The study evaluated India’s bioclimatic, topographical, and ecological parameters for identifying the landscape potentiality for the restoration of afforestation strategies in Tree Outside Forest (TOF). Potentially suitable spatial factors such as decadal annual soil moisture, annual climate (precipitation, temperature, and aridity index), topography (slope), ecology (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), soil fertility (nutrient availability, nutrient retention capacity, rooting conditions, oxygen availability to roots, excess salts, and toxicity) and Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) types were identified and brought into Geographical Information System (GIS) for integration based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) statistical methods. The analysis revealed that approximately 133 million hectares of the TOF landscape have a greater than 60% potential for restoration of afforestation goals for landscape conservation, biodiversity, and ecosystem services and will serve more or less 15 out of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) linked to the betterment of society, economy, and environment. There is a need for 50 billion tree targets in India that will act as a sink for approximately 0.85 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually and many of them can be grown in a potentially suitable TOF landscape. This study is important for policymakers because it will serve as an outstanding synergic future strategy with long-term goals for tree expansion in the TOF of India.
Tag: Afforestation
Ten golden rules for reforestation to optimize carbon sequestration, biodiversity recovery and livelihood benefits
Urgent solutions to global climate change are needed. Ambitious tree-planting initiatives, many already underway, aim to sequester enormous quantities of carbon to partly compensate for anthropogenic CO2 emissions, which are a major cause of rising global temperatures. However, tree planting that is poorly planned and executed could actually increase CO2 emissions and have long-term, deleterious impacts on biodiversity, landscapes and livelihoods. Here, we highlight the main environmental risks of large-scale tree planting and propose 10 golden rules, based on some of the most recent ecological research, to implement forest ecosystem restoration that maximizes rates of both carbon sequestration and biodiversity recovery while improving livelihoods. These are as follows: (1) Protect existing forest first; (2) Work together (involving all stakeholders); (3) Aim to maximize biodiversity recovery to meet multiple goals; (4) Select appropriate areas for restoration; (5) Use natural regeneration wherever possible; (6) Select species to maximize biodiversity; (7) Use resilient plant material (with appropriate genetic variability and provenance); (8) Plan ahead for infrastructure, capacity and seed supply; (9) Learn by doing (using an adaptive management approach); and (10) Make it pay (ensuring the economic sustainability of the project). We focus on the design of long-term strategies to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises and support livelihood needs. We emphasize the role of local communities as sources of indigenous knowledge, and the benefits they could derive from successful reforestation that restores ecosystem functioning and delivers a diverse range of forest products and services. While there is no simple and universal recipe for forest restoration, it is crucial to build upon the currently growing public and private interest in this topic, to ensure interventions provide effective, long-term carbon sinks and maximize benefits for biodiversity and people.
Mapping Agroforestry and Trees Outside Forest
Mapping the Extents of Agroforestry using Geo-informatics Agroforestry is a collective name for land-use systems and practices in which woody perennials are deliberately integrated with crops and/or animals on the same land-management unit. The integration can be either in a spatial mixture or in a temporal sequence. There are normally both ecological and economic interactions between the woody and non-woody components in agroforestry. In recent years, there has been a shift in the focus of agroforestry research from the plot or field scale to the landscape scale, which has uncovered the multiple benefits that trees provide in agricultural landscapes. But the spatial distribution and extent of agroforestry was not well understood earlier due to the complexity involved in accurately mapping agroforestry and Trees Outside Forest (TOF) in mixed tree/crop/ livestock systems. As per ISFR 2019, all trees growing outside recorded forest areas irrespective of patch size are referred as Trees Outside Forest. A major problem in estimating the area under agroforestry is the lack of procedures for delineating the area influenced by trees in a mixed stand of trees and crops. Besides, simultaneous agroforestry where the tree and the crop components grow at the same time and in close enough proximity for interactions to occur is more complex. As in simultaneous systems, the entire area occupied by multistrata systems such as home gardens, shaded perennial systems and intensive treeintercropping situations can be listed as agroforestry. The problem is more difficult in the case of practices such as windbreaks and boundary planting where trees are planted at a wide distance between rows (windbreak) or around agricultural fields (boundary planting). In such cases, the influence of trees extends over a larger area than is easily perceivable. In addition, there is a general lack of systematically collected ground reference information for the development of predictive models for the extent of agroforestry area, as well as for the validation of these estimates.
Dynamics of soil organic carbon pools following conversion of savannah to cocoa agroforestry systems in the Centre region of Cameroon
Afforestation of gramineous-woody savannah with cocoa agroforestry systems (cAFS) is a common farmer practice in Cameroon considered as sustainable. Nevertheless, the effects of afforestation of savannah with cAFS on soil organic carbon (SOC) turnover and content, and the factors controlling SOC accumulation and stabilization are unknown. SOC content at 0–10 cm soil layer, and SOC distribution in soil particle size fractions (0–20 μm fraction considered as mineral-associated organic carbon, MAOC; 50–2000 μm considered as particulate organic carbon, POC; and 20–50 μm), were compared in different systems settled on degraded savannah (orthic ferralsols). These systems included annual cropland (≈ 5 years old), cocoa monoculture (≈10 years old), and cAFS (from 20 to 60 years old) including different shade tree species such as Albizia adianthifolia, Canarium schweinfurthii, Dacryodes edulis, Milicia excelsa and Ceiba pentandra. Savannah and nearby secondary forest patches were also included in the design as controls. Soil 13C was analysed to investigate the soil carbon turnover after afforestation (C3 plants) of gramineous savannah (C4 plants).
GIS modeling of environmental parameters for identification of landscape for expansion of biodiversity conservation, and greenery projects (a case study for Neom region, Saudi Arabia)
Trees play vital roles in urban space such as regulating temperature in a microclimatic environment, maintaining soil health, providing oxygen, and many direct and indirect human health benefits. The study evaluated the bioclimatic parameters of the proposed Neom geographical area for identifying the potential landscape for tree scaling linked to biodiversity conservation strategies. The potentially suitable ten spatial factors (slope; elevation: DEM, soil wetness; Normalized Difference Vegetation Index: Landsat data, aridity index, annual precipitation, annual temperature, potential evapotranspiration, the temperature of the coldest quarter, and temperature of the warmest quarter) were identified and brought into GIS modeling for integration based on AHP statistical methods. The hotspot analysis (Getis-Ord Gi* statistic) was carried out for better understanding. The analysis revealed that approximately 22% (4948 km2) of the landscape has greater than 50% of potentiality for restoration of nature conservation goals linked to biodiversity, afforestation, and ecosystem services. The hotspot analysis manifested that 2596 km2 (with a 99% of confidence level) has high suitability for biodiversity conservation goals if harnessed scientifically. Neom’s proposed area needs one billion additional trees as carbon neutrality to accommodate one million persons in the future. This research is important because this is the first preliminary evaluation modeled in the GIS environment based on standard statistical methods for making outstanding synergic future strategies for the expansion of biodiversity conservation, and greenery projects within the proposed land area of Neom.