Exploring the agricultural landscape diversity-food security nexus: an analysis in two contrasted parklands of Central Senegal

Accurate estimates of cultivated area and crop yield are critical to our understanding of agricultural production and food security, particularly for semi-arid regions like the Sahel of West Africa, where crop production is mainly rain-fed and food security is closely correlated with the inter-annual variations in rainfall. Several global and regional land cover products, based on satellite remotely-sensed data, provide estimates of the agricultural land use intensity, but the initial comparisons indicate considerable differences among them, relating to differences in the satellite data quality, classification approaches, and spatial and temporal resolutions. Here, we quantify the accuracy of available cropland products across Sahelian West Africa using an independent, high-resolution, visually interpreted sample dataset that classifies all points across West Africa using a 2-km sample grid (~500,000 points for the study area). We estimate the “quantity” and “allocation” disagreements for the cropland class of eight land cover products in five Western Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal). The results confirm that coarse spatial resolution (300 m, 500 m, and 1000 m) land cover products have higher disagreements in mapping the fragmented agricultural landscape of the Western Sahel. Earlier products (e.g., GLC2000) are less accurate than recent products (e.g., ESA CCI 2013, MODIS 2013 and GlobCover 2009). We also show that two of the finer spatial resolution maps (GFSAD30, and GlobeLand30) using advanced classification approaches (random forest, decision trees, and pixel-object combined) are currently the best available products for cropland identification. However, none of the eight land cover databases examined is consistent in reaching the targeted 75% accuracy threshold in the five Sahelian countries. The majority of currently available land cover products overestimate cultivated areas by an average of 170% relative to the cropland area in the reference data.

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Environmental suitability of a highly fragmented and heterogeneous landscape for forest bird species in south-eastern Brazil

Environmental Conservation ◽

10.1017/s0376892912000094 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 39 (4) ◽

pp. 316-324 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

KATIA MARIA PASCHOALETTO MICCHI DE BARROS FERRAZ ◽

MARINEZ FERREIRA DE SIQUEIRA ◽

EDUARDO ROBERTO ALEXANDRINO ◽

DANIELA TOMASIO APOLINARIO DA LUZ ◽

HILTON THADEU ZARATE DO COUTO

Keyword(s):

Atlantic Forest ◽

Agricultural Landscape ◽

Bird Species ◽

Landscape Diversity ◽

Native Forest ◽

Brazilian Atlantic Forest ◽

Anthropogenic Landscapes ◽

Forest Bird ◽

Environmental Suitability ◽

Heterogeneous Landscape

SUMMARYAssessment of the suitability of anthropogenic landscapes for wildlife species is crucial for setting priorities for biodiversity conservation. This study aimed to analyse the environmental suitability of a highly fragmented region of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, one of the world's 25 recognized biodiversity hotspots, for forest bird species. Eight forest bird species were selected for the analyses, based on point counts (n = 122) conducted in April–September 2006 and January–March 2009. Six additional variables (landscape diversity, distance from forest and streams, aspect, elevation and slope) were modelled in Maxent for (1) actual and (2) simulated land cover, based on the forest expansion required by existing Brazilian forest legislation. Models were evaluated by bootstrap or jackknife methods and their performance was assessed by AUC, omission error, binomial probability or p value. All predictive models were statistically significant, with high AUC values and low omission errors. A small proportion of the actual landscape (24.41 ± 6.31%) was suitable for forest bird species. The simulated landscapes lead to an increase of c.30% in total suitable areas. In average, models predicted a small increase (23.69 ± 6.95%) in the area of suitable native forest for bird species. Being close to forest increased the environmental suitability of landscapes for all bird species; landscape diversity was also a significant factor for some species. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that species distribution modelling (SDM) successfully predicted bird distribution across a heterogeneous landscape at fine spatial resolution, as all models were biologically relevant and statistically significant. The use of landscape variables as predictors contributed significantly to the results, particularly for species distributions over small extents and at fine scales. This is the first study to evaluate the environmental suitability of the remaining Brazilian Atlantic Forest for bird species in an agricultural landscape, and provides important additional data for regional environmental planning.

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Tissue Culture Mediated Allelic Diversification and Genomic Enrichment of Wheat to Combat Production Constraints and Address Food Security

Plant Tissue Culture and Biotechnology ◽

10.3329/ptcb.v27i1.35018 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 89-140 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

A Mujeeb Kazi ◽

Niaz Ali ◽

Amir Ibrahim ◽

Abdul Aziz Napar ◽

M Jamil ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tissue Culture ◽

Food Security ◽

Agricultural Landscape ◽

Wheat Crop ◽

Breeding Programs ◽

Security Challenges ◽

Genetic Stocks ◽

The Subject ◽

User Friendly ◽

Classical Mode

In view of the emerging population trends and that wheat crop is the major unequivocally recognized conduit towards addressing the food security challenges of 2050 this discourse embraces various research options that are viewed as possible solutions toward delivering those targets for providing nutritious food and meeting the aspirations that policy setters have debated on the subject for decades. The underlying strength for achieving these targets will require concerted efforts from plant researchers that are well integrated within effectively harnessing and utilizing prevalent genetic diversity of the wide array of alleles in a holistic pro‐active manner. We argue that the purists of basic and strategic research dimensions need to be thoughtfully defined, so that the vital target of delivering the “applied” gains are only realized from the outputs on farmer’s fields and measured by tons per hectare. In this quest, the pre‐breeding disciplines “classical mode” and its recently surfaced “modified sense” are pivotal, where within the former facet “tissue culture” (TC)/artificial culturing is embodied integrally. Taken for granted, TC has been the backbone of all wide hybridization studies and has made an enormous impact on the agricultural landscape spanning over the last six decades. With its intervention significant generic and specific incompatibilities have been overcome as well as allowing researchers to exploit the protocols for adding efficiency to breeding programs, facilitate operational technologies in running breeding programs and development of unique genetic stocks that preserve valuable allelic richness in user friendly forms for future free germplasmusage in global/private domains of plant improvement ventures.Plant Tissue Cult. & Biotech. 27(1): 89-140, 2017 (June)

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Historical decrease in agricultural landscape diversity is associated with shifts in bumble bee species occurrence

Ecology Letters ◽

10.1111/ele.13786 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jeremy Hemberger ◽

Michael S. Crossley ◽

Claudio Gratton

Keyword(s):

Agricultural Landscape ◽

Landscape Diversity ◽

Bumble Bee ◽

Species Occurrence

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Hyper-resolution hydrological modelling to assess water and food security in Malawi

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6340 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Daniela Anghileri ◽

Noemi Vergopolan ◽

Solomon Gebrechorkos ◽

Justin Sheffield

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Land Surface ◽

Agricultural Landscape ◽

Smallholder Farmers ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Smallholder Farming ◽

Hydrological Variability ◽

Research Activities ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Water And Food Security

<p>Agriculture is a key sector in fighting hunger in Sub Saharan Africa. Almost 95% of the agriculture in Africa is rain-fed and smallholder farmers play a crucial role as they produce most of the food consumed by local populations. These characteristics make the SSA agricultural landscape very diverse and particularly vulnerable to weather extremes. The ability of forecasting hydrological variability has increased in recent years due to advancements in the understanding of hydro-climatic processes, growing availability of high-resolution remote sensing datasets, and the increase of computational power, which has promoted the development of high-quality computer-based hydrological models. When adopted in data scarce regions, these models provide new insight into the hydrological budget and in characterizing the hydrological variability of these areas. In this work, we combine the hyper-resolution hydrological model HydroBlocks and the river routing model RAPID to simulate the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the land surface processes in Malawi at 30 m resolution. The model simulations show high variability of the hydrological variables, particularly soil moisture, across the country. We use these results to further analyse water and food security indicators in the transboundary catchment of Lake Chilwa shared between Malawi and Mozambique. The start and duration of the maize cropping season and the lake level show a large interannual variability which allow us to quantify the weather-related vulnerability of the local smallholder farming system. This work is part of the research activities of the UKRI-GCRF funded project &#8220;Building research capacity for sustainable water and food security in drylands of sub-Saharan Africa&#8221; (BRECcIA - http://www.gcrf-breccia.com/).</p>

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The influence of agricultural landscape diversity on biological diversity

Multifunctional Land Use ◽

10.1007/978-3-540-36763-5_8 ◽

2007 ◽

pp. 125-141 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Lech Ryszkowski ◽

Jerzy Karg

Keyword(s):

Agricultural Landscape ◽

Biological Diversity ◽

Landscape Diversity

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Changes in Urban Agricultural Landscape Affect Community Food Security: A GIS-based Analysis

IAMURE International Journal of Ecology and Conservation ◽

10.7718/ijec.v10i1.769 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Author(s):

RICARDO T. BAGARINAO

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Food Security ◽

Food Production ◽

Patch Size ◽

Agricultural Landscape ◽

Shape Index ◽

Community Food Security ◽

Mean Shape ◽

Food Production System ◽

Impacts Of Climate Change

Community food security, which is a relatively new concept, has become a global concern amidst momentous impacts of climate change in severalcommunities across the globe. Urban areas in the Philippines, like Calamba Cityin Laguna province, are not exempted from the impacts of climate change. Urbanagriculture landscapes play important roles in establishing community foodsecurity. The study analyzed an urban agricultural landscape in the Philippinesthrough the use of patch analyst extension in a geographic information system(GIS). The study employed the geospatial and temporal image processing andanalysis research method to compare two sets of land use-land cover (LULC)maps, i.e. 2003 and 2010 from NAMRIA. Two landscape metrics were used in the comparison: mean patch size (MPS) and mean shape index (MSI). The landscape consists of two agricultural patches (i.e. annual cropland and perennialcropland) with MPS and MSI values (i.e. MPS = 1,088.15 vs. 274.55 has; MSI= 3.87 vs. 1.94) that significantly changed from 2003 to 2010. Such change maylead to a food production system that is more dependent on external supplies. Externally supported food production system can threaten the local community’sfood security in the long term.Keywords: Landscape ecology, community food security, geographic information system,mean patch size, mean shape index, urban agricultural landscape, descriptivedesign, Philippines

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Assessment of the European Common Agricultural Policy and landscape changes: an example from Slovenia

Agricultural Economics (Zemědělská ekonomika) ◽

10.17221/337/2017-agricecon ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 64 (No. 11) ◽

pp. 489-498 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Marko OGOREVC ◽

Renata SLABE-ERKER

Keyword(s):

Agricultural Policy ◽

Common Agricultural Policy ◽

Agricultural Landscape ◽

Shannon Index ◽

Agricultural Landscapes ◽

Landscape Diversity ◽

Spatial Lag Model ◽

Lag Model ◽

Direct Payments ◽

Negative Impacts

The objective of this study was to determine whether and to what extent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) measures actually succeed in preserving the diversity of agricultural landscapes. This paper assesses the effects of agricultural policy on changes in the diversity of agricultural landscapes in Slovenia. Diversity is measured by the Shannon index and the Simpson index, while the impacts were estimated using a spatial lag model. The results show that direct payments decrease landscape diversity by 2 index points per 1 000 EUR/ha, but agri-environmental payments for reducing negative impacts on the environment and those for nature conservation increase agricultural landscape diversity by 2.8 index points and 12.30 index points per 1 000 EUR/ha, respectively. Furthermore, we did not find any statistically significant effects of habitat protection payments on landscape diversity. Since direct payments are almost four times larger on average as agri-environmental payments, they preserve landscape diversity only to a limited extent.

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