SFB564-C4.2: Impact of intensification on land use dynamics and environmental services of tropical mountainous watersheds

Status
completed
Project begin
01.07.2009
Project end
30.06.2012
Project-Homepage
https://sfb564.uni-hohenheim.de/83666.html
Description

Background

Upland areas in northern Vietnam and Thailand have recently experienced a rapid population increase and shift from subsistence to market-oriented production. As a result, agriculture in these mountainous areas intensified, associated with deforestation and replacement of traditional fallow systems by permanent cultivation with annual crops. The decreased ground cover results in increased erosion in the uplands and sedimentation in the lowlands. The overall goal of subproject C4 is to assess the impact of this intensifying land use on productivity of agro-ecosystems and on environmental services.

Objectives

Subproject C4 aims at assessing (i) dynamics of landscape upland-lowland C and N flows under current land use and (ii) how past land use intensification has changed the spatial distribution of soil fertility and potential crop productivity, (iii) validating the Land Use Impact Assessment (LUCIA) model for watersheds varying in land use intensity, and (iv) evaluating the impact of land use change scenarios on agricultural production systems along gradients of resource availability. Main focus of model application is to use LUCIA on different biophysical conditions of the watersheds in the study areas, and thus assess the effects of alternative land use scenarios. The way, however, farmers decide between these alternative land use options depends not only on biophysical conditions, but also on socio-economic factors and policies. This is why the biophysical LUCIA model has been linked to the Mathematical Programming Multi Agent System, MP-MAS, from subproject G1. For catchments with less detailed socio-economic field data, LUCIA-CHOICE will be developed, a submodule that simulates decision-making based on farmers’ cropping rules. Further submodules to be added include erosion/sedimentation, natural plant succession and an enhanced version of soil carbon stocks and flows.

Involved persons

Involved institutions

Sponsors

  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Publications in the course of the project