The Experts below are selected from a list of 40500 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Jefferson S Hall - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the tree planting and protecting culture of cattle ranchers and small scale agriculturalists in rural panama opportunities for reforestation and Land Restoration
Forest Ecology and Management, 2011Co-Authors: Eva J Garen, Kristin Saltonstall, Mark S Ashton, Jacob L Slusser, Shane Mathias, Jefferson S HallAbstract:To examine the opportunities available for designing diverse tree planting and Land Restoration initiatives in agricultural Landscapes that contain tropical dry forests, the tree planting and protecting practices of cattle ranchers and small-scale agriculturalists were examined in two study sites in rural Panama. Ninety-nine tree species were identified that they utilize, plant, or protect on their Land, the majority of which are native to Panama. The farmers had diverse reasons for maintaining trees, including improving the environment, providing food and shade for cattle, and generating a source of wood for construction, furniture, and firewood. Most of the trees mentioned in the study provide multiple uses and values and the majority of farmers wanted to plant additional trees. Some differences in species preferences and motivations for planting and protecting trees were seen between sites, thereby suggesting that Land Restoration and tree planting projects should be site specific. Our data indicate that there are ample opportunities to increase native tree cover in our study sites and highlight the need to incorporate farmer input into project design, implementation, and evaluation as a necessary and continuous feature throughout projects.
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the ecology and ecosystem services of native trees implications for reforestation and Land Restoration in mesoamerica
Forest Ecology and Management, 2011Co-Authors: Jefferson S Hall, Eva J Garen, Mark S Ashton, Shibu JoseAbstract:Abstract Tropical forests provide a variety of goods and services to humanity. Although efforts to protect and manage these forests have increased in recent decades, forest loss continues. The last decade and a half has seen considerable research on reforestation with native species in Mesoamerica, including both biophysical and social aspects. Advances in knowledge have led to increasingly sophisticated reforestation treatments as well as novel ways of deriving forest goods and services from human dominated Landscapes. This Special Issue includes articles produced as the result of a conference held in Panama City, Panama in January 2010 with the goal to summarize the state of knowledge of native species reforestation and associated ecosystems services in Mesoamerica. The introduction concludes with a call for continued research, including a mechanistic understanding of tree interactions with the biophysical environment in order to advance or knowledge of ecosystem services and their interactions. Results from these and other studies aimed at socioeconomic aspects of reforestation are critical to Land use planning.
Louis V Verchot - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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characterizing and evaluating the impacts of national Land Restoration initiatives on ecosystem services in ethiopia
Land Degradation & Development, 2020Co-Authors: Wuletawu Abera, Lulseged Tamene, Degefie Tibebe, Zenebe Adimassu, Habtemariam Kassa, Habtamu Hailu, Kindu Mekonnen, Gizaw Desta, Rolf Sommer, Louis V VerchotAbstract:Land Restoration is considered to be the remedy for 21st century global challenges of Land degradation. As a result, various Land Restoration and conservation efforts are underway at different scales. Ethiopia is one of the countries with huge investments in Land Restoration. Tremendous Land management practices have been implemented across the country since the 1970s. However, the spatial distribution of the interventions has not been documented, and there is no systematic, quantitative evidence on whether Land Restoration efforts have achieved the Restoration of desired ecosystem services. Therefore, we carried out a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed scientific literature related to Land Restoration efforts and their impacts in Ethiopia. Results show that most of the large-scale projects have been implemented in the highLands, specifically in Tigray and Amhara regions covering about 24 agroecological zones, and Land Restoration impact studies are mostly focused in the highLands but restricted in about 11 agroecological zones. The highest mean effect on agricultural productivity is obtained from the combination of bunds and biological interventions followed by conservation agriculture practices with 170% and 18% increases, respectively. However, bunds alone, biological intervention alone, and terracing (fanya juu) reveal negative effects on productivity. The mean effect of all Land Restoration interventions on soil organic carbon is positive, the highest effect being from “bunds + biological” (139%) followed by exclosure (90%). Reduced soil erosion and runoff are the dominant impacts of all interventions. The results can be used to improve existing guidelines to better match Land Restoration options with specific desired ecosystem functions and services. Although the focus of this study was on the evaluation of the impacts of Land Restoration efforts on selected ecosystem services, impacts on livelihood and national socioeconomy have not been examined. Thus, strengthening socioeconomic studies at national scale to assess the sustainability of Land Restoration initiatives is an essential next step.
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Land Restoration in latin america and the caribbean an overview of recent ongoing and planned Restoration initiatives and their potential for climate change mitigation
Forests, 2019Co-Authors: E Romijn, Martin Herold, R Coppus, Rosa Maria Romancuesta, Louis V VerchotAbstract:Land degradation is a globally recognized problem and Restoration of degraded Land is currently high on the international agenda. Forest Landscape Restoration and other restorative ecosystem management activities are important measures that contribute towards reaching the objectives of the Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 350 million hectares by 2030. In this context, many Restoration projects are being planned and implemented in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). We present an overview of the location, goals and activities, and an estimated climate change mitigation potential of 154 recent, ongoing and planned Restoration projects in LAC. Our analysis suggests that most projects are located in the humid tropics and less attention is paid to dryLands. Increasing vegetation cover, biodiversity recovery and recovery of ecological processes are the most common goals. Restorative activities to fulfil these goals were diverse and were related to the type and source of funding that projects receive. For example, projects implemented through the Forest Investment Program (FIP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) generally rely on natural or assisted regeneration over large areas (>20,000 ha), whereas Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects establish forest plantations, often including exotic monocultures, in smaller project areas (
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what is out there a typology of Land Restoration projects in latin america and the caribbean
Environmental Research Communications, 2019Co-Authors: R Coppus, J E Romijn, Moises Mendeztoribio, Carolina Murcia, Evert Thomas, Martin Herold, Louis V VerchotAbstract:Restoring degraded Lands is high on the international agenda and the number of Restoration projects in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has increased considerably over the past decades. However, the variety of approaches used have not been systematically documented and analyzed. We aimed to develop a Restoration typology as a function of the geographical and socio-economical setting, planning, timeframe, finances, implementation, monitoring and potential impact, which will help to discern broad patterns and identify gaps in project implementation in LAC. We categorized 97 Restoration projects using Multiple Correspondence Analysis and a Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components. Three main Restoration types emerged from the clustering, with the main defining variables being: (1) project area under Restoration, (2) amount of funding received, (3) source of funding and (4) monitoring efforts. The first type are large-scale projects, which receive high amounts of funding provided by international donors, and with a well-established monitoring plan; the second type are projects financed with private money, typically lacking a sound monitoring program; and the third type represents small projects with low amounts of funding, financed with public funds from national governments, often with a rudimentary monitoring plan. The typology enables a comparative analysis of the status and trends of Restoration activities across Latin America. We conclude that, despite growing awareness and recognition that integrated approaches are needed to revert complex and interconnected socio-economic and environmental issues like Land degrada-tion, the socio-economic dimension remains underexposed in the majority of Restoration projects, whereas monitoring is still regarded as an extra cost instead of a necessary investment.
Simone Quatrini - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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most finance to halt desertification also benefits multiple ecosystem services a key to unlock investments in Land degradation neutrality
Ecosystem services, 2018Co-Authors: Simone Quatrini, Neville D CrossmanAbstract:Abstract Quantifying the demand for multiple ecosystem services is difficult because it is subjective and heterogeneous. Using Land degradation as a case study, this paper explores Land Restoration finance as a proxy for global ecosystem service demand. Land degradation has been high on the UN agenda since the 1992 Rio Summit, together with climate change and biodiversity. The supply of many ecosystem services is declining due to Land degradation and desertification, particularly in dryLands. The inclusion of a Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) target in the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development reaffirmed the commitment by the international community to tackle this global environmental challenge. If this vision adequately reflects society’s values, as expressed through demand for ecosystem services, we should see Land Restoration finance targeting areas where potential ecosystem service supply could be enhanced the most. To test this hypothesis, we used spatial analysis of key ecosystem services, as well as comparative analysis of synergistic values and other indicators of financial resources committed between 2008 and 2013 to address Land degradation. These activities can generate multiple benefits for many ecosystem functions and services. Official activity-level environmental ratings – called Rio Markers – were used to identify those activities that were intended to produce multiple ecosystem services benefits in terms of Land Restoration, biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation. Our analysis concludes that many Land Restoration activities are synergistic and reveals other important aspects: (i) developing countries report, on average, higher synergistic values than developed countries and development finance organizations; (ii) donor countries report more conservatively than recipient countries; (iii) multi-purpose synergistic projects attract more funders than single-purpose ones. In some cases countries with high ecosystem service supply receive higher investment, but this finding is not strong, indicating that investment could be more strategically targeted. These findings suggest, in particular, that the synergistic features of multi-purpose Land Restoration activities could be harnessed to enhance investment effectiveness and impact. This, in turn, would make LDN finance more prominent in development aid portfolios and in public/private sustainable investment strategies.
Ugo Leonardi - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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remote sensing monitoring of Land Restoration interventions in semi arid environments using a before after control impact statistical design
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 2017Co-Authors: Michele Meroni, Anne Schucknecht, Dominique Fasbender, Felix Rembold, Francesco Fava, Margaux Mauclaire, Deborah Goffner, Luisa Maddalena Di Lucchio, Ugo LeonardiAbstract:Restoration interventions to combat desertification and Land degradation are carried out in arid and semi-arid areas to improve vegetation cover and Land productivity. Evaluating the success of an intervention is challenging due various data constrains and the lack of standardized and affordable methodologies. We propose a semi-automatic methodology to provide a first, standardised and objective assessment of the biophysical impact, in terms of vegetation cover, of Restoration interventions using remote sensing data. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used as a proxy of vegetation cover. Recognizing that changes in the environment are natural (e.g. due to the seasonal vegetation development cycle and the inter-annual climate variability), conclusions about the success of the intervention cannot be drawn by focussing on the intervention area only. We thus use a comparative method that analyses the temporal (before/after the intervention) variations of the NDVI of the impacted area with respect to multiple control sites that are automatically selected. The method provides an estimate of the magnitude of the differential change of the intervention area and the statistical significance of the no-change hypothesis test. Controls are randomly drawn from a set of candidates that are similar to the intervention area. As an example, the methodology is applied to Restoration interventions carried out within the framework of the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative in Senegal. The impact of the interventions is analysed using data at two different resolutions: 250 m of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and 30 m of the Landsat mission.
Sam Drake - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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effectiveness of sand fixing measures on desert Land Restoration in kerqin sandy Land northern china
Ecological Engineering, 2009Co-Authors: Jianyuan Cui, Tonghui Zhang, Toshiya Okuro, Sam DrakeAbstract:Abstract In the semi-arid Kerqin Sandy Land of north China, Land desertification and frequent sand storms in the spring strongly affect the growth of grassLand vegetation and crops, and give rise to large reductions in yield as a result of wind erosion and sand dune movement. To bring desertification under control and reduce its influence on grassLand and farmLands, many measures have been developed and implemented for stabilizing mobile sand dunes and restoring desertified grassLands. This study was conducted from 1996 to 2003 to evaluate the effectiveness of desert Land Restoration after implementation of sand-fixing measures. The results showed that construction of straw checkerboards and planting of shrub seedlings significantly enhances topsoil development on the dune surface, increasing silt and clay content and facilitating accumulation of soil carbon and total N, as well as accelerating an increase in plant diversity, vegetation cover and plant density. These findings suggest that using straw checkerboards and planting shrubs are successful methods for mobile sand dune stabilization and desertified grassLand Restoration in semiarid regions. The mechanism creating these changes is a reduction in wind erosion and improvement of the soil environment for plants. In addition, our results showed that construction of straw checkerboards was slightly more effective in vegetation and soil Restoration in comparison with planting shrub seedlings, especially at the primary stage.
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shrub facilitation of desert Land Restoration in the horqin sand Land of inner mongolia
Ecological Engineering, 2007Co-Authors: Halin Zhao, Ruilian Zhou, Hua Zhang, Liya Zhao, Sam DrakeAbstract:To understand the status and roles of shrubs in recovery processes of desertified Land in the semi-arid areas of China, we investigated the effects of shrub canopy on soil properties, organic litter, seed bank and understory herbaceous community properties in the Horqin Sand Land, Mongolia. The results showed that in shifting sand dunes, content of very fine sand, silt and clay, organic matter, total N and P, available P and soil moisture at 0–20 cm depth was higher under remnant shrub canopies of Caragana microphylla and Salix gordejevii than in open space. Soil seed density was nearly 12 times higher under Artemisia halodendron canopy than in open space. The herbaceous perennial Pennisetum centrasiaticum, usually restricted to fixed sand dunes, not only survived under shrub canopy in shifting sand dunes, but also had higher plant densities, plant height, cover and aboveground biomass. After fencing shifting sand dunes and establishing shrub plantings, fine soil particles, soil nutrients, plant species richness, vegetation cover and aboveground biomass increased gradually both under shrub canopy and in open spaces with increasing enclosure or plantation age, but the speed of Restoration processes was significantly higher under canopy compared to open spaces. These results suggest that shrubs created significant “isLands of fertility” and had an important role in maintaining or augmenting herbaceous species richness in shifting sand dunes, and could improve soil properties and facilitate vegetation recovery for controlling desertification processes.
