Five years of REDD+ governance: The use of market mechanisms as a response to anthropogenic climate change

Forest ecosystems worldwide are increasingly subjected to human intervention, leading commentators to argue that forests should be viewed as anthropogenic ecosystems. REDD+ is an emerging inter-governmental policy instrument aimed at both reducing deforestation and forest degradation and combatting climate change, whereby developed countries pay developing countries to reduce their forest-based emissions. The paper details a five-year research project to evaluate REDD+ quality of governance and develop governance standards for the mechanism. Quality of governance was evaluated in five key international institutional elements: the REDD + related negotiations in the global climate talks; the support and funding agencies UN-REDD, Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), Forest Investment Programme (FIP) and the REDD + Partnership. This research was complemented by national level governance assessments and related standards setting initiatives in Nepal and Papua New Guinea. The researchers conclude that REDD+ confronts a number of challenges, notably around resources for capacity building, and benefit sharing. In addition, the lack of provisions for changing behaviour and solving the problem of forest-based emissions in the current safeguards render them inadequate to the task of delivering quality of governance. In the absence of consistent governance standards, REDD + will only partially be successful in combatting climate change in the Anthropocene.     

Scottish farmers' intentions to afforest land in the context of farm diversification

Increasing woodland area in the United Kingdom is strongly supported in policies, but there is evidence of low rates of new planting, infrequent uptake of farm forestry, and negative attitudes to woodland among farmers. Additionally, there is a wider context of increasing farm diversification, and a need for greater understanding of farmers' attitudes and behaviour related to afforestation. This paper uses a representative survey of Scottish farmers (survey year: 2013, respondents used in analysis: 1735) to compare farmers who intended to expand forestry in future and farmers with alternative combinations of intended and past behaviour in relation to forestry. Overall, we find that certain characteristics: already operating forestry, reporting types of non-farming activities, involvement in environmental schemes, having a high education level, having a relatively high number of employees, and being relatively recent entrants to holdings, were more frequently found among farmers intending to increase forestry in future than farmers described as ‘non-increasers’ who did not intend to increase forestry and also had not expanded it in the past. Farmers with these characteristics could be a useful focus in attempts to expand woodland at larger scales, and encouraging small-scale tree planting could be an effective policy approach.     

Forest management with wildfire risk,prescribed burning and diverse carbon policies

Forests absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and also can release it back into the atmosphere through natural disturbances and management activities. In this study, the impact of different carbon policies on a landowner's management decisions is analyzed at the stand level. Wildfires as a random natural phenomenon and forestry prescribed burning as a fuel treatment tool are all considered within the framework of a generalized Faustmann model. The results reveal that harvesting rotations and land values can be affected by the level and pattern of wildfire risk, and additionally, the consideration of carbon in various policies. In response to different carbon policies, the optimal time of prescribed burning only varies slightly, but its intensity can experience much larger variations. If the landowner needs to pay for carbon emission from prescribed burning but not from a wildfire, the optimal strategy is to conduct the prescribed burning more lightly and later than in the base scenario. Overall, participation in a carbon program results in a higher land expectation value, which is beneficial to the landowner. These research findings are helpful for understanding the relation between carbon policies and the behavior of landowners, and furthermore, for improving carbon policy designs.     

改进FPAR的煤矿区植被NPP损失研究

基于遥感的CASA模型是测算植被NPP的主要方法之一,当前CASA模型中普遍以月内某一时刻或几个时刻的植被NDVI值计算光合有效辐射吸收比例(FPAR),这一方法忽略了月内FPAR的整体性和连续性,在计算中会产生较大误差.文中以煤矿区为例,首先通过时空自适应反射率融合模型构建高时空分辨率的矿区遥感影像,改进CASA模型中FPAR的计算方法,以FPAR连续函数均值代表月FPAR,并评价改进效果.通过FPAR损失量测算各植被NPP变化量,为煤矿区生态环境变化做出科学的判断.     

Contrasting development of soil microbial community structure under no-tilled perennial and tilled cropping during early pedogenesis of a Mollisol

A range of agricultural practices influence soil microbial communities, such as tillage and organic C inputs, however such effects are largely unknown at the initial stage of soil formation. Using an eight-year field experiment established on exposed parent material (PM) of a Mollisol, our objectives were to: (1) to determine the effects of field management and soil depth on soil microbial community structure; (2) to elucidate shifts in microbial community structure in relation to PM, compared to an arable Mollisol (MO) without organic amendment; and (3) to identify the controlling factors of such changes in microbial community structure. The treatments included two no-tilled soils supporting perennial crops, and four tilled soils under the same cropping system, with or without chemical fertilization and crop residue amendment. Principal component (PC) analysis of phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) profiles demonstrated that microbial community structures were affected by tillage and/or organic and inorganic inputs via PC1 and by land use and/or soil depth via PC2. All the field treatments were separated by PM into two groups via PC1, the tilled and the no-tilled soils, with the tilled soils more developed towards MO. The tilled soils were separated with respect to MO via PC1 associated with the differences in mineral fertilization and the quality of organic amendments, with the soils without organic amendment being more similar to MO. The separations via PC1 were principally driven by bacteria and associated with soil pH and soil C, N and P. The separations via PC2 were driven by fungi, actinomycetes and Gram (−) bacteria, and associated with soil bulk density. The separations via both PC1 and PC2 were associated with soil aggregate stability and exchangeable K, indicating the effects of weathering and soil aggregation. The results suggest that in spite of the importance of mineral fertilization and organic amendments, tillage and land-use type play a significant role in determining the nature of the development of associated soil microbial community structures at the initial stages of soil formation.     

Achieving legislation requirements with different nitrogen fertilization strategies: Results from a long term experiment

The Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC, Anonymous, 1991) was developed in Europe to limit environmental threats from intensive livestock farming and N fertilizer applications to crops. It imposed several rules on farmers and public bodies, one of which was nutrient fertilization plan adoption. Here we use results from the Tetto Frati (Northern Italy) Long-Term Experiment to verify the terms and coefficients in the official Italian guidelines and evaluate the limitations imposed to organic fertilization amounts. For this purpose, we mined long-term experimental data of crop yield, N uptake, N use efficiency, and soil organic matter content from miscellanea cropping systems fertilized with farmyard manure (FYM) and bovine slurry (SLU), typical of a dairy farm in Northern Italy. N fertilization efficiency indicators (Removal to Fertilizer ratio, Apparent Recovery and Nitrogen Fertilizer Replacement Value) indicated that in the long run, FYM behaved similarly to urea, and better than SLU. Even N supply rates as high as 250 kg N ha⁻¹ were justified by high rates of crop removal. In fact, among the terms of the mass-balance equation, SOM mineralization was found to be most relevant, followed by meadow rotation residual effects. We conclude that a revised Nitrates Directives application scheme could be more relaxed in its application limit of manure-N, but should be more ambitious in setting efficiency coefficients for manure fertilization.     

Monitoring wheat phenology and irrigation in Central Morocco: On the use of relationships between evapotranspiration,crops coefficients,leaf area index and remotely-sensed vegetation indices

The monitoring of crop production and irrigation at a regional scale can be based on the use of ecosystem process models and remote sensing data. The former simulate the time courses of the main biophysical variables which affect crop photosynthesis and water consumption at a fine time step (hourly or daily); the latter allows to provide the spatial distribution of these variables over a region of interest at a time span from 10 days to a month. In this context, this study investigates the feasibility of using the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from remote sensing data to provide indirect estimates of: (1) the leaf area index (LAI), which is a key-variable of many crop process models; and (2) crop coefficients, which represent the ratio of actual (AET) to reference (ET₀) evapotranspiration.A first analysis is performed based on a dataset collected at field in an irrigated area of the Haouz plain (region of Marrakesh, Central Morocco) during the 2002–2003 agricultural season. The seasonal courses of NDVI, LAI, AET and ET₀ have been compared, then crop coefficients have been calculated using a method that allows roughly to separate soil evaporation from plant transpiration. This allows to compute the crop basal coefficient (K_cb) restricted to the plant transpiration process. Finally, three relationships have been established. The relationships between LAI and NDVI as well as between LAI and K_cb were found both exponential, with associated errors of 30% and 15%, respectively. Because the NDVI saturates at high LAI values (>4), the use of remotely-sensed data results in poor accuracy of LAI estimates for well-developed canopies. However, this inaccuracy was not found critical for transpiration estimates since AET appears limited to ET₀ for well-developed canopies. As a consequence, the relationship between NDVI and K_cb was found linear and of good accuracy (15%).Based on these relationships, maps of LAI and transpiration requirements have been derived from two Landsat7-ETM+ images acquired at the beginning and the middle of the agricultural season. These maps show the space and time variability in crop development and water requirements over a 3 km × 3 km irrigated area that surrounds the fields of study. They may give an indication on how the water should be distributed over the area of interest in order to improve the efficiency of irrigation. The availability, in the near future, of Earth Observation Systems designed to provide both high spatial resolution (10 m) and frequent revisit (day) would make it feasible to set up such approaches for the operational monitoring of crop phenology and irrigation at a regional scale.     

Does repeated burial of skeletal muscle tissue (Ovis aries) in soil affect subsequent decomposition?

The repeated introduction of an organic resource to soil can result in its enhanced degradation. This phenomenon is of primary importance in agroecosystems, where the dynamics of repeated nutrient, pesticide, and herbicide amendment must be understood to achieve optimal yield. Although not yet investigated, the repeated introduction of cadaveric material is an important area of research in forensic science and cemetery planning. It is not currently understood what effects the repeated burial of cadaveric material has on cadaver decomposition or soil processes such as carbon mineralization. To address this gap in knowledge, we conducted a laboratory experiment using ovine (Ovis aries) skeletal muscle tissue (striated muscle used for locomotion) and three contrasting soils (brown earth, rendzina, podsol) from Great Britain. This experiment comprised two stages. In Stage I skeletal muscle tissue (150 g as 1.5 g cubes) was buried in sieved (4.6 mm) soil (10 kg dry weight) calibrated to 60% water holding capacity and allowed to decompose in the dark for 70 days at 22 °C. Control samples comprised soil without skeletal muscle tissue. In Stage II, soils were weighed (100 g dry weight at 60% WHC) into 1285 ml incubation microcosms. Half of the soils were designated for a second tissue amendment, which comprised the burial (2.5 cm) of 1.5 g cube of skeletal muscle tissue. The remaining half of the samples did not receive tissue. Thus, four treatments were used in each soil, reflecting all possible combinations of tissue burial (+) and control (−). Subsequent measures of tissue mass loss, carbon dioxide-carbon evolution, soil microbial biomass carbon, metabolic quotient and soil pH show that repeated burial of skeletal muscle tissue was associated with a significantly greater rate of decomposition in all soils. However, soil microbial biomass following repeated burial was either not significantly different (brown earth, podsol) or significantly less (rendzina) than new gravesoil. Based on these results, we conclude that enhanced decomposition of skeletal muscle tissue was most likely due to the proliferation of zymogenous soil microbes able to better use cadaveric material re-introduced to the soil.     

Parsimoniously modelling perennial vegetation suitability and identifying priority areas to support China's re-vegetation program in the Loess Plateau: Matching model complexity to data availability

The Chinese Central government's policy to re-vegetate large areas of the Loess Plateau is currently being rapidly implemented at the provincial, prefecture, county, township, and village levels of government. Managers at these five levels of government need access to information to assist them to plan the land use change prior to performing on-ground activities. To this end, the suitability of 38 predominately native species in the 113,000 km² Coarse Sandy Hilly Catchments (CSHC) has been mapped at a 100 m resolution. In this data-sparse region, this was achieved by using a five-variable spatial overlay approach as we were able to readily access the required environmental variables and rule-set defining the species’ requirements (or tolerances). As the rules did not consider optimal growth they were possibly ‘too inclusive’, so the spatial extent of areas suggested for re-planting was refined by defining ‘target areas’ for trees, shrubs and grasses based on precipitation, aspect, landform, and slope. In the land-use planning criteria developed here we suggest that hill-slopes and gullies with slopes greater than or equal to 15° (defined from a 100 m resolution DEM) be left for natural succession. Due to lateral flow of water, sediment and nutrients from these steep slope and gullies, further prioritising re-vegetation target areas to the zone adjacent to and down slope from these steep portions of the landscape reduces sediment entering the river network with a minimal decrease of regional stream flow. These two functions (mapping species suitability and locating where priority and target re-vegetation activities should be undertaken) are available at a 100 m resolution for the entire CSHC by accessing a bilingual decision support tool called ReVegIH (Re-Vegetation Impacts on Hydrology). Finally, an ecohydrological model was used to simulate changes in average annual stream flow originating from the CSHC based on implementing the ‘target’ and ‘priority’ area re-vegetation activities within the constraints of two land limits.