Farmland Area Research Articles

Impacts of protected areas establishment on pastoralists’ livelihoods in the Three-River-Source Region on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

Proclaiming a protected area (PA) is an effective strategy for establishing a perdurable ecosystem, exerting trenchant socioeconomic impacts on local communities. Determining PAs’ effect on the household livelihoods of the residents is essential for harmonizing ecological protection measures and human livelihood development. Yet few studies concerning the socioeconomic effects of PAs on indigenous household livelihoods have been conducted in China’s protected areas. Therefore, household surveys were conducted in Three-River-Source Region (TRSR) to examine livelihood changes occurring before and after the establishment of the Three-River-Source National Park (TRSNP) and to limn the factors responsible for the changes of household livelihoods in the PA and the nearby non-protected area (NPA). Results showed that in TRSR, grazing activities were restricted in the PAs after the implementation of the TRSNP, yet the restrictions did not result in a significant decrease in grazing income. Subsidies from the PA were a large portion of total household income, partly resulting in higher total income in the PA than in the NPA. Once subsidies cease, household incomes in the PA may substantially decrease. The number of income sources increased in both the PA and NPA, but the PA stimulated households to find alternative income sources to secure livelihoods. The number of the labor force and livestock and the areas of farmland and grassland were the primary factors affecting total household income. Our results suggest that the policy of PAs’ establishment should be implemented continuing in TRSR to protect the environment. Prudent consideration and multifaceted guidance are still required to strengthen local livelihoods in TRSR. Balanced ecological and economic development is possible when appropriate management approaches such as franchising are adopted.

Farmland transfer and esophageal cancer incidence rate: mediation of pollution-related agricultural input intensity.

Cancer is a growing global health threat. Examining the determinants of cancer incidence can benefit for cancer treatment and prevention. Farmland transfer relates to the risk factors of esophageal cancer including environmental pollution, services access, and habits. This study characterizes the associations between farmland transfer and esophageal cancer incidence rate (ECI) that integrate mediated effect of pollution-related agricultural input intensity in Xiaoshan District, China. The state-space model is employed to quantify the relationships among farmland transfer, pollution-related agricultural input intensity, and ECI. The results showed that (1) Total effects of the proportion of transferred farmland (TFA) area cause a reduction in the ECI. Besides, the total positive effects of the proportion of transferred farmland cultivated non-grain crop (NGC) and proportion of farmland transferred to non-farmer users (NFU) show a downward trend. (2) The raise of TFA can result in the reduction of chemical fertilizer use intensity. Meanwhile, the raise of NGC and NFU can result in the growth of pollution-related agricultural input intensity. But these increasing effects generally show a downward trend. (3) Increasing chemical fertilizer use intensity and pesticide use intensity results in the rise of esophageal cancer incidence rate as a whole. (4) In general, farmland transfer has positive direct effects on esophageal cancer incidence rate. (5) The average proportions of mediated effects in all state-space models are larger than 10%. These findings can raise land reform policy designers' awareness of the risk of public health since the land transfer markets are emerging rapidly in land reform in many developing countries to improve agricultural production.

Distinguishing ecological outcomes of pathways in the Grain for Green Program in the subtropical areas of China

Effective forestation policies are urgently required across the globe under the initiative of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Rather than simply planting trees, such initiatives involve complex components of societal and biophysical systems. However, the underlying pathways by which forestation influences ecological outcomes are not well understood, especially given the lack of a unified quantification framework. In this study, such a framework was developed to reveal the pathways by which reforestation programs influenced ecological outcomes by identifying the linkages among reforestation efforts, societal changes, land system changes and ecological outcomes. The framework was applied to the reforestation program of the Grain for Green Program (GFGP), to explore how the GFGP influenced vegetation dynamics and ecosystem functioning in Guizhou Province, China, through direct and indirect pathways. Two remote sensing based indicators, namely the enhanced vegetation index, derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, and gross primary production (GPP), obtained from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) fine-resolution dataset GOSIF, were combined with inventory data and land-use maps to detect changes in social and ecological outcomes. Using the structural equation model to apply the framework, the results showed that the GFGP positively contributed to the increasing greenness and GPP of the study area through the direct conservation pathway. Although implementation of the GFGP encouraged the rural outmigration and led to a decrease in the area of farmland, the GFGP showed negative indirect effects on greenness and GPP because of the difficulty of reforestation during land-use conversion from farmland to forest land. This study revealed divergent impacts of the reforestation program through multiple pathways, which could provide valuable information for other parts of the globe for more precise design of ecological restoration policies.

Spatial–temporal characteristics and influencing factors of farmland expansion in different agricultural regions of Heilongjiang Province, China

Farmland expansion, including area and pattern, has become one of the main manifestations of global land use change during the last century. Since the reform and opening up, Heilongjiang Province has experienced a constant expansion of farmland, mainly in Songnen Plain (SNP) and Sanjiang Plain (SJP). However, the spatial–temporal heterogeneity of farmland expansion intensity and influencing factors remains unclear. Based on land use change trajectory, this study explored the spatial–temporal characteristics of farmland expansion in SNP and SJP from 1980 to 2018, by using the farmland expansion intensity index (FEI), farmland expansion intensity differentiation index (FEDI), and revealed the influencing factors from the qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Results show that (1) The farmland area in SNP and SJP demonstrated an absolute expansion trend, and the scale in SJP was relatively more significant. The newly added farmland resulted from ecological land reclamation, distributed in SNP by infilling expansion, while in SJP by edge expansion. (2) The trend of farmland expansion intensity in these two plains fluctuated over time. Counties in SNP mainly had low- and medium-rate farmland expansion intensity, and those areas with medium-rate expansion were mainly located on the edge of plain. The farmland expansion intensity in SJP gradually increased from southwest to northeast, and those areas with high-rate expansion intensity were mainly located in the northeast and east. (3) Socio-economic context and national policies were the main factors driving farmland expansion. Slope is the main limiting factor with the widest range and the highest intensity, and 63.53% and 76.78% of the grid including the newly added farmland in SNP and SJP, respectively, were prominently influenced. The results reveal the change process and main influencing factors of farmland expansion in Heilongjiang Province, and provide reference for differential protection of farmland.

Nitrogen and phosphorus removal using tile-treatment wetlands: A 12-year study from the midwestern United States.

Nutrient enrichment from tile-drained agricultural lands to the Mississippi River is a leading cause of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Small edge-of-field wetlands can effectively treat nitrate-nitrogen (NO3 -N) export from tiles, although less research exists on their capacity to treat phosphorus (P). Additionally, long-term data are needed to incorporate variability of weather and farming practices into assessments of wetland performance longevity. Research conducted over 12 yr quantified size-effectiveness of wetlands to reduce NO3 -N and dissolved P (orthophosphate [ORP]) loadings from subsurface tile systems. Nitrate-N export was significantly higher during corn (Zea mays L.) than soybean [Glycine max(L.) Merr.] production years, during which 80-84% of mean annual loadings were exported during spring. Wetlands representing 3% (W1) of tile-drained farmland area reduced 15-38% of NO3 -N export, with cumulative reductions of 39-49 and 49-57% observed in wetlands representing 6 (W2) and 9% (W3) areas, respectively. Mass NO3 -N removal ranged from 28 to 52%. Twelve-year total ORP load reductions for W1 ranged from 53 to 81%, with cumulative reductions of 35-91% and 32-95% for W2 and W3 wetlands, respectively. Mass ORP removal ranged from 71 to 85%. Results emphasize how incorporating constructed wetlands into state and watershed-level conservation planning can significantly contribute toward reducing excess N and P export to river systems and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico.

Estimation of actual evapotranspiration and water stress in the Lijiang River Basin, China using a modified Operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) model

Due to the simultaneous impacts of economic development and climate change, the Lijiang River Basin in China—the largest karst tourist attraction in the world—has experienced dramatic water shortages during the dry season. As actual evapotranspiration (ETa) plays a critical role in the water cycle, accurate estimation of ETa and water stress are important for sustainable water resources management. In this paper, we mapped the distribution of daily ETa using a modified Operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) model in combination with Landsat 8 images and assessed water stress using the Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) during the dry season in the Lijiang River Basin. In general, the daily ETa simulated by the SSEBop model with aerodynamic resistance value of 110 s m−1 was higher than that of satellite-based actual evapotranspiration products (i.e., MOD16A2 and Penman-Monteith-Leuning (PML)_V2 actual evapotranspiration products in this study). Aerodynamic resistance plays a critical role in the estimation of energy fluxes in the SSEBop model and should be readjusted and calibrated with available datasets to improve the model’s performance in estimating actual evapotranspiration for particular regions. Readjusted values between 20 and 35 s m−1 of aerodynamic resistance produced reasonable agreement with satellite-based actual evapotranspiration products in the Lijiang River Basin. In addition, insufficient ground-level measurements of actual evapotranspiration might have increased the uncertainty of the SSEBop model’s performance. The achievement of higher accuracy in the estimation of actual evapotranspiration and water availability will require establishing local flux towers, particularly in forested areas, to collect evapotranspiration, temperature and other in situ data. For different land-cover classes, forest areas exhibited the highest actual evapotranspiration, whereas farmland and built-up areas had the lowest actual evapotranspiration values compared to the other land-cover classes. All land-cover classes, especially farmland areas, experienced severe water stress. Inadequate precipitation as a result of climate change, combined with high actual evapotranspiration will result in less water being available for the Lijiang River Basin. Additional water is required to compensate for evapotranspiration and support plant growth in the Lijiang River Basin during the growing season.

Which policy is preferred by crop farmers when replacing synthetic fertilizers by manure? A choice experiment in China

Replacing synthetic fertilizers by livestock manure has agronomic and environmental benefits, especially for countries with increasing livestock population and large fertilizer use, e.g. China. However, there are various socioeconomic and technical barriers for replacing fertilizers by manure, which are not well-understood. Consequently, recent governmental action programs are not well-targeted to the needs of crop farmers, and thus not effective. This study investigated farmers’ preferences for technical and financial incentives for using manure, through a farm survey with choice experiment among 1400 crop farmers across China. Farmers preferred a policy package, including field guidance, machinery service and financial support. The preferred package will increase the proportion of manure N in total N input (fertilizers + manures) from zero to 6–11% on farms that used no manure so far, while had little influence on current manure users (<4%). We estimated that this package will double the amounts of manure recycled in cropland, reducing total fertilizer N use by 16.5%, equivalent to 7.2 Tg N in 2019. Especially crop farmers with a relatively high income, large farmland area, and high level of education were willing to apply manure. We conclude that enhanced replacement of fertilizer N by manure requires a package of technical services, financial support, and machinery services for cereal farmers, while field demonstrations and manure application machines were prioritized by cash crop farmers. These packages will greatly increase nutrient use efficiency and reduce the environmental burdens caused by poor manure disposal practices and large fertilizer use.

On the search for grasslands: long distance dispersal of spring-staging Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis) from a farmland area in Southeast Denmark

On the search for grasslands: long distance dispersal of spring-staging Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis) from a farmland area in Southeast Denmark

Impact of Value Perception on Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Farmland Fallow: A Case-Study in Major Grain-Producing Areas of Hubei and Hunan, China

The major grain-producing areas will be the key areas of future China fallow. It is important to explore the influence of farmers’ value perceptions on their fallow willingness in these areas. We analyzed this impact of value perception by using an ordered PROBIT model and survey data from the major grain-producing areas of Hubei and Hunan, China. The conclusions of this study are as follows: (1) A considerable proportion of farmers are willing to participate in farmland fallow, while a considerable proportion of farmers are neutral; (2) farmers’ value perceptions of farmland fallow have a significant positive impact on their fallow willingness; (3) farmers’ ages and education levels have a positive impact on farmers’ willingness to directly participate in farmland fallow, while per capita farmland area has a negative impact; (4) the key factors for successful fallow are solving the problem of non-agricultural employment of farmers and appropriately formulating fallow mode, scale, and subsidy standards. This study proposes that the government can develop farmers’ good value perceptions of fallow through appropriate subsidies and adequate publicity to strengthen their fallow consciousness.

Reconstruction of the spatial distribution of historical farmland in the Taiwan Province of China for 1659–1945

The reconstruction of historical land use/land cover change (LUCC) in Taiwan Province based on multisource data is of great significance for obtaining an in-depth understanding of the driving mechanisms of LUCC and their effects on the environment and climate. Four rules, spatial restriction, land suitability, directing distribution, and size-control rules, were adopted as indicators to construct a directing probabilistic model for historical land reclamation. After adjusting the model, historical farmland was reassigned in descending order of the land reclamation directing probabilities given by the model. Finally, a high-resolution gridded dataset (100 m × 100 m) on the farmland of Taiwan Province during 1659–1945 was reconstructed. The results showed that (1) a general trend of continued growth of the farmland area in Taiwan Province over the past 300 years was observed; the ratio of reclaimed land was the earliest and highest in Tainan, which agreed with the historical farmland reclamation facts that Tainan was the pioneering area to be reclaimed, followed by Taichung, Taipei, and Taitung. (2) Geographic information elements across different historical periods can serve as important fundamental parameters for the quantitative reconstruction of historical LUCC, and its incorporation into the decision-making process of the model can effectively improve the model accuracy. (3) Correlation analysis between county-level population and farmland area, grid-level modeling result and farmland interpreted from maps have shown well consistent, which demonstrated the rationality of the reconstruction results.

Ecological evaluation of heavy metal pollution in the soil of Pb-Zn mines.

Soil heavy metal pollution evaluations are a necessary measure for mine ecological control projects. In this study, the heavy metals Pb, Zn and Cd were studied in mining areas, tailings areas, sewage plant areas, residential areas, reclamation areas, and farmland areas. Soil pollution assessments of lead-zinc ore mine soils in the countryside of China are performed based on the index of geoaccumulation (Igeo) and the improved analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Finally, the pollution sources were analyzed by positive matrix factorization (PMF). The Igeo for the heavy metals Pb, Zn and Cd in the mining area reached 5.20, 3.34, and 5.66, respectively. In addition, 80 and 65% of the mining area and tailings area reached extremely strong pollution, respectively. The numerical simulation predicts that the pollution hazard in the southeast of the mine is high and that the pollution is concentrated. The severity of soil pollution in mines derived by the index of improved analytic hierarchy process (PAHP) was as follows: mining area (70.80) > sewage plant area (35.57) > tailings area (30.64) > farmland area (28.40) > residential area (21.11) > reclamation area (10.06). Among the three categories of pollution sources, one includes reclamation area, farmland area and tailings area; one includes sewage plant area and residential area; and one includes mining area. The source contribution of Pb by the phenomenon of indiscriminate discharge of wastewater after ore smelting was as high as 90.4%; The contribution of the blind mining and tailings piling phenomenon of mines to the source of heavy metals Zn and Cd was 81.4 and 90.2%, respectively. This study proposes a reliable scientific method and technical method for evaluating mine soil pollution and provides a guiding basis for mine development and protection.

THE ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT OF RESOURCES AND SERVICES AFFECTING TOMORKA (SMALL HOUSEHOLDS) FARM IN RURAL AREAS AND THEIR INCOME

The research examines the role and importance of income from tomorka (small household) farm activities in rural areas. The factors influencing the formation of income from tomorka farm activities were also assessed economically through tobit regression model, and a VIF (Variance inflation factor) test was performed to determine their multicollinearity. Anonymous surveys of 170 landowners in 4 districts of Samarkand region have been used in the analysis. The increase in income from tomorka farm is due to the increase in farmland area, consumption of organic and mineral fertilizers, seed and seedling costs, crop preparation costs, and the distance from tomorka farm to ‘Tomorqa Xizmati’ LLC and mineral fertilizer outlets, and the age of landowners is 1 percent (p). &lt;.01) was found to be statistically significant. It is also scientifically substantiated that the satisfaction of landowners with water supply in irrigating their arable lands, the information of the landowner, the presence of family members aged 0-3 years are statistically significant at 5% (p &lt;.05). However, it was found that the gender and number of family members of landowners were not statistically significant in increasing the income from the activities of tomorka farm. Based on the results obtained, scientifically based proposals have been developed to increase the income of the rural population from tomorka farm activities.

Responses of Soil Fauna Communities to Inorganic and Organic Fertilizers in Farmland Area from Northern China

Responses of Soil Fauna Communities to Inorganic and Organic Fertilizers in Farmland Area from Northern China

生态脆弱区农村居民点布局优化对区域生态系统服务功能的影响——以四川省西昌市为例

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 生态脆弱区农村居民点布局优化对区域生态系统服务功能的影响——以四川省西昌市为例 DOI: 10.5846/stxb202107201956 作者: 作者单位: 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: “十三五”国家重点研发计划课题项目（2019YFD1100801） Impact of layout optimization of rural settlements in ecologically fragile areas on the regional ecosystem service function:a case study of Xichang City, Sichuan Province Author: Affiliation: Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:我国是世界上生态脆弱区分布面积最大、类型最多、脆弱性表现最明显的国家之一。农村居民点作为生态脆弱区中主要人类活动区，成为导致生态脆弱区生态环境质量下降的重要干扰源。以四川省西昌市为例，分别利用InVEST模型中的生境质量评估模块、沉积物持留率分析模块、养分输出率分析模块评估了生态脆弱区农村居民点布局优化对区域生态系统服务功能的影响。研究结果表明：西昌市通过农村居民点布局优化，生境质量平均得分提高22.4%，土壤输出量下降4.6%，氮(N)、磷(P)输出量下降13.1%与8.2%，所以农村居民点布局优化有利于生态环境脆弱区生态系统服务功能的提升。农村居民点布局优化后，农村居民点数量与面积的减少，降低了森林火灾、土地开垦等植被破坏事件发生的频次，成为促使西昌市生境质量提升的主要原因；而农村居民点与农田面积下降，林地面积的增加是导致西昌市土壤输出量与N、P输出量下降的主要原因。农村居民点数量减少，可降低垃圾回收成本与污水处理成本，从而促使 N、P输出量进一步下降。 Abstract:China is one of the countries with the largest distribution area, the most types and the most obvious vulnerability of ecologically fragile areas in the world. As the main human activity area in the ecologically fragile area, the rural settlements have become an important source of interference that leads to the deterioration of the ecological environment. In this study, taking Xichang City, Sichuan Province as an example, the habitat quality model, sediment delivery ratio model, and nutrient delivery ratio model were used to evaluate the impact of layout optimization of rural settlements on the regional habitat quality, soil output and N-P output. The results indicate that the average score of habitat quality increased by 22.4%, soil output decreased by 4.6%, and N-P output decreased by 13.1% and 8.2% after layout optimization of rural settlements in the Xichang City. Therefore, layout optimization of rural settlements is beneficial to the improvement of the ecosystem service function in the Xichang City. After the layout optimization of rural settlements, the reduction in the number and area of rural settlements reduced the probability of forest fires, land reclamation and other vegetation destruction events, which become the main reason for the improvement of habitat quality. The decline in the area of rural settlements and farmland, and the increase in the area of woodland are the main reasons for the decline in soil output and N-P output. The decrease in the number of rural settlements will gradually reduce the cost of waste recycling and sewage treatment in rural areas, thereby further reducing the output of N-P. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Study on Site Selection Range of High Plateau Civil Airport Based on Atmospheric Pressure Data Analysis

In China's Tibet and other high plateau areas, most of the low altitude areas and relatively good clearance conditions are basic farmland or urban areas, while the number of airports in Tibet is relatively small, which has greatly restricted China's civil aviation transportation. Therefore, it is an important issue for the airport construction site selection in Tibet at this stage whether the site selection limit of the airport elevation not exceeding 4420m can be broken. This paper first introduces the current situation of site selection in high altitude areas of Tibet , Atmospheric pressure of High Plateau Airport and analyzes the airworthiness of aircraft. Then, the conversion relations among air pressure, air pressure altitude and airport elevation are analyzed. After that, a case study was conducted on a site in Tibet, which verified that when the airport elevation exceeded 4420m, the site could still meet the requirements of aircraft approval envelope. Finally, the impact of atmospheric pressure data on the site selection range of high plateau civil airport is summarized and suggestions are put forward.

A novel greedy adaptive ant colony algorithm for shortest path of irrigation groups.

With the full-scale implementation of facility agriculture, the laying of a water distribution network (WDN) on farmland plays an important role in irrigating crops. Especially in large areas of farmland, with the parameters of moisture sensors, the staff can divide the WDN into several irrigation groups according to the soil moisture conditions in each area and irrigate them in turn, so that irrigation can be carried out quickly and efficiently while meeting the demand for irrigation. However, the efficiency of irrigation is directly related to the pipe length of each irrigation group of the WDN. Obtaining the shortest total length of irrigation groups is a path optimization problem. In this paper, a grouped irrigation path model is designed, and a new greedy adaptive ant colony algorithm (GAACO) is proposed to shorten the total length of irrigation groups. To verify the effectiveness of GAACO, we compare it with simple modified particle swarm optimization (SMPSO), chaos-directed genetic algorithms (CDGA) and self-adaptive ant colony optimization (SACO), which are currently applied to the path problem. The simulation results show that GAACO can effectively shorten the total path of the irrigation group for all cases from 30 to 100 water-demanding nodes and has the fastest convergence speed compared to SMPSO, CDGA and SACO. As a result, GAACO can be applied to the shortest pipeline path problem for irrigation of farmland groups.

ПРОБЛЕМИ АГРАРНОГО БІЗНЕСУ ПІД ЧАС ВОЄННОГО СТАНУ

In recent years, Ukraine's agribusiness has been actively developing as a system of economic integration of various enterprises whose effective work is interdependent and mutually beneficial. The agricultural complex of Ukraine is important both for ensuring its own food safety and for providing other countries with agricultural products. The specificity of agribusiness is that all works must be carried out on time, even in wartime they cannot be postponed, so as not to cause a food crisis next year. Fullscale invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine, almost coincided with sowing and caused agrarians a lot of additional problems. The author is characterized by the following groups: territory, equipment, fuel, human resources, agrochemistry, logistics violations. Affected areas of farmland, on the front line most of the fields were replaced, which resulted in a decrease in crops, the uncertainty of farmers in their preservation. Military actions were caused by redistribution of labor, rise in price and lack of fuel, difficulties with the supply of seeds, agrochemicals, etc. Detailed attention is paid to the logistics of grain exports, because at the time of writing of the article this aspect worried most civilized society. Agrarians faced a great threat of loss of last year's grain harvest, due to the bombardment of elevators and storages, the theft of grain ports from the occupied by the occupiers and, most importantly, the blocking the ports of Odessa and the Black Sea, which housed large stocks of grain intended for export. Already, most governments are notifying about the danger of interruptions in grain supplies, their reserves are running out, and Ukraine cannot receive its currency revenue from exports and invest it in further development. Ukraine, considering alternative logistics routes for grain exports: by land, by railway, through the Danube, has received the support of the EU countries. Diversification of alternative destinations has already allowed the first cargoes to be shipped through the Romanian port of Constanta. EU support is currently expressed in the "Ways of Solidarity" action plan. However, like most experts, the author agrees that the available volumes can be exported only when demining and providing a "green corridor" from the Odessa port with foreign warships. Areas of further research are covered.

Novel encoder for ambient data compression applied to microcontrollers in agricultural robots

Agricultural robots are flexible to obtain ambient information across large areas of farmland. However, it needs to face two major challenges: data compression and filtering noise. To address these challenges, an encoder for ambient data compression, named Tiny-Encoder, was presented to compress and filter raw ambient information, which can be applied to agricultural robots. Tiny-Encoder is based on the operation of convolutions and pooling, and it has a small number of layers and filters. With the aim of evaluating the performance of Tiny-Encoder, different three types of ambient information (including temperature, humidity, and light) were selected to show the performance of compressing raw data and filtering noise. In the task of compressing raw data, Tiny-Encoder obtained higher accuracy (less than the maximum error of sensors ±0.5°C or ±3.5% RH) and more appropriate size (the largest size is 205 KB) than the other two auto-encoders based convolutional operations with different compressed features (including 20, 60, and 200 features). As for filtering noise, Tiny-Encoder has comparable performance with three conventional filtering approaches (including median filtering, Gaussian filtering, and Savitzky-Golay filtering). With large kernel size (i.e., 5), Tiny-Encoder has the best performance among these four filtering approaches: the coefficients of variation with the large kernel (i.e., 5) were 8.6189% (temperature), 10.2684% (humidity), 57.3576% (light), respectively. Overall, Tiny-Encoder can be used for ambient information compression applied to microcontrollers in agricultural information acquisition robots. Keywords: agricultural information, robot, ambient information, data compression, embedded machine learning methods DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20221504.6911 Citation: Wang Y T, Li M Z, Ji R H, Wang M J, Zhang Y, Zheng L H. Novel encoder for ambient data compression applied to microcontrollers in agricultural robots. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2022; 15(4): 197–204.

Многолетняя динамика фауны и населения птиц аэропорта Челябинск (Баландино)

Over 30-year study period (1990–2021), 144 bird species, including 54 nesting species, were registered on the territory of the Chelyabinsk International Airport Balandino. Total bird population density varied from 147 ind./km² in 1990 to 215 ind./km² in 2020. In different years, dominant species in this area were Alauda arvensis, Motacilla flava, Saxicola rubetra, S. torquata, and Passer montana. In the first years of research, a significant decrease in the number of the most widespread species (Corvus frugilegus, C. monedula, Columba livia, Larus barabensis, L. canus, and L. ridibundus), crossing the airfield during seasonal and diurnal (forage) migrations, was revealed. This was caused both by decrease of population of some species (C. frugilegus) in the European and Ural-Siberian parts of their range, and by the deterioration of the state of forage lands on the airport territory after the elimination of solid waste landfills and a decrease of farmland areas nearby.

Seasonal variation in soil erosion resistance to overland flow in gully-filled farmland on the Loess Plateau, China

Large areas of farmland have been established in China’s Loess Plateau region by backfilling forest and grasslands in gullies with topsoil from hillslopes. High amounts of plant litter are incorporated into the topsoil during such processes; however, their effects on soil erosion resistance under natural conditions are not fully understood. Therefore, the present study investigated seasonal variation in soil erosion resistance to overland flow and the underlying factors in the gully-filled farmland. Two typical plant litter species were selected in this study, i.e., Artemisia sacrorum Ledeb. (ASL) and Bothriochloa ischaemum (L.) Keng. (BIL). Overland water flow was tested under six shear stress levels (5.66–22.11 Pa) in natural soil samples incorporated with plant litter and without plant litter to determine soil erosion resistance parameters (rill erodibility Kr and critical shear stress τc). The study was conducted over 524 days (through May 6, 2017, to October 11, 2018), covering two rainy seasons and one winter. Soil properties changed significantly over time, with physical crust thickness and cohesion increasing from 0 to 10.7 mm and 2.9–13.4 kPa, respectively. In contrast, the mass density of incorporated plant litter decreased from 0.7 to 0.2 kg m−2. Soil erosion resistance increased with time, which showed that Kr decreased (from 0.516 to 0.021 s m−1) and τc increased (from 0.49 to 7.98 Pa). Compared with the initial state of new farmland (Kr = 0.507 s m−1,τc= 0.48 Pa), Kr decreased by 77–96% and τc increased 8–14 times at the end of the study. Plant litter incorporation markedly enhanced soil erosion resistance in a time- and species-dependent manner. Compared with the bare soil without plant litter, the Kr values of ASL and BIL treatments were 3–64% and 2–83% lower, and their τc values were 0–81% and 0–55% higher, respectively. Kr was significantly and positively correlated with cumulative precipitation, cumulative rainfall kinetic energy, soil cohesion, and physical soil crust thickness, while τc was negatively correlated with the influencing factors. Further, both Kr and τc could be well predicted by physical soil crust thickness and cohesion (R2 = 0.79 and 0.87, p < 0.01, n = 27). According to the results, seasonal patterns of soil erosion resistance in the gully-filled farmland established under plant litter incorporation were mainly controlled by rainfall and physical soil crust structure. This study provides a reference resource for soil erosion prediction in farmland ecosystems on the Loess Plateau.