CLART

Composite Landscape Assessment and Restoration Tool

CLART is a Geographic Information System (GIS) based Android tool – developed to

enhance the planning of region-specific soil and water conservation measures.

Almost 60% of the funds spent under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA,
annual budget INR 60,000+ crore) are earmarked for employment and livelihood asset creation, mostly through
the restoration of common land and water resources. However, a major portion of such expenditure does not
consider location specific characteristics that determine recharge of ground water or availability of surface water,
as result of which, measures are undertaken with suboptimal outcomes. The planning process for restoration
measures could significantly improve with location specific information for planning soil and water conservation
measures. Further, such information needs to be made available in a manner that village communities can easily
apply this information for planning and implementation processes, with little dependence on external resource
persons.

Composite Landscape Assessment and Restoration Tools (CLART in short), is a Geographic Information System (GIS)
based Android tool –developed to enhance the planning of region-specific soil and water conservation measures.
CLART enables rural communities in designing measures that would either help recharge of ground water or
augment surface water availability, depending upon the location specific geo-hydrological characteristics. Made
available in a user friendly manner for semiliterate village communities, it enables them to undertake major part
of the planning and designing, thereby assisting the local government functionaries in speeding the process of
approvals, as well as improving the efficacy of ground level implementation.
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TREATMENT RECOMMENDATION
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• User-friendly, open-source tool installed on

Android devices
• Works offline with devices’ inbuilt GPS,
pinpointing the exact location on the map.
The color codes further suggest possible
activities
• Collects, saves evidence offline
(photograph, lat/long and a set of
questions), that can be synchronized to the
web portal, once the device connects to
the web
Fig 5: Treatm
How CLART works
Fig 5: Treatment recommendation Map
The tool analyses publicly available data sets on lithology, geomorphology, lineament, watershed, drainage,
slope, land use and land cover and makes recommendations through color coded maps on a mobile device. Fig 5: Treatment
Fig 5: Treatment
  recommendation Map
Enabled to work without internet connection, village-level functionaries could visit
  the locations and by using
 
the inbuilt GPS on their phone, the CLART guides them on specific recommendations for soil and water
conservation measures for that specific site. Such recommendations are aligned with  the specific activities
allowed under MGNREGA.  
 
After identifying a location-specific intervention, the user can input basic measurements such as length, width
and height (of the proposed activity) into the app-based estimation tool. Based on this, CLART generates
an estimate of approximate cost, labour days and the sketch of the engineering design for the proposed
intervention. All the information is saved offline and synchronized with server when online, for preparing
detailed project plans.

Outreach
Introduced in 2014, CLART is currently being used by the Agriculture Department and Panchayati Raj
Department, the Government of Odisha; Panchayati Raj Department, Government of Chhattisgarh; MGNREGA
Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh; the Andhra Pradesh Drought Mitigation Program (APDMP);
and the Watershed Development Department, Government of Karnataka. A MoU has also been signed with
the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR), for taking CLART to 50,000 Gram
Panchayats under ‘Mission Antyodaya’. FES is also building capacities of government and partner NGOs
officials, including MGNREGA staff members, – on using the tool to facilitate its adoption across the country.

In a few months, CLART would be enhanced to include features for planning the planting of the right tree
species at the right place.

CLART was awarded the ‘Mobile for Good’ Award by Vodafone Foundation in 2016.

www.indiaobservatory.org.in Website: www.fes.org.in