A large number and variety of indicator programs are currently being developed or are in place. In most cases these programs are aimed at evaluating sustainability, environmental impact(s), or land management in agriculture, forestry, and conservation. Literature on indicators is rapidly increasing, and it is often difficult and time-consuming to identify reliable information. This bibliography was compiled to assist in this process by compiling available data and information on indicators, organizing and summarizing them, and making them easily accessible through the WWW, e-mail, and as printed reports. The review is useful for research on indicators of sustainability, as well as for decisionmakers faced with implementing a sustainable land management component in rural development projects. It is a stepping-stone toward development of improved programs to monitor and report progress toward environmental sustainability.

This bibliography is a review of available information on indicators of sustainable land management and land quality. As expected, the emphasis is on agricultural land management, but references to forest land management and, to a lesser extent, to conservation, are included where available. Only those references describing specific indicators or those describing the results of indicator programs (agrienvironmental, forestry programs) are included.

The report reviews data and information available in the scientific literature and on the World Wide Web (WWW). Unpublished literature is included when judged to be reliable and peer-reviewed. The reviews are annotated to provide the reader with expanded interpretations of the information found in the publications. In addition a review of available URL sites was conducted, and the most useful sites relating to sustainable land management and land quality are annotated. These sites are intended as points of departure (bookmarks) for anyone wanting further information from the internet.

The review found that while a wealth of information exists on soil properties, along with detailed procedures on how to measure soil properties in the field, this information is generally too detailed and data-demanding to be suitable as indicators of land quality. Similarly, the review revealed more references to indicators for sustainable land management than for land quality. This is as expected, since the concept of and research on sustainable land management predates research on land quality by several years. However the two approaches are highly complementary, since land quality indicators form the biophysical descriptors for sustainable land management. A comparison of the concepts of soil quality, land quality, and sustainable land management can be found in appendix 1.

Much of the current effort on indicator development was carried out in conjunction with national State of the Environment reporting, but some international organizations, such as the OECD, World Bank, and UNEP are attempting to coordinate the development of indicators. Most of the work so far has been theoretical, with organizations identifying potential indicators, suggesting possible units of measurement, and developing research strategies for national, regional, and local application. This bibliography documents many of these initiatives.

Although much of the work is still conceptual, the first empirical studies are beginning to appear, and these will help identify the kinds of indicators to be developed, the methods (algorithms) to be used, and the thresholds values (level beyond which a system undergoes significant change) for indicators of sustainability. Which indicators are selected and how they are measured can significantly alter the outcome. In a State of the Environment exercise in Australia, Chisholm and Dumsday (1995) compared a scale developed in Australia with a rating based on criteria developed by the Green League of Nations. They found that the country scored higher using the national scale than when the Green League of Nations criteria were used. This underscores not only the need for caution when adopting criteria from other regions but also the possibility of bias with local systems.

Generic indicators, or at least common indicator themes, are essential as national and international standards for purposes of comparison, for monitoring and evaluating sustainable land management, and in order to focus research on those indicators that are strategically the most important. Results from a workshop in Canada on sustainable land management and the development of a research program on land quality indicators (appendix 1) indicate that a high degree of consensus on such indicators can be achieved.

Productivity	Security	Protection	Viability	Acceptability
Crop yield	Soil cover Yield variability Climate	Soil quality/quantity Water quality/quantity Biological diversity	Net farm profitability Input use efficiency * pesticides * fertilizers * nutrients Off farm income Return to labor	Use of conservation practices Farm decision-making criteria

The workshop in Canada (Dumanski 1994) convened highly experienced researchers from many parts of the world to debate and recommend common indicators for sustainable land management for the major ecoregions of the world. Table 1 illustrates the results of these recommendations, grouped under the five pillars of the international Framework for Evaluation of Sustainable Land Management (FESLM). The workshop also concluded that indicators must be tailored to reflect the land uses, management practices, and environment where they will be applied. No single indicator could determine sustainable land management with our current state of knowledge, and the best approach is to develop sets of related indicators on common issues or themes. A cursory comparison of the recommended indicators (table 1) with indicators being developed in other regions shows a high degree of complementarity.

A similar exercise under the global Land Quality Indicators (LQI) program achieved international agreement on a set of "Core LQIs" as international reference standards (table 2) (see Pieri and others 1995).

Indicators to be developed in the near term	Indicators requiring longer term research	Indicators being developed by other networks
Nutrient balance Yield gap Land use intensity Land use diversity Land cover	Soil quality Land degradation Agro-biodiversity	Water quality Forest land quality Rangeland quality Soil pollution

These generic, or core, indicators focus research and development activities on those indicators that have been judged to be the most useful. However many other studies have identified other indicators, and these also are referenced in the bibliography.

Many indicators have common themes across several domains, but to sort out what might be transferable from site-specific data of other domains and prioritize the needs of the current situation, evaluations must also be targeted to the constraints within the area under examination. Appendix 2 provides some guidance on how to apply indicators in rural development projects.

Research on site-specific indicators, especially in the developing world, is very sparse. While some work underway in the developed world can be utilized on a site-specific basis, in many cases the data required for the indicator are not available (such as databases of soil, climate, land use, and management inputs).

Several of the centers within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) are conducting research on indicators of sustainable development. For example, the International Center for Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Indonesia has launched a program to determine criteria and indicators in the forestry sector; the International Board for Soil Research and Management (IBSRAM) is researching indicators at the farm level, including local farmer knowledge; and the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM) is researching sustainability indicators for integrated aquaculture-agriculture farming systems. Becker (1997) provides a comprehensive summary of research procedures currently used in the CGIAR Centers and by others to evaluate agricultural sustainability.

The bibliography is a reference base for information on agro-environmental indicators, as well as a useful reference guide to methods being used for indicator research. The references are organized alphabetically and by category. The bibliography is available in hard copy and through the WWW (http://www.ciesin.org/lw-kmn). The electronic version can be searched by author, by key word, by the pillar (of the FESLM), by specific indicator, and by scope (categories listed under NOTES). Thus searches can be for specific keywords or combinations (for example, degradation, South America); by any of the pillars of the FESLM (production, security, protection, viability, acceptability); by region or country; or by scope (national, local). This flexibility enables the user to scan the available information and identify whether publications are pertinent, how they can be obtained, and where more detailed information is available.