scholarly journals Labour Migration in the Middle Hills of Nepal: Consequences on Land Management Strategies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphanie Jaquet ◽  
Thomas Kohler ◽  
Gudrun Schwilch
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Mapping Method ◽  
Forest Recovery ◽  
Labour Migration ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Grazing Land ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Labour Shortage ◽  
Qualitative Mapping

Labour migration in Nepal is having profound effects on land management. We take two examples from the hills of Nepal where the increasing trend in outmigration continues unabated and explore its consequences. The purpose of this study is to understand the impacts of the subsequent labour shortage on land management and how it affects households. We used data from two surveys and assessed land use change and degradation with a qualitative mapping method. The findings show that the local context leads to very different strategies in terms of land management. In one study area, land was left to lie fallow without any use, leading to overgrowth and forest recovery due to favourable climate conditions. In the other, land was no longer used as cropland but turned into grazing land with consequences such as land degradation. This study provides strong empirical data and also contributes to the mountain research community by shedding light on the effects of outmigration on land management in the hills of Nepal. We suggest that these effects, including the labour shortage and the increasingly important role of remittances, should be addressed in an integrative but differentiated way that takes into account the regional context.

scholarly journals Response of Grazing Land Soil Health to Management Strategies: A Summary Review

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sutie Xu ◽  
Sindhu Jagadamma ◽  
Jason Rowntree
Keyword(s):  
Soil Properties ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Soil Health ◽  
C Sequestration ◽  
Water Infiltration ◽  
Grazing Land ◽  
Soil C ◽  
Soil C Sequestration

Grazing land ecosystem services including food provision and climate regulation are greatly influenced by soil health. This paper provides a condensed review of studies on the response of three important soil properties related to soil health to grazing land management: water infiltration, carbon (C) sequestration, and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). Impacts of management strategies that are often used in grazing lands are discussed in this review including vegetation composition, grazing methods, and other factors such as fertilizer use and climatic conditions. In general, proper grazing management such as continuous moderate grazing and rotational/deferred-rotational grazing with low or moderate stocking rates tends to benefit all three soil properties. Water infiltration can usually be increased with full vegetation cover, increased soil C, and aggregate stability, or be decreased with greater soil bulk density. Adoption of highly productive plant species with faster turnover rates can promote soil C sequestration by increasing C input. However, excessive C removal from ecosystems due to overgrazing or improper soil fertilization management results in higher C loss, which can have detrimental effects on soil C sequestration. Proper stocking rate and a balanced manure/fertilizer management was found to be critical for enhancing NUE. Grazing land management sometimes simultaneously influence the three soil properties. Techniques that can increase soil C such as introduction of high productive plant species can often promote water infiltration and soil nitrogen (N). Some other practices such as adoption of N fertilizer may enhance C sequestration while being detrimental to NUE. An integrated management plan for a specific location or farm should be considered carefully to improve soil health as well as ecosystem production. This review provides farmers and policy makers the current state of general knowledge on how health-related soil processes are affected by grazing land management.

scholarly journals Land Degradation Vulnerability Mapping in a Newly-Reclaimed Desert Oasis in a Hyper-Arid Agro-Ecosystem Using AHP and Geospatial Techniques

Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1426
Author(s):  
Ahmed S. Abuzaid ◽  
Mohamed A. E. AbdelRahman ◽  
Mohamed E. Fadl ◽  
Antonio Scopa
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Soil Quality ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Quality Index ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Western Desert ◽  
Soil Quality Index ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Sensing Data

Modelling land degradation vulnerability (LDV) in the newly-reclaimed desert oases is a key factor for sustainable agricultural production. In the present work, a trial for usingremote sensing data, GIS tools, and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was conducted for modeling and evaluating LDV. The model was then applied within 144,566 ha in Farafra, an inland hyper-arid Western Desert Oases in Egypt. Data collected from climate conditions, geological maps, remote sensing imageries, field observations, and laboratory analyses were conducted and subjected to AHP to develop six indices. They included geology index (GI), topographic quality index (TQI), physical soil quality index (PSQI), chemical soil quality index (CSQI), wind erosion quality index (WEQI), and vegetation quality index (VQI). Weights derived from the AHP showed that the effective drivers of LDV in the studied area were as follows: CSQI (0.30) > PSQI (0.29) > VQI (0.17) > TQI (0.12) > GI (0.07) > WEQI (0.05). The LDV map indicated that nearly 85% of the total area was prone to moderate degradation risks, 11% was prone to high risks, while less than 1% was prone to low risks. The consistency ratio (CR) for all studied parameters and indices were less than 0.1, demonstrating the high accuracy of the AHP. The results of the cross-validation demonstrated that the performance of ordinary kriging models (spherical, exponential, and Gaussian) was suitable and reliable for predicting and mapping soil properties. Integrated use of remote sensing data, GIS, and AHP would provide an effective methodology for predicting LDV in desert oases, by which proper management strategies could be adopted to achieve sustainable food security.

scholarly journals Hydrological recovery in two large forested watersheds of southeastern China: the importance of watershed properties in determining hydrological responses to reforestation

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (12) ◽  
pp. 4747-4756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenfei Liu ◽  
Xiaohua Wei ◽  
Qiang Li ◽  
Houbao Fan ◽  
Honglang Duan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Watershed Management ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Forest Recovery ◽  
Southeastern China ◽  
Forested Watersheds ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Low Flows ◽  
Hydrological Responses ◽  
High Flows

Abstract. Understanding hydrological responses to reforestation is an important subject in watershed management, particularly in large forested watersheds ( >  1000 km2). In this study, we selected two large forested watersheds (Pingjiang and Xiangshui) located in the upper reach of the Poyang Lake watershed, southeastern China (with an area of 3261.4 and 1458 km2, respectively), along with long-term data on climate and hydrology (1954–2006) to assess the effects of large-scale reforestation on streamflow. Both watersheds have similar climate and experienced comparable and dramatic forest changes during the past decades, but with different watershed properties (e.g., the topography is much steeper in Xiangshui than in Pingjiang), which provides us with a unique opportunity to compare the differences in hydrological recovery in two contrasted watersheds. Streamflow at different percentiles (e.g., 5, 10, 50 and 95 %) were compared using a combination of statistical analysis with a year-wise method for each watershed. The results showed that forest recovery had no significant effects on median flows (Q50%) in both watersheds. However, reforestation significantly reduced high flows in Pingjiang, but had limited influence in Xiangshui. Similarly, reforestation had significant and positive effects on low flows (Q95%) in Pingjiang, while it did not significantly change low flows in Xiangshui. Thus, hydrological recovery is limited and slower in the steeper Xiangshui watershed, highlighting that watershed properties are also important for determining hydrological responses to reforestation. This finding has important implications for designing reforestation and watershed management strategies in the context of hydrological recovery.

Impacts of improved grazing land management on sediment yields, Part 1: Hillslope processes

2010 ◽  
Vol 389 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 237-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Bartley ◽  
Jeff P. Corfield ◽  
Brett N. Abbott ◽  
Aaron A. Hawdon ◽  
Scott N. Wilkinson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Grazing Land ◽  
Sediment Yields ◽  
Hillslope Processes

scholarly journals Impact of Differences in Land Management on Natural Vegetation in Semi-Dry Areas: The Case Study of the Adi Zaboy Watershed in the Kilite Awlaelo District, Eastern Tigray Region, Ethiopia

Environments ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryunosuke Ogawa ◽  
Masahiro Hirata ◽  
Birhane Gebremedhin ◽  
Satoshi Uchida ◽  
Toru Sakai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽  
Satellite Image ◽  
Field Investigation ◽  
Sustainable Land Management ◽  
Forest Land ◽  
Grazing Land ◽  
Feed Resources ◽  
Use Of Resources

The search for a sustainable land management has become a universal issue. It is especially necessary to discuss sustainable land management and to secure a site with enough feed supply to improve the lives of the farmers in the Ethiopian Highlands. This research studied the Adi Zaboy watershed in Tigray in order to reveal the changes in land management, assess how the different forms of land management affected the vegetation through unsupervised classification and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) analysis with geographic information system (GIS) 10.5 using a WorldView-2 satellite image taken in September 2016 and field investigation, and consider how to allow both environmental preservation and sustainable use of feed resources. The land management types at the research site were classified as “seasonally-closed grazing land”, “prohibited grazing and protected forest land”, and “free grazing land”. On comparing the NDVI of each type of land management, it was found that the seasonally-closed grazing land makes it highly possible to secure and supply feed resources by limiting the grazing period. The expansion of the prohibited grazing and protected forest land is likely to tighten the restriction on the use of resources. Therefore, sustainable land management to secure feed resources may be possible by securing and actively using seasonally-closed grazing land, securing feed by a cut-and-carry, and using satellite images and GIS.

scholarly journals Soil Quality Characterization of Mediterranean Areas under Desertification Risk for the Implementation of Management Schemes Aimed at Land Degradation Neutrality

Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Eleonora Grilli ◽  
Elio Coppola ◽  
Tommaso La Mantia ◽  
Micòl Mastrocicco ◽  
Fernando Pulido ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Soil Quality ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Mediterranean Areas ◽  
Desertification Risk

Soil is a key component of ecosystems as it provides fundamental ecosystem functions and services, first of all supporting primary productivity, by physical, chemical and biological interaction with plants. However, soil loss and degradation are at present two of the most critical environmental issues. This phenomenon is particularly critical in Mediterranean areas, where inappropriate land management, in combination with the increasingly harshening of climatic conditions due to Climate Change, is leading to significant land degradation and desertification and is expected to worsen in the future, leading to economic and social crisis. In such areas, it is of fundamental importance to apply sustainable management practices, as conservation/restoration measures, to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality. This approach is at the core of the LIFE project Desert-Adapt “Preparing desertification areas for increased climate change” which is testing a new framework of sustainable land management strategies based on the key concept that the maintenance of ecosystems quality is necessarily connected to economic and social security in these fragile areas. The project will test adaptation strategies and measures in 10 sites of three Mediterranean areas under strong desertification risk, Alentejo in Portugal, Extremadura in Spain and Sicily in Italy. We present the baseline data of soil quality analysis from 32 sites in the 10 study areas of the project. Key drivers of soil quality and quantity were identified and used as basis to select sustainable management strategies focused on the maintenance, improvement and/or recovery of soil-based ecosystem services, with particular attention to climate change adaptation and land productivity. The final objective of the project is to demonstrate, according to the LDN approach, the best adaptation strategies to recover degraded areas from low-productive systems into resource-efficient and low-carbon economies to preserve ecosystem quality and booster economy and social security

scholarly journals Tree-Based Ecosystem Approaches (TBEAs) as Multi-Functional Land Management Strategies—Evidence from Rwanda

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 1360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miyuki Iiyama ◽  
Athanase Mukuralinda ◽  
Jean Ndayambaje ◽  
Bernard Musana ◽  
Alain Ndoli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Ecosystem Approaches
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