Land Deforestation Research Articles

PERBAIKAN PENDAPATAN PETERNAK SAPI PENGGEMUKAN MELALUI PEMANFAATAN LAMTORO TARAMBA DI KECAMATAN UNTER IWIS, KABUPATEN SUMBAWA, NTB

This community service activity in addition to aiming to increase the income of farmers by utilizing Lamtoro Taramba as feed for fattening cattle is also aimed at saving the environment from the influence of erosion due to massive land deforestation that has occurred recently, including in Unter Iwis District, Sumbawa Regency. Apart from receiving short training on seed selection procedures, seeding patterns, harvesting and techniques for using Lamtoro taramba, farmers are also given input on economic calculations regarding the results of fattening cattle using Lamtoro taramba compared to using other feed crops.. The results of the service show that lamtoro taramba is trusted by breeders as a plant that has many benefits in the process of fattening cattle, and is no longer considered a pest that destroys land and the environment. The consolidation of breeders into groups makes it easier for the Sumbawa District Government to provide guidance on feed and the environment.

Design of Retention Pond Kacang Pedang Area as a Water Tourism Recreation Using Water Sensitive Urban Design

The issue of changes in natural conditions, Pangkal Pinang City as a downstream area of the Baturusa Watershed (DAS) with a city center whose city morphology is a basin resulting in Pangkal Pinang City receiving excessive water runoff, plus land deforestation due to illegal mining in the upstream river which is directly adjacent to the Regency Central Bangka which causes excessive sedimentation and poorly connected drainage channels. The existence of high rainfall intensity and the uncontrolled capacity of the retention pond causes the water level to rise which then flows into the retention pond area. As a result, the Rangkui river causes excessive water runoff, resulting in floods that spread to residential areas and the center of Pangkal Pinang City. The purpose of this study was to provide design concepts for the retention pond area using the Water Sensitive Urban Design method as a strategy for urban water management, particularly in the region of raw water sources. The design process is a fragmented one that starts with a collection of regional design-related problems and ends with a simulation of regional design. Recreational, residential, and educational activities will all be accommodated within the design area’s 94 hectares. The design of the area will focus on urban design elements combined with normative principles, namely land use, intensity and building, circulation and parking, pedestrian ways, open spaces, signage, preservation, and activity support. In addition, the design simulation will also focus on the water management system in the area with a WSUD technical approach that is directed to focus on efforts to infiltrate rainwater and provide rainwater storage containers, both in open spaces, green areas, and buildings.

English

Land degradation in the form of creation of massive pits, and deforestation of land are some adverse impacts associated with open pit mining activities. Benin City and its environs have witnessed a high proliferation of open pit sand and/ laterite mining activities popularly called borrow pits in recent times, with its associated environmental risk. This research is carried on five selected sand mines in Benin City to estimate the cumulative land area degraded as a result of sand mining operations, thus it determines the level of environmental damage done and quantity of material required for refilling and reclamation. The method involves the use of a GPS based geomatics technique to acquire GIS data of five selected open pit sand mines, as well as computer softwares for the analysis, and area and/volume studies. The result showed that sites A, B, C, D, and E deforested a land area of 17,923.125, 33,991.803, 36,038.761, 13,212.545, and 2,882.046 m2 respectively; while the volume of excavation created by the five sites are respectively 1,792,154.644, 4,992,730.898, 2,701,846.644, 9,878,111.857, and 134,258.932 m3. Thus, a cumulative area of 104,048 m² of land was deforested in the five sites while 19,499,102.98 m³ of excavation was cumulatively created which requires refilling and total reclamation. Key words:  Reclamation, land degradation, sand mining activities, excavation, environmental damage, GIS data

Research and conservation in the greater Gombe ecosystem: challenges and opportunities

The study of chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, started by Jane Goodall in 1960, provided pioneering accounts of chimpanzee behavior and ecology. With funding from multiple sources, including the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) and grants from private foundations and federal programs, the project has continued for sixty years, providing a wealth of information about our evolutionary cousins. These chimpanzees face two main challenges to their survival: infectious disease — including simian immunodeficiency virus (SIVcpz), which can cause Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in chimpanzees — and the deforestation of land outside the park. A health monitoring program has increased understanding of the pathogens affecting chimpanzees and has promoted measures to characterize and reduce disease risk. Deforestation reduces connections between Gombe and other chimpanzee populations, which can cause loss of genetic diversity. To promote habitat restoration, JGI facilitated participatory village land use planning, in which communities voluntarily allocated land to a network of Village Land Forest Reserves. Expected benefits to people include stabilizing watersheds, improving water supplies, and ensuring a supply of forest resources. Surveys and genetic analyses confirm that chimpanzees persist on village lands and remain connected to the Gombe population. Many challenges remain, but the regeneration of natural forest on previously degraded lands provides hope that conservation solutions can be found that benefit both people and wildlife. Conservation work in the Greater Gombe Ecosystem has helped promote broader efforts to plan and work for conservation elsewhere in Tanzania and across Africa.

Communal Property Rights and Deforestation

Almost a third of the world’s forest area is communally managed. In principle, this arrangement could lead to a ‘tragedy of the commons’ and therefore more deforestation. But it may be easier to monitor outsiders’ deforestation of land owned by a community rather than an individual. We present a theoretical framework to examine these trade-offs and empirically study the effect of communal titling on deforestation in Colombia. Our empirical approach uses a differences-in-discontinuities strategy that compares areas just outside and inside a title, before and after titling. We find that deforestation decreased in communal areas after titling, especially in small communities, which is consistent with the model’s predictions. We also find evidence of positive spillovers: titling reduced deforestation in nearby areas outside the title (and thus our estimates are a lower bound of the total effects of communal titling on deforestation).

Carbon neutral expansion of oil palm plantations in the Neotropics.

Alternatives to ecologically devastating deforestation land use change trajectories are needed to reduce the carbon footprint of oil palm (OP) plantations in the tropics. Although various land use change options have been proposed, so far, there are no empirical data on their long-term ecosystem carbon pools effects. Our results demonstrate that pasture-to-OP conversion in savanna regions does not change ecosystem carbon storage, after 56 years in Colombia. Compared to rainforest conversion, this alternative land use change reduces net ecosystem carbon losses by 99.7 ± 9.6%. Soil organic carbon (SOC) decreased until 36 years after conversion, due to a fast decomposition of pasture-derived carbon, counterbalancing the carbon gains in OP biomass. The recovery of topsoil carbon content, suggests that SOC stocks might partly recover during a third plantation cycle. Hence, greater OP sustainability can be achieved if its expansion is oriented toward pasture land.

Human and climate global-scale imprint on sediment transfer during the Holocene

Accelerated soil erosion has become a pervasive feature on landscapes around the world and is recognized to have substantial implications for land productivity, downstream water quality, and biogeochemical cycles. However, the scarcity of global syntheses that consider long-term processes has limited our understanding of the timing, the amplitude, and the extent of soil erosion over millennial time scales. As such, we lack the ability to make predictions about the responses of soil erosion to long-term climate and land cover changes. Here, we reconstruct sedimentation rates for 632 lakes based on chronologies constrained by 3,980 calibrated 14C ages to assess the relative changes in lake-watershed erosion rates over the last 12,000 y. Estimated soil erosion dynamics were then complemented with land cover reconstructions inferred from 43,669 pollen samples and with climate time series from the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model. Our results show that a significant portion of the Earth surface shifted to human-driven soil erosion rate already 4,000 y ago. In particular, inferred soil erosion rates increased in 35% of the watersheds, and most of these sites showed a decrease in the proportion of arboreal pollen, which would be expected with land clearance. Further analysis revealed that land cover change was the main driver of inferred soil erosion in 70% of all studied watersheds. This study suggests that soil erosion has been altering terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems for millennia, leading to carbon (C) losses that could have ultimately induced feedbacks on the climate system.

Environmental Performance in Asia: Overview, Drivers, and Policy Implications

As accompaniments to fast-growing economies, the effects of environmental degradation such as deteriorating water quality, land deforestation and pollution, and frequent atmospheric haze are gaining increasing attention from both policy makers and the public across countries in Asia. We give an overview on environmental performance, disentangle its drivers, and finally advance preliminary policy recommendations for more effective environmental governance in the region.

Seasonal dynamics of amphipod assemblages in intertidal coralline algal mats on two Brazilian shores

Coralline algae form important rocky intertidal habitats, but their function may be radically changing worldwide as increased land deforestation may ultimately lead to higher sedimentation rates over algal mats, and more frequent extreme weather conditions may increase physical disturbances. One way of addressing how environmental change may affect the ecosystem function of coralline algal mats is to examine the temporal dynamics of invertebrate assemblages associated with this habitat, and how they correlate to key environmental factors. Here, we investigated the dynamics of amphipod assemblages inhabiting coralline algal mats at two sites in southeastern Brazil from September 2010 to August 2013. Twenty-two different species were recorded, encompassing two life-styles (free-living and tube-dwelling), and four feeding habits (detritivorous, omnivorous, herbivorous, and carnivorous). Consistently across sites and over the years, species diversity peaked in autumn, together with the passing of cold fronts and increased wave height. Physical disturbance through wave action caused algal mat thinning and reduced overall amphipod abundance, suggesting habitat limitation, but also decreased species dominance, allowing other species to build up populations over autumn and winter. The omnivore generalist Apohyale media (Dana, 1853) tended to dominate in spring and summer, when the environment was more stable, and the organic matter retained in sediments was higher. When environmental conditions changed during autumn and winter, a second omnivore, Hyale niger (Haswell, 1879), took over, especially in years 1 and 3. During year 2, the virtual absence of H. niger allowed the detritivore Lysianassa temimino Senna and Souza-Filho, 2010 to thrive, which was likely facilitated by the retention of assorted sediments.

WOMEN IN FRONTIER ARKANSAS

AbstractArkansas was a demographic frontier after the U.S. Civil War. Despite marked agricultural land deforestation and development after the 1870s, it remained agrarian well into the twentieth century. We fuse life course and racial state frameworks to examine Black and White women’s settlement in Arkansas over the post-Civil War period (1880-1910). A racial state empowers residents and enacts policies based on race rather than equal citizenship rights. We highlight three institutional domains shaped by racial state policies:productive economies(subsistence, mixed commercialism, and plantation production);stratificationon an agricultural ladder (from sharecropping to forms of tenancy to farm ownership); andrules of raced (and gendered) social control. We examine women’s settlement patterns and related outcomes in an institutional context at different life course stages using mixed methods: women’s oral histories and Census data analysis. We find that by 1880 White women and families, less attracted by forces of marketization, had largely migrated to subsistence and mixed commercial subregions. Black women and families, generally desiring to rise on the agricultural ladder to farm ownership, largely migrated to the rich lands found in plantation production counties. Black women in Arkansas could rise but, by 1910, new racial state (Jim Crow) policies more severely limited travel, material resources, and education for tenant farm families, predominantly Black, in the plantation subregion. Commensurate with this, Black women in the plantation subregion had experienced less status mobility on the agricultural ladder, with reduced living standards, by later life.

Valuable habitat and low deforestation can reduce biodiversity gains from development rights markets

Abstract Illegal private land deforestation threatens global biodiversity, even in areas with native habitat requirements stipulated by law. Compliance can be improved by allowing landholders to meet legal reserve requirements by buying and selling the rights to have deforested land through a Tradeable Development Rights system (TDR). While this policy mechanism may prevent native habitat area loss, the spatial pattern of reserved areas will shift, creating novel landscape patterns. The resulting altered fragmentation and connectivity of habitat will impact biodiversity. TDR may also allow landholders to earn rent on land they never intended on converting, resulting in additional deforestation elsewhere and net habitat loss. We construct a simulation model to explore the potential implications for biodiversity when development rights can be traded, compared with the landscape resulting from enforced individual compliance with deforestation laws. We find that where future deforestation is very likely, a TDR market can provide better outcomes for both biodiversity and agriculture, resulting in more connected habitat networks with larger fragments and fewer edge effects. However, the TDR market can be harmful if future deforestation is unlikely, or if one habitat type is tightly spatially correlated with high economic returns from agriculture. Policy implications. Allowing landholders to buy and sell the rights to keep more cleared land than legally stipulated will result in transformed multiuse landscapes. Losses of native habitat in some areas will be offset in others. We conclude that trading forest development rights has the potential to improve habitat configurations, but that careful consideration should be given to current species distributions and likely future deforestation scenarios.

Assessing the Correlation between Land Cover Conversion and Temporal Climate Change—A Pilot Study in Coastal Mediterranean City, Fethiye, Turkey

The rapid growth and expansion of urbanized landscapes in cities has resulted in an increase in air temperature and has lowered the bioclimatic comfort levels in urban landscapes. Recent studies to estimate the climatic response of urban landscape conversion have mostly examined the relationship between land use/land cover (LULC) change and land surface temperature (LST) data collected using advanced remote sensing (RS) techniques instead of atmospheric temperature. In this respect, four decadal Landsat images from the 1980s were used to investigate the impact of landscape transformation on atmospheric temperature. The mean and average minimum and maximum monthly air temperature datasets were used in the analysis. The CORINE (Coordination of Information on Environment) index was used to determine LULC diversity in an urban development boundary and urban periphery. Consequently, clustered LULC change values for the last three decades were integrated with decadal air temperature anomalies. The findings revealed an important relationship between monthly mean air temperature and land changes over recent decades, which resulted in an increase in urban fabric land use, deforestation land cover changes and conversion of permanent crop fields to artificial green houses for earlier vegetable production; the R-sqr values for these regressions were 97.7%, 88.5% and 90.6% respectively. On the other hand, the most important increasing temperature trends were obtained for the average monthly minimum air temperature, which supports the global warming concerns of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and related studies, which have concluded that an increased nighttime temperature results in urban heat islands (UHIs). The results should be used to support better urban landscape plans and architectural designs to improve human thermal comfort for sustainable urban life in Mediterranean cities. Street geometry and orientation to wind breeze, the Height/Width H/W ratio of buildings, and sizes of open and green spaces should be examined carefully in urban planning and design for climate adaptation.

Afforestation of heathlands and its influence on the land cover, accumulation of plant biomass and energy flow in the landscape: An example from Zaborski Landscape Park

In the mid-19th century, the sheep industry played a considerable part in sheep breeding in Pomerania. Livestock grazing took place on extensive heathlands developed as a result of land deforestation performed in the 17th and 18th century, as well as during and after the Napoleonic wars. The sheep industry and the related textile craft developed until the 1890s when the Prussian government began the restoration of forests after the period of their excessive exploitation. The Prussian government policy contributed to the afforestation and the growing forest range through purchasing of landed estates, in particular the Polish ones, and creating forest divisions, followed by reconstruction of forests. This paper presents the history of the Widno estate belonging to Mr. Konstanty Przytarski. The estate was located in the northern part of the present-day Zaborski Landscape Park, near the town of Brusy and Chojnice. In 1894, the estate was sold to the Prussian forest administration. The paper presents changes in the land use and the forest above-ground biomass. Furthermore, changes in the structure of the energy flow network through the natural and production-cultural subsystems are presented. The network structure was analysed according to the methodology presented by H.T. Odum. Data contained in the sales contract of the Widno estate were used in the analysis, together with a forest inventory book of the Prussian Forest Inspectorate Zwangshoff and inventory books of the Polish Inspectorate Przymuszewo. The study highlighted the increasing role of sheep breeding on small family farms established by employees of the forest division on the leased lands. This form of activity refers to the economic traditions in the region of Zabory.

Studies on utilization of sewage waste water for greening wastelands through afforestation

One of the major burning problems in urban areas is the disposal of sewage water, which degradesthe environment, and as well as creates health hazards to human beings. One opening to this bottleneckis that this sewage water could be diverted for irrigation purpose especially for afforestation purpose.Sewage water provides nutrients and using it for irrigation has been found to enrich soil, improveuptake of plants and ameliorate degraded soils. It was found that sewage water irrigated tree speciesrecorded maximum height and basal diameter when compared to bore well water irrigation. It showedthat it boosted the growth of tree species. Hence the utilization of sewage water as irrigation waterfor tree crops is the one of best option for increasing biomass and protecting environment deteriorationfrom deforestation of land and water by sewage water.In this context, a field experiment was conducted at sewage farm and the following tree species viz.,Eucalyptus tereticornis, Tectona grandis, Casuarina equisetifolia, Azadirachta indica and Acacianilotica were planted and irrigated with sewage water at 2 weeks interval. The same 5 species werealso planted near the sewage farm and irrigated with bore well water. The growth parameters viz.,height and basal diameter were recorded at periodical interval. The results revealed that the heightand basal diameter of all the five selected tree species were higher under sewage water irrigationwhen compared to bore well water irrigation. The results inferred that at 3 MAP, the percent increasein height and basal diameter respectively was 15 % and 18 % for Casuarina equisetifolia, 39 % and 20 % for Tectono grandis, 17 % for Acacia nilotica. 24 % and 20 % for Azodirachta indica, 23 %and 18 % for Eucalyptus tereticornis over bore well water irrigation. At 6 MAP, the percent inheight and basal diameter was 7 % each for Casuarina equisetifolia, 13 % and 6 % for Tectonagrandis, 13 % and 6% for Acacia ni/otica, 15 % and 9 % for Azadirachta indica, 14 % and 12 %for Eucalyptus tereticornis under sewage water irrigation over bore well water irrigation.At 9 MAP, the increase in height and basal diameter was 8 % each for Casuarina equisetifolia, 9 %and 6 % for Tectona grandis, 12 % and 9 % for Acacia nilotica. 10 % and 4 % for Azadirachtaindica, 21 % and 11 % for Eucalyptus tereticornis over bore well water irrigation. At 12 MAP.increase in height and basal diameter was 7 % and 4 % for Casuarina equisetifolia, 7 % and 4 %for Tectona grandis, 6 % and 4 % for Acacia nilotica, 47 % and 4 % for Azadirachta indica, 8 %and 7 % for Eucalyptus tereticornis over bore well water irrigation. At 15 MAP under sewagewater irrigation, the percent increase was 4% each for Casuarina equisetifolia, 5 % and 3 % forTectona grandis, 6 % and 5 % for Acacia nilotica, 7 % and 5 % for Azadirachta indica, 10 % and8 % for Eucalyptus tereticornis over bore well water irrigation.From the study, it was found that sewage water can be better used for raising tree plantation onrelatively unferti le wastelands through afforestation, urban forestry plantation, social forestry plantationto safeguard the planet earth from global warming, severe drought, adverse climatic condition, pollution etc.

Modelling net erosion responses to enviroclimatic changes recorded upon multisecular timescales

Land use change has been recognized throughout the Earth as one of the most important factors influencing the occurrence of rainfall-driven geomorphological processes. However, relating the occurrence of historical soil erosion rates is difficult because of the lack of long-term research projects in river basins. Also, complex models are not adequate to reconstruct erosion rate changes because they require significant input data not always available on long timescales. Given the problems with assessing sediment yield using complex erosion models, the objective of this study is to explore a parsimonious scale-adapted erosion model (ADT) from the original Thornes and Douglas algorithms, which aims at reconstruction of annual net erosion (ANE) upon multisecular timescales. As a test site, the Calore River basin (3015 km 2 in southern Italy) provides a peculiar and unique opportunity for modelling erosion responses to climate and land cover changes, where input-data generation and interpretation results were also supported by documented hydrogeomorphological events that occurred before and after land deforestation. In this way, ANE ADT-values were reconstructed for the period 1675–2004 by using precipitation indexes, complemented by recent instrumental records, and by using land cover statistics from documented agrarian sources. Pulses of natural sedimentation in the predeforestation period have been related to Vesuvius volcanic activity and changes in rainstorm frequency. After deforestation, the basin system became unstable with sudden fluctuations in the hydrogeomorphological regime contributing significantly to increased erosion and, in turn, sediment transport sequences via river drainage towards the Tyrrhenian coast.