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Agroforestry is widely recognized as a promising strategy for climate change adaptation and mitigation, partly because trees modify the microclimate and can thereby stabilize crop yields under increasing climatic variability and fluctuating water availability. However, how these microclimatic modifications influence precipitation partitioning, atmospheric evaporative demand (AED) and crop water-use efficiency (WUE) has received comparatively little research attention, particularly in temperate alley cropping systems (ACS). In this study, we analysed spatial patterns of precipitation (measured at gauge height), reference evapotranspiration (ET0) and WUE at varying distances from tree strips in a temperate ACS and an open field (OF) reference across three crops and two growing seasons. Higher precipitation amounts were frequently recorded in the ACS, particularly near tree strips, while values within the crop alley were often lowest at the centre position. ET0 was consistently lower in the ACS than in the OF and showed distinct spatial variability within the alley. WUE patterns depended strongly on the calculation approach: evapotranspiration-based WUE was generally higher at mid-alley positions than in the OF, whereas precipitation-based WUE showed comparable values between systems. Notably, these differences in evapotranspiration-based WUE occurred despite similar grain yields and were primarily driven by reduced AED rather than higher yields. Overall, our results show that tree-induced microclimatic buffering reduces AED within crop alleys and that resulting differences in WUE strongly depend on the metric used.
Alleviating water scarcity and ending hunger are two Sustainable Development Goals that are inextricably linked, as 70% of water is used for agricultural production. However, assessing and identifying improved water management requires costly field trials or knowledge and data to run agro-hydrological models. This thesis addresses this challenge by integrating an agro-hydrological model with global soil, crop and climate datasets into a user-friendly, web-based agricultural water management assessment tool, the Cool Farm Tool Water (CFTW). This dissertation substantially contributes to the development and assessment of this modelling framework as well as identifies levers to enhance the model performance. Model results were compared to published scientific field trials, eddy covariance observations as well as Water Footprint Network data. Finally, the model framework was applied to five cereals across India between 2005 and 2014, representing a high spatial, inter- and intra-annual heterogeneity. The modelling framework explained 96% of the variability in seasonal water footprints and reduced the error of water footprints by 70% compared to state-level averages by the Water Footprint Network. However, CFTW captured only 50% of the variance in seasonal crop water use. CFTW enables the assessment of the daily dynamics of evapotranspiration, can reproduce daily crop water stress but overestimates irrigation requirements by an average of 40%. It helps identify relative improvements in agricultural water management but lacks the accuracy for absolute assessments. Using local input data reduced the bias from 18.6% to 4.3% for evapotranspiration. While results showed site- and season-specific differences, the greatest model improvement is replacing global precipitation data with local observations, reducing e.g. the bias by 70.6% for daily water use. Water footprints and water use of India revealed the importance of considering crop-, season-, year- and location-specific differences. Total Rabi (dry season) water footprints were between 33.4% and 45.0% lower than Kharif (monsoon) water footprints. However, the Rabi blue water footprints accounted for up to 78.3%. Overall, India increased cereal production by 26.4% without utilising additional water resources, mainly through increases in yield, partly by shifting production to the higher-yielding Rabi season. CFTW supports addressing water scarcity and food security at seasonal timescales and, to some extent, at daily timescales. Global datasets combined with an uncalibrated agro-hydrological model can inform improved agricultural water management by providing water footprints, water use and water stress. However, model outcomes also revealed considerable offsets. These results highlight the difficulties of overcoming data scarcity in decision support tools for agricultural water management. The rapid development of global datasets may help to overcome identified limitations in the future.
Assessing alternative agricultural water management strategies requires long-term field trials or vast data collection for model calibration and simulation. This work aims to assess whether an uncalibrated agro-hydrological model using global input datasets for climate, soil and crop information can serve as a decision support tool for crop water management under data scarcity. This study employs the Cool Farm Tool Water (CFTW) at eight eddy covariance sites of the FLUXNET2015 dataset. CFTW is tested using global (CFTWglobal) and local (CFTWlocal) input datasets under current and alternative management scenarios. Results show that the use of global datasets for estimating daily evapotranspiration had little effect on the median Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) (CFTWglobal: 1.70 mm, CFTWlocal: 1.79 mm), while, however, the median model bias is much greater (CFTWglobal: - 18.6%, CFTWlocal: - 4.3%). Furthermore, the periods of water stress were little affected by the use of local or global data (median accuracy: 0.84), whereas the use of global data inputs led to a significant overestimation of irrigation water requirements (median difference: 110 mm). The model performance improves predominantly through the use of more representative local precipitation data, followed by local reference evapotranspiration and soil for some European growing seasons. We identify model outputs that can support decision-making when relying on global data, such as periods of water stress and the daily dynamics of water use. However, our findings also emphasize the difficulty of overcoming data scarcity in decision-making in agricultural water management. Furthermore, we provide recommendations for enhancing model performance and thus may increase the accessibility of reliable decision support tools in the future.
In order to integrate necessary interdisciplinary complexity, sustainability, defined targets and endpoints for reclamation progress, the objective of this research is to advance reclamation knowledge on (i) international scale and (ii) national scale, taking Nigeria as an example. On the international scale (i), a systematic reclamation threshold scale for assessing, evaluating, documenting, and monitoring reclamation progress was developed. The threshold stages begin from the initial state I0 down to degraded state D0 (depending on the type of mining). Reclamation starts with soil reconstruction R-2 up to revegetation R-1 (red zones) to reach minimum threshold R0 (amber zone). Beyond R0 are the green zones R1, R2, and R3 representing soil/abiotic condition, biological and improved threshold respectively. Adaptation of the threshold model to degraded ecosystems in national and international laws is recommended. On the national scale with Nigeria (ii), endowed with over 34 solid minerals and abundant crude oil, findings show that almost all mine sites are below the minimum threshold scale R0. The sites are adversely affected by Artisanal and Small Scale Mining (ASM), whereby, contamination and soil lithology disturbances are the state-of-the-art discussions. However, bioremediation (phytoremediation) is the most feasible remediation technique. Therefore, for the crude oil contaminated sites, this study highlights typical cogitation for large in-situ implementation and potential species for remediation. For the mineral resources, gold mining was the typical example. As a practical approach, experimental areas on an abandoned mining site (Site 1), an active mining site (Site 2) and an undisturbed vegetation site (Control) in southwestern Nigeria were mapped out to represent its mining and farming activities. On the sites, (a) the impacts of the ASM activities on the floristic association were assessed. (b) the potential of 2D Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) was explored to characterize the horizontal and vertical landscape homogeneity of the mine sites, and lastly, (c) the study identified native high-accumulating plants growing on the sites that can be employed for phytoremediation. Thus, the results show that (a) the floristic association of the mine sites have been stressed and disturbed. (b) the resistivity structure of the sites shows that ASM has greatly impaired the lithological status of the sites. (c) out of the 9 considered species, Crinum jagus has the highest accumulation factor of 8.71, 37.47, 1.08 and 29.38 for Pb, Cd, Fe and Cu respectively. It is a recommendable novel plant in the tropics. However, future studies must verify its hyperaccumulator potentials, identify other high accumulating species and develop effective approaches and policies to curb ASM activities and enhance remediation in Nigeria.
With regard to the depletion of global phosphorus reserves and with the aim of ensuring sustainable soil fertility on agricultural soils, a fundamental understanding of mechanisms of fixation and mobilization of inorganic phosphorus in soils is required. Amongst others, phosphorus availability is affected by ad- and desorption reactions on pedogenic Fe- and Al-hydroxide surfaces. The characterization of phosphate binding on those contrasting mineral surfaces can help to find solutions for enhancing the mobilization of fertilized but not available soil inorganic phosphate. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopic experiments were carried out during phosphorus adsorption on crystalline gibbsite, poorly crystalline 2-line-ferrihydrite and amorphous Fe:Al-hydroxide mixtures. Desorption experiments with CaCl₂, CaSO₄, citric acid (C₆H₈O₇), and humic acid (C₉H₉NO₆) were conducted to determine the capacity of phosphate fixation and mobilization in short- and long-term. Additionally, phosphorus release from the Fe- and Ca-phosphates vivianite and hydroxyapatite were analyzed.
For gibbsite, the formation of AlHPO₄ and Al₂HPO₄ can be assumed, while for ferrihydrite, a FeHPO₄ or Fe₂PO₄ complex and the precipitation of FePO₄ with longer equilibration time were observed. Fe₂HPO₄ or a Fe₂PO₄ surface complex was deduced for amorphous Fe-hydroxides, an AlH₂PO₄ surface complex was identified for Al-hydroxides. The weakly associated amorphous FeO(OH) molecules enhance the precipitation of FePO₄. With high Al content, a weaker phosphate binding of both inner- and outer-sphere complexes and either no or minor quantities of precipitate were formed. Ferrihydrite showed a more rigid structure and a lower extent of precipitation compared to amorphous Fe-hydroxide. The cumulative phosphorus desorption followed the order CaCl₂ < CaSO₄ < humic acid < citric acid for crystalline and amorphous Fe- and Al-hydroxides as well for vivianite and hydroxyapatite. While inorganic anion exchange took part at easily available binding sites and fast exchangeable phosphorus, organic acids additionally affect the more heavily available binding sites and slow exchangeable phosphorus. For humic acid, the accumulation of metal-organic complexes in the desorption solution was suggested, whereas for citric acid the dissolution of the minerals was maintained. The cumulative release rates of the Flow-Through-Reactor setup were higher compared to batch due to a short residence time and a continuous concentration gradient. This could lead either to an over- or underestimation of the available phosphorus pools and influenced the comparability of both methods.
An empirical and simulation-based assessment of tree growth in temperate alley-cropping systems
(2020)
The potential of biomass generated from dedicated energy crops, used in short-rotation coppices (SRC), progressively grows recognition as a flexible primary source for the generation of energy, heat, fuel, and bio-based materials and chemicals. The alley-cropping systems (ACSs), which can integrate tree strips managed as SRC into agriculturally managed fields, are often regarded as an adaptable multi-crop land-use strategy that can provide ecological and economic benefits. The research aim of the present dissertation has focused on investigating the prospective implications of different site-specific conditions and scenarios on tree growth in ACSs with SRC, thus incorporating several experimental and simulation-based studies. For this, the ability of a process-oriented, eco-physiological tree growth model was investigated in order to (i) impute missing empirical data, thus securing a reliable repository of tree growth characteristics, (ii) simulate the tree growth in terms of woody biomass production in strong relation to the interactions with adjacent crops and their respective resource capture, (iii) predict and evaluate the tree growth sensitivity to prospective climate changes, thus performing risk assessments for the near and distant future, and (iv) derive and assess the land equivalent ratio (LER) and gross energy yield for different climatic, soil, and management scenarios. The findings have corroborated the potential tree growth vulnerability to prospective climatic changes, particularly to changes in water availability, and have underlined the importance of coping management strategies in SRC for forthcoming risk assessments and adaptation scenarios. Both LER and gross energy yields had resulted in a convex curve where the maximum values were achieved when either the tree or crop component was dominant (>75% of the land area) and minimum when these components shared similar proportions of land area. Collectively, the implications of different site-specific conditions and scenarios on tree growth in ACSs with SRC have been investigated in order to improve the decision-making, optimization, and adaptation of such systems. Last but not least, this dissertation has emphasized the considerable potential of modelling approaches in ACSs, as they can impute missing data from scarce available data and simulate tree and crop yields for specific site-conditions in a non-intrusive, inexpensive, and prompt way while supporting early site-setup planning.
Designing and implementing comprehensive reclamation programme during mine operations can minimize environmental damage and decrease potential legal liability. Although Regulation (23) of the Ghana Environmental Assessment Regulation (1999) requires mine proponents to have plans for reclamation, it has been revealed most degraded mine-sites have not been reclaimed. Even in cases where some mining companies made reclamation attempts, such efforts could not produce any favourable outcome due to the failure in adopting such best reclamation management practices as slope stabilization and substrate amendment to promote vegetation establishment. Subsequently, this study was undertaken to (a) investigate the role of biological geotextiles in erosion control and (b) examine effects of organic amendments with stockpiled subsoil on tree growth and on ground vegetation cover. A waste-rock dump was graded to 33% slope and covered with a 70 cm layer of subsoil at the Amoma Pit of Newmont Ghana Gold Limited Ahafo-South project. To achieve the first objective, two kinds of biological geotextiles; Elephant-grass mat and “York” mat, were used with bare ground as control, in a randomized block design with two replications each. Mat performance against erosion was expressed as a percentage from the total sediment yield. Results showed both the Elephant-grass mat and the York mat significantly (p < 0.05) reduced soil loss by 56.6% and 97.3%, respectively, compared to the control. The mats acted as cover and protected the graded mine-slope against erosion and allowed vegetation to establish and grow through them.
Two experimental plots (24 × 15 m) were established on a different portion of the waste-rock dump for the second objective. The treatments, manure (23 t ha-1) and control (no manure), were applied, followed by seeding of Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) and planting of potted-seedlings of five forest-tree species. The Laser-point-quadrat method was used to estimate ground vegetation cover, whereas erosion was visually observed. Diameter and height data of the planted trees were collected. The results indicated the manure had significant positive influence on tree growth and on ground vegetation cover which facilitated superior soil stabilization, compared to the control. Manure supplied sufficient N to overcome N deficiency of the subsoil and additionally increased soil organic matter that boosted microbial activity and mineralization. The findings of the study highlight the urgent need of implementing best reclamation management practices in protecting the environment and securing successful reclamation during mine operations in Ghana. The achievement of this will promote responsible mining and further contribute to Ghanaians’ acceptability of mining as a sustainable developmental land use activity, rather than as a curse.
Multidimensional visualization of preferential flow pathways using neutron and x-ray radiation
(2016)
The occurrence of preferential flow of water in soils is rather the rule than the exception particularly in heterogeneous structured soils. The quantitative prediction is difficult because of the spatial as well as temporal variability. One aim of the dissertation was to visualize the soil structure and flow patterns in mine soils using a combination of neutron radiography, neutron tomography and x-ray computed tomography experiments. Both radiation techniques were used to describe preferential pathways as a soil structure with CT and the process of preferential flow of water with NT. For the first time neutron radiation was applied on undisturbed soil cores to visualize water distributions in natural soils on three examples for heterogeneities of different origin.
In a first investigation we used neutron radiography to analyze the moisture distribution in undisturbed slab-type and cylindrical samples of mine soils containing lignitic fragments and inclined soil layers. 2D radiography sequences indicated that flow pathways are highly dependent on the shape, distribution, and internal structure of the lignitic fragments. For 3D experiments, the quantitative analysis of water contents failed due to a pronounced beam hardening effect. The tensiometer data indicated the existence of local non-equilibrium in pressure heads between fragments and matric pore regions.
The objective of the second study was to analyze and visualize the effects of initial soil structure formation at the surface of bare soils in an artificial hydrological catchment that has been left to undirected ecological succession for three years. The three-dimensional (3D) micro-morphology was described using the X-ray computed tomography (CT); two-dimensional (2D) infiltration patterns were obtained from drip infiltration experiments using time-resolved neutron radiography (NT). The analyses of CT data indicate the existence of (i) structural crusts on soil consisting of sandy to loamy sediments and (ii) depositional crusts on sandy sediments. The results of combined observations using CT and NT suggest that the initial soil surface structure alterations of young sandy sediment modify moisture patterns of infiltrating water only slightly.
The aim of the 3rd experiment was to study effect of two ‘ecological engineers’, moss vegetation and beetle larvae on pore structure and infiltration. The soil pore structure was characterized by micro-computed tomography analyses of bare soil, sparse and dense moss-vegetated samples containing a single burrow. Flow patterns of infiltration experiments were visualized using the neutron radiography technique. The results of this study suggest that moss vegetation and burrowing activity of ground beetles strongly control the initial soil development by modification of pore structure and surface water infiltration.
In this study the mycorrhizal community of the Ericaceae Comarostaphylis arbutoides was investigated to reveal further ectomycorrhizal fungal species that are associated with this tropical plant. Mycorrhizal systems of selected genera were investigated in more detail regarding their phylogeny, morphology, and anatomy as well as the genetic confirmation of the associated host tree.
The genetic investigation of mycorrhizal systems collected at the Cerro de la Muerte (Costa Rica) detected a diverse fungal community. Most common were species of the genera Russula, Cortinarius, and Cenococcum, as well as not further determined members of the Cantharellaceae and Helotiales. The genera Cenococcum, Clavaria/Clavulina, Phellodon, Piloderma, Sebacina, Tomentella/Thelephora, as well as Xerocomus could be proven genetically for the first time from Costa Rica based on mycorrhizal systems.
Comarostaphylis arbutoides was proven to be mycorrhizal with Leotia cf. lubrica, Sebacina sp., and diverse species of the genus Cortinarius. Species of other genera are also assumed, but their confirmation is still to be made.
On the basis of genetics and the investigation of its mycorrhizal systems, the collected Costa Rican Sebacina sp. may constitute a hitherto not described species. However, to confirm this assumption fruit body investigations are necessary. Sebacina sp. was proven in this study to be also mycorrhizal with Quercus sp.
The ascomycete Leotia lubrica was proven to be mycorrhizal for the first time. However, mycorrhizal findings of this species are still rare in literature and further studies are necessary to underpin its new status. As Leotia lubrica occurs worldwide, other host plants, beside the proven Comarostaphylis arbutoides, are assumed for this species as well.
The mycorrhizal samples of the genus Cortinarius could comprise approximately 15 species. Their final determination is still outstanding, but it is assumed that also hitherto not known species were detected in this study. A host preference is indicated as species of Cortinarius are found to be associated either with Comarostaphylis arbutoides or Quercus sp., but needs to be confirmed by including mycorrhizal samples of Quercus trees.
One third of the sequenced mycorrhizal systems still remain unidentified. Therefore, repeated comparison with sequence databases is recommended. The phylogenetic and morphological/anatomical investigation of already identified as well as unidentified mycorrhizal systems is advised to deliver additional descriptions of Costa Rican ectomycorrhizal fungi and therefore contribute to the knowledge of tropical fungal species.
Dieser Tagungsband umfasst Beiträge, die im Rahmen des 5. Forums Agroforstsysteme, welches am 30. November und 1. Dezember in der Kaiserkrone zu Senftenberg (OT Brieske) stattfand, in Form von Vorträgen oder Postern präsentiert bzw. vorgestellt worden. Das Forum fand unter der Schirmherrschaft der Stadt Senftenberg statt und wurde durch die Innovationsgruppe AUFWERTEN (vom BMBF gefördertes Forschungsprojekt; Förderkennzeichen: 033L129 AN; www.agroforst-info.de) sowie durch das Ministerium für Ländliche Entwicklung, Umwelt und Landwirtschaft des Landes Brandenburg veranstaltet.
Das Forum stand unter der Überschrift „Bäume in der Land(wirt)schaft – von der Theorie in die Praxis“. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist die inhaltliche Vielfalt der Beiträge dieses Tagungsbandes zu verstehen. Diese befassen sich zum Teil mit konkreten wissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen, beleuchten andererseits jedoch auch Aspekte, die vor allem für die Praxis von großer Relevanz sind. Zudem werden in einigen Beiträgen Forschungsprojekte vorgestellt oder Planungsansätze für Agroforstflächen beschrieben.
