scholarly journals Vegetation of a tropical dry forest in a landscape with chronic disturbance: the case of the indigenous community of San Nicolás Zoyatlan (Guerrero, Mexico)

2017 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 433
Author(s):  
Virginia Cervantes-Gutiérrez ◽  
Ignacio Méndez-Ramírez ◽  
Iván Ernesto Roldán-Aragón ◽  
Aurora Chimal-Hernández ◽  
Vicente Arriaga-Martínez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Tropical Dry Forest ◽  
Dry Forest ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
High Turnover ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
Chronic Disturbance

<p><strong><span lang="EN-US">Background. </span></strong><span lang="EN-US">Tropical dry forests (TDF) provide numerous environmental services to its residents; this has led them to be humanized landscapes subjected to chronic disturbance with a high risk of disappearing.</span></p><p><strong><span lang="EN-US">Research question. </span></strong><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>To establish </span><span lang="EN-US">the relationship of vegetation structure and composition of a chronically disturbed TDF, with some environmental factors and the intensity of agricultural land use.</span></p><p><strong><span lang="EN-US">Study site and period of research. </span></strong><span lang="EN-US">Our study was conducted during six months (July through November) in the TDF of the community of San Nicolas Zoyatlan (Guerrero, Mexico); a territory with a history of over 500 years of agricultural use. This use has led to a complex mosaic of vegetation fragments.</span></p><p><strong><span lang="EN-US">Methods. </span></strong><span lang="EN-US">A selection of 36 fragments was studied to determine vegetation <span>structure and composition as well as environmental factors</span>. </span><span lang="EN-US">Representative plants from sampled areas were collected<span>. </span><span>Data gathered was explored with regression and multivariate statistical analysis techniques.</span></span></p><p><strong><span lang="EN-US">Results. </span></strong><span lang="EN-US">59 families, 178 genera and 279 species were recorded. Species richness varied widely among fragments, in general with a low dominance and high turnover of species. Slope was the only factor that showed a solid relationship with vegetation variables. Three groups of fragments were established and the statistical differences between them were explained by the duration of fallow. The fragments with longer fallow period showed the best conditions in vegetation variables and 66.9% of the species were found in them.</span></p><p><strong><span lang="EN-US">Conclusions.</span></strong><span lang="EN-US"> Composition and structure of vegetation were related to intensity of agricultural land use. Although<strong> </strong>there is a process of impoverishment, vegetation dynamics involving species of the Fabaceae, Asteraceae and Burseraceae families show a potential for their use in the environmental restoration of Zoyatlan.</span></p>

scholarly journals Agricultural Land Use and Environmental Factors in the Tokachi Plain

1997 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-28
Author(s):  
Yuichi HASHIMOTO ◽  
Keiji KIMURA
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Agricultural Land Use

scholarly journals Agroforestry Systems of the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley: Land Use for Biocultural Diversity Conservation

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Mariana Vallejo ◽  
M. Isabel Ramírez ◽  
Alejandro Reyes-González ◽  
Jairo López-Sánchez ◽  
Alejandro Casas
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
World Heritage Site ◽  
Biocultural Diversity ◽  
Semiarid Region ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Visual Interpretation ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Human Settlements

The Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley, Mexico, is the semiarid region with the richest biodiversity of North America and was recently recognized as a UNESCO's World Heritage site. Original agricultural practices remain to this day in agroforestry systems (AFS), which are expressions of high biocultural diversity. However, local people and researchers perceive a progressive decline both in natural ecosystems and AFS. To assess changes in location and extent of agricultural land use, we carried out a visual interpretation of very-high resolution imagery and field work, through which we identified AFS and conventional agricultural systems (CAS) from 1995 to 2003 and 2012. We analyzed five communities, representative of three main ecological and agricultural zones of the region. We assessed agricultural land use changes in relation to conspicuous landscape features (relief, rivers, roads, and human settlements). We found that natural ecosystems cover more than 85% of the territory in each community, and AFS represent 51% of all agricultural land. Establishment and permanence of agricultural lands were strongly influenced by gentle slopes and the existence of roads. Contrary to what we expected, we recorded agricultural areas being abandoned, thus favoring the regeneration of natural ecosystems, as well as a 9% increase of AFS over CAS. Agriculture is concentrated near human settlements. Most of the studied territories are meant to preserve natural ecosystems, and traditional AFS practices are being recovered for biocultural conservation.

scholarly journals An Integrated Economic, Environmental and Social Approach to Agricultural Land-Use Planning

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 364
Author(s):  
Sahar Shahpari ◽  
Janelle Allison ◽  
Matthew Tom Harrison ◽  
Roger Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Commodity Prices ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land Use ◽  
Climate Type ◽  
Crop Selection ◽  
Regional Impacts ◽  
Farmer Decision Making

Agricultural land-use change is a dynamic process that varies as a function of social, economic and environmental factors spanning from the local to the global scale. The cumulative regional impacts of these factors on land use adoption decisions by farmers are neither well accounted for nor reflected in agricultural land use planning. We present an innovative spatially explicit agent-based modelling approach (Crop GIS-ABM) that accounts for factors involved in farmer decision making on new irrigation adoption to enable land-use predictions and exploration. The model was designed using a participatory approach, capturing stakeholder insights in a conceptual model of farmer decisions. We demonstrate a case study of the factors influencing the uptake of new irrigation infrastructure and land use in Tasmania, Australia. The model demonstrates how irrigated land-use expansion promotes the diffusion of alternative crops in the region, as well as how coupled social, biophysical and environmental conditions play an important role in crop selection. Our study shows that agricultural land use reflected the evolution of multiple simultaneous interacting biophysical and socio-economic drivers, including soil and climate type, crop and commodity prices, and the accumulated effects of interactive decisions of farmers.

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