Small Ruminants Grazing as a Rehabilitative Land Management Tool in the Negev Highland; Soil, Geomorphological and Topographical Perspectives

The ‘wadis’ (ephemeral incised channels in arid regions) concern badlands with low agriculture utilisation that expands to neighbouring cultivated areas. They are noticeable and unique landforms characterised by vegetation patches and seasonal flood flows with scenic beauty that must be conserved. The wadi characteristics have influenced the way of life of their indigenous residents from ancient times until now. The main one is grazing with small ruminants (SR). The authorities and public consider grazing in these areas as a destructive land management practice that should be reduced. To assess the viability of grazing in such regions, we hypothesised that fluvial and biological flows tightly correlate with the wadis’ landforms, channels and slopes. The site of study is located in the Yeroham mountains nearby the Rahma planned Bedouin village. Five different transects of channels and slopes were located over representative wadis, including those exposed to grazing. The finding indicates that a herbaceous vegetation expansion uphill was observed only in grazed transects, while the wadi slope patterns affect its patterns. It contains an increased soil water content (from a similar value of 5% until 13% change in the grazed transect), 1.5% higher soil organic matter, 0.08 mg Kg−1 higher Nitrite content and 1–2% higher clay content in the grazed transects, up to 4 m ahead from the channel. The novelty of this finding suggested that the SR influences the organic matter to reach the wadi channel and facilitate the adherence of aggregated clay and the formed colluvial layer that serves as a substrate to the expanded vegetation growth. Adequate implementation of these grazing patterns may rehabilitate degraded ‘wadis’ and increase their tourism eligibility.

Analysis of Environmental Factors Determining the Adoption of Land Management Practices in Guinea Savanna Agro-Ecological Zone of Kaduna Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

This study analyzed the various determinants of land management practices in Chikun LGA of Kaduna State and determined most sustainable practice(s), with the specific focus on: Socio-economic characteristics of farmers; types of land management practices in relation to the determinant factors; effects of land management practices on the farm productivity; determine the most sustainable land management practice in the study area. A purposive sampling technique was adopted in collecting data from three hundred and eighty (380) rural farmers with structured questionnaires administered in Buruku, Chikun Local Government area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. Five land management practices showed positive effects on the farm productivity as compared to the mean of 3 points; these were cover crop, crop rotation, irrigation, organic manure and fertilizer application. Two land management practices as perceived to have good effects on farm productivity of respondents were agro-forestry and bush fallow as shown in the component one of the result of Principal Component Analysis (PCA). It was concluded that the farming population was ageing and was adversely affected the choice of best practices due to lack of education and knowledge to adopt the best land management practice. Sustainable land management practices has the potential to reverse the trend of food scarcity and environmental disasters, help to improve local livelihoods, restore natural ecosystems and also contribute significantly to climate change adaptation and mitigation. There is clear evidence that the productivity of soils in Buruku Village will continue to decline if strategic measures are not put in place to manage soil fertility in different soil units to support agricultural land.

Underestimated Role of Fires in Providing Nutrients for Biogeochemical Cycles

<p>Fire regimes respond to both climate and human land management practice changes, in turn modifying land cover distributions, surface albedo, carbon storage, and emissions. Much attention has recently been given to the health and climate impacts of fires, but fires are also an important source of nutrients, such as iron and phosphorus, to both land and ocean biospheres. Fires therefore create important feedbacks within the Earth system. Here we discuss recent developments showing how fires are a previously underestimated source of limiting nutrients, providing up to half the annual deposited amount of soluble iron and soluble phosphorus to southern oceans and the Amazon, respectively. Fire can therefore stimulate ocean productivity by providing long range transport of essential nutrients, released from the vegetation burned and entrained with dust from the surrounding environment, to remote regions. We considered the impact of human activity on soluble iron deposition for the past (c.1750 CE), present (c.2010 CE), and future (c.2100 CE). We find that the global carbon cycle and climate response is dominated by changes to primary productivity within the Southern Ocean (>30ºS) and that the carbon export efficiency (gram of carbon sequestered per gram of soluble iron added) for this region is 43% larger when altering fire emissions compared to altering dust emissions. Results suggest that modelling past and future changes in biogeochemical cycles should incorporate information on how fires, and the nutrients carried within their plumes, respond to changes in climate.</p>

Economic Versus Social Values in Land and Property Management: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

This article reviews and analyses how and why land-management practice draws on two contrasting value systems: economic and social. Land managers are at the crossroads of different value systems, which both overlap and contrast. The aim of this article is to provide an understanding of which aspects are crucial in each of the value systems, and to provide a basis for how and where the value systems can be connected and where they are contradictory. This is undertaken using an exploratory qualitative and descriptive comparison, which contrasts the epistemic logics of the value systems, the manner in which each system makes use of different scales, and the way in which decisions are made with each value system. Such an understanding is crucial to improve coherence in designing and predicting the future effects of land-management interventions. Currently, practitioners tend to design interventions based on single value systems, rather than on combining or integrating value systems. The discursive comparison provides the initial steps towards a more coherent understanding of the common ground and the missing links in value logics applied in land management. These results are relevant to provide better descriptions and predictions of the effects of land-use interventions and develop improved transdisciplinary models to predict changes and development in the utilization of land or property.

A Values-Led Planning Approach for Sustainable Land Use and Development

The creation of positive synergy in managing land-related resources if exploring the territorial capabilities, threats and opportunities, e.g. the effects of urban expansion, multi-functionality of land use, internalisation of negative externalities and challenges of a city agglomeration, causes primary necessity for the modern society. The study is concerned with the conceptual background and feasibility aspects of values-led planning (VLP) approach to be introduced into land management practice by capitalising first of all on comparative analysis of dynamic spatial planning systems and planning cultures. Finally, it is argued that the implementation of new planning approach within proposed framework would lead towards improved land use policies and better territorial governance, developing more inclusive and resilient territories for the benefit of a society.

Streamflow and Sediment Yield Prediction for Watershed Prioritization in the Upper Blue Nile River Basin, Ethiopia

Inappropriate use of land and poor ecosystem management have accelerated land degradation and reduced the storage capacity of reservoirs. To mitigate the effect of the increased sediment yield, it is important to identify erosion-prone areas in a 287 km2 catchment in Ethiopia. The objectives of this study were to: (1) assess the spatial variability of sediment yield; (2) quantify the amount of sediment delivered into the reservoir; and (3) prioritize sub-catchments for watershed management using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The SWAT model was calibrated and validated using SUFI-2, GLUE, ParaSol, and PSO SWAT-CUP optimization algorithms. For most of the SWAT-CUP simulations, the observed and simulated river discharge were not significantly different at the 95% level of confidence (95PPU), and sources of uncertainties were captured by bracketing more than 70% of the observed data. This catchment prioritization study indicated that more than 85% of the sediment was sourced from lowland areas (slope range: 0–8%) and the variation in sediment yield was more sensitive to the land use and soil type prevailing in the area regardless of the terrain slope. Contrary to the perception of the upland as an important source of sediment, the lowland in fact was the most important source of sediment and should be the focus area for improved land management practice to reduce sediment delivery into storage reservoirs. The research also showed that lowland erosion-prone areas are typified by extensive agriculture, which causes significant modification of the landscape. Tillage practice changes the infiltration and runoff characteristics of the land surface and interaction of shallow groundwater table and saturation excess runoff, which in turn affects the delivery of water and sediment to the reservoir and catchment evapotranspiration.