools may be lost or damaged by the tsunami as
well and need to be quickly replaced.

The program of reclamation should give full consideration to this aspect and favour as much
as possible guidance to farmers with a set of practical actions on the fields, aiming at restoring
the full capacity wherever it is possible. The time horizon for attaining full capacity will differ
from one category to the other.


Table 3.
FARMING
CAPACITY

Production means
Low Medium High Suggested ranking
Household labour
capacity (as fraction
of pre-disaster
capacity)
1
2
3
1 Capacity unchanged or slightly decreased
(greater than 90 % of pre-disaster)
2 Capacity is significantly reduced to 75-90 %
3 Capacity is highly reduced to below 75%

Drought animals,
equipment and tools
for farming
1
2
3
1 Capacity unchanged or slightly decreased
2 Capacity is significantly reduced
constraining the cropping calendar
3 Capacity is highly reduced impeding
cultivation

Agricultural inputs
availability
1
2
3
1 Availability is unchanged
2 Availability is decreased
3 Availability is significantly decreased or nil

Local/regional
labour and
equipment capacity
for rehabilitation
1
2
3
1 Capacity is sufficient
2 Capacity is insufficient but rehabilitation
works can be carried out with minor external
inputs
3** Capacity is nil and requires strong
external inputs to complete rehabilitation
works.

** or the capacity is already over-deployed in other reconstruction activities and not
available for agriculture.



5
2. Zoning the field damages

2.1 The zoning is made firstly with consideration on the Field Damages indicators.

Important: there is no a priori methodology to give the right weighting factors of the
criteria used in previous tables. The ranking of indicators and the weighting should be
revised after preliminary tests on the ground.

This note provides a preliminary guesstimate about the ranking and the weights each aspect
should be given. Officers in the field should revise them and report to AGLW for further
refinement and possibly homogenisation, if needed.


Class A Low damaged area = below 8 . In this category there is no major obstacle to a
rapid reclamation and salt leaching either through rainfall or through some special allocation
of surface water. The restoration of capacity in this category should be monitored carefully
but obtained without major intervention before the beginning of the next cropping season in
April and May 2005.

Class B Medium damaged area = between 8 and 16. This category requires specific and
significant interventions to reclaim soil, to restore land surface properties (land levelling, trash,
sediment). Salt l