scholarly journals Changes in soil exchangeable nutrients across different land uses in steep slopes of Mizoram, North-east India

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 929-936
Author(s):  
Etsoshan Y Ovung ◽  
S. K. Tripathi ◽  
Francis Q Brearley

Land use change resulting from anthropogenic pressure on land has led to degraded soil quality, especially in the hilly tropical regions where ecosystems are generally fragile and susceptible to soil degradation from cultivation. Hence, sustainable land uses and management practices are crucial for agricultural production and ecological balance, particularly in these regions. The present study investigates the impact of various hill land uses (Natural forest-NAF, Jhum fallow-JF, Home garden-HG, Acacia pennata plantation-AP and Current Jhum-CJ) on soil exchangeable nutrients in steeply sloping agro-ecosystems of Mizoram, North-east India. Soil samples were collected from three different depths (0-10, 10-20 & 20-30 cm) and analyzed for pH, Pavail, Na, K, Mg, Mn and Ca. Our results indicated that land use and soil depths had a significant impact on soil pH, Pavail and soil exchangeable cations (p<0.05). Conversion of native forests for cultivation negatively affected soil properties as indicated by the reduced soil exchangeable cations in cultivated lands (AP & CJ) in relation to the natural forest (NAF) and  Jhum fallow (JF). Soils under longer periods of fallow (>12 years) led to increases in soil available nutrients indicating the role of vegetation cover in conserving and enhancing soil available nutrients and vice-versa. In addition, Home garden (HG) showed moderately higher available soil nutrients signifying the role of sustainable management practices such as the addition of organic amendments and mixed cropping, leading to increased soil available nutrient content.

Author(s):  
Vipin Solanki ◽  
Aparna Joshi

Land use is the human utilization for money, private, recreational, conservational and administrative purposes. The idea of land use is firmly interwoven with human network advancement. Examples of human turn of events and land use have molded the earth legitimately and internationally since ancient occasions. Current improvement designs, along with highlights of the common habitat and the outcomes of past advancement exercises, decide future advancement openings, and furthermore the requirement for rebuilding or upgrade of natural assets. North-east India is the abode of highly endemic flora and fauna preserving the pristine environment with little human interference until recent times. However, for past two decades a drastic change in the land use pattern in the region has been observed which may threaten the fragile ecological balance of the region. Tripura, known as one of the seven sisters, is a bamboo resource and second largest rubber producer in India. Tripura has the highest number of primate species found in any Indian state. However, as compared to its other sisters, the state is economically backward. The land use of the state is undergoing rapid change which is facilitated to a great extent by rapidly increasing population. The present paper deals with the changing land use of Tripura especially in the last two and a half decades. The objective of the study is to analyse the changing land use of the state in general and changes in agricultural and non-agricultural land use in particular based upon the data collected from secondary sources like Statistical Abstract of Tripura, Population Tables of Census 1991, 2001 and 2011 along with the information collected from various government websites.


Oryx ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63
Author(s):  
James Lockie

Depopulation of the Scottish Highlands in the seventeenth century was followed by intense exploitation and often misuse of the land, with serious overgrazing, burning and wildlife destruction. Today the main land uses are hill sheep farming, crofting, sport, and, more recently, commercial timber growing, nature conservation, hydroelectric schemes and tourism. The author, who is on the staff of the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources in Edinburgh University, examines the effect of these activities on four main wildlife species – golden eagle, red deer, red grouse and red fox – and describes some of the mistaken management practices which damage the wildlife, often without producing the desired results.


Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa C. Kelley ◽  
Agung Prabowo

Flooding is a routine occurrence throughout much of the monsoonal tropics. Despite well-developed repertoires of response, agrarian societies have been ‘double exposed’ to intensifying climate change and agro-industrialization over the past several decades, often in ways that alter both the regularity of flood events and individual and community capacity for response. This paper engages these tensions by exploring everyday experiences of and responses to extreme flood events in a case study village in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, which has also been the site of corporate oil palm development since 2010. We first reconstruct histories of extreme flood events along the Konawe’eha River using oral histories and satellite imagery, describing the role of these events in straining the terms of daily production and reproduction. We then outline the ways smallholder agriculturalists are responding to flood events through alterations in their land use strategies, including through the sale or leasing of flood-prone lands, the relocation of riverine vegetable production to hillside locations, and adoption of new cropping choices and management practices. We highlight the role of such responses as a driver of ongoing land use change, potentially in ways that increase systemic vulnerability to floods moving forward.


2008 ◽  
Vol 57 (9) ◽  
pp. 1349-1354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mi-Hyun Park ◽  
Michael K. Stenstrom

Estimation of stormwater pollutant loads using land use based models has been widely used for establishing regulations and management practices. This approach requires land use information to assign the imperviousness or runoff coefficients (RC) and event mean concentrations (EMCs) for the pollutants of interest. This simplistic approach is useful to estimate the total mass emissions. However, different research groups have used various parameters based upon similar data sources, and there are very few validations using actual field data. This study compares the assumptions, methodologies and results of several, independent modelling efforts, and functions as a quality and sensitivity study of the methodologies. The similarity or differences of the various model results serve as a qualitative indicator of the state of art for this type of stormwater modelling.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-173
Author(s):  
Rastislav Skalský ◽  
Štefan Koco ◽  
Gabriela Barančíková ◽  
Zuzana Tarasovičová ◽  
Ján Halas ◽  
...  

AbstractSoil organic carbon (SOC) in agricultural land forms part of the global terrestrial carbon cycle and it affects atmospheric carbon dioxide balance. SOC is sensitive to local agricultural management practices that sum up into regional SOC storage dynamics. Understanding regional carbon emission and sequestration trends is, therefore, important in formulating and implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. In this study, the estimation of SOC stock and regional storage dynamics in the Ondavská Vrchovina region (North-Eastern Slovakia) cropland and grassland topsoil between 1970 and 2013 was performed with the RothC model and gridded spatial data on weather, initial SOC stock and historical land cover and land use changes. Initial SOC stock in the 0.3-m topsoil layer was estimated at 38.4 t ha−1 in 1970. The 2013 simulated value was 49.2 t ha−1, and the 1993–2013 simulated SOC stock values were within the measured data range. The total SOC storage in the study area, cropland and grassland areas, was 4.21 Mt in 1970 and 5.16 Mt in 2013, and this 0.95 Mt net SOC gain was attributed to inter-conversions of cropland and grassland areas between 1970 and 2013, which caused different organic carbon inputs to the soil during the simulation period with a strong effect on SOC stock temporal dynamics.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela R. Magalhães ◽  
Natalia S. Cunha ◽  
Selma B. Pena ◽  
Ana Müller

Abstract This paper explores the role of landscape planning as a tool for rural fire prevention. It presents a methodology for a fire resilient and sustainable landscape model (FIRELAN) that articulates the ecological and cultural components in a suitable and multifunction land-use plan. FIRELAN is a conceptual and ecologically based model that recognizes river basin’ land morphology, microclimate, and species combustibility as the fundamental factors that determine fire behavior and landscape resilience, along with the ecological network (EN) for achieving ecological sustainability of the landscape. The model is constituted by the FIRELAN Network and the Complementary Areas. This network ensures the effectiveness of discontinuities in the landscape with less combustible land-uses. It also functions as a fire-retardant technique and protection of wildland-urban interface (WUI). This model is applied to municipalities from Portugal's center region, a simplified landscape severely damaged by recurrent rural fires. The results show that land-use and tree species composition should change drastically, whereas about 72% of the case study needs transformation actions. This requires a significant increase of native or archaeophytes species, agricultural areas, landscape discontinuities and the restoration of biodiversity in Natura 2000 areas. The EN components are 79% of the FIRELAN N area, whose implementation ensures soil and water conservation, biodiversity, and habitats. This paper contributes to the discussion of the Portuguese rural fires planning framework, highlighting the role of this model implementation towards a new landscape by giving explicit indications of adequate land-uses in rural areas. The FIRELAN model can be replicated in any situation.


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