Improved soil management for land restoration in sub-Saharan Africa

 

Photo credit: Agroforestry World

Panelists at the session on sustainable soil management in Africa at the European Development Days 2017. Photo: World Agroforestry Centre/ Susan Onyango

ICRAF presents the role of evidence and improved soil management for land restoration in sub-Saharan Africa at the European Development Days

BY SUSAN ONYANGO

Degraded land in Marsabit, Kenya. Poor land management which leads to degradation. Photo: World Agroforestry Centre/ Ake Mamo

Approximately 70% of Africa’s population depends on its agriculture-based economy for their livelihoods, underscoring the importance of soil to the sector. Fertile soils across the continent are under threat, however, due in large part to climate change and poor land management which leads to the depletion of nutrients and soil organic matter and increased soil erosion.

During the recent European Development Days held on 7-8 June 2017 in Brussels, Belgium, the Joint Research Commission of the European Commission led a session on sustainable soil management in Africa. Panelists drew from different organizations including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and University of Leuven. Their discussion focused on solutions to large-scale adoption, both at policy and practical levels, of key land restoration options including integrated soil fertility management alongside practices such as intercropping and agroforestry. Scientists from ICRAF presented compelling evidence on how soil restoration can contribute to improved food security and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa.

Read the full article: Agroforestry World

Effects of dust on climate change

 

Photo credit: Daily Bruin

Jasper Kok, an assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, is helping elucidate the role dust plays in climate change. He said dust can have either a net cooling or net heating effect on the atmosphere depending on the size of the particles. (Owen Emerson/Daily Bruin senior staff)

Professor works to clear up effects of dust on climate change

BY DEANNA NECULA

Dust in the air can alter climate change in unpredictable ways, according to UCLA researchers.

Jasper Kok, an assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, published a paper in April detailing how aerosols such as desert dust can cause temperature and precipitation levels to fluctuate, accelerating climate change.

Kok said aerosols, or particles in the air, are important to consider in modeling climate change because the specks can scatter and absorb sunlight like greenhouse gases.

Additionally, aerosols can often act as the scaffolding upon which clouds can condense. Clouds regulate the temperature of the atmosphere by deflecting incoming sunlight or preventing heat from escaping into space.

“I think (studying desert dust) is the coolest because it’s a natural process, but it’s very much affected by human activity,” Kok said.

Kok said the Salton Sea, a saline lake in California’s Coachella Valley, shows how human actions can cause desertification. Changes in land use and irrigation led the Salton Sea to shrink in size, leaving behind a desert-like landscape that stirs dust up into the atmosphere, he said.

As a desert grows, the dust it produces leads to the atmosphere heating up, leading to more desertification and more dust in the air, Kok said.

“The abundance of particles in the atmosphere affects climate, but climate also affects the abundance of particles,” he said.

Kok said he was able to detect the highest concentrations of desert dust in the atmosphere by using satellite imagery. He added graduate students assisted in data collection by venturing into dust storms to measure the emission, size and quality of dust particles.

He said extraneous variables such as soil moisture and human activity can make it difficult to determine the impact of atmospheric dust on climate change.

“What will happen in the future is very unclear,” Kok said. “It depends on many different factors.”

Read the full article: Daily Bruin

Video images of a sand storm in Sudan

 

Go to: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/watch-this-huge-wall-dust-tower-above-sudans-khartoum-turning-sky-blood-red-1624476

Watch this huge wall of dust tower above Sudan’s Khartoum turning the sky blood red

Phenomenon known as a ‘haboob’ left buildings, cars and residents covered in thick blanket of sand.

• 

  By Paul Wright

The sky above the Sudanese capital of Khartoum turned blood red on Thursday (1 June) after a huge dust storm towered above and engulfed the city.

In what looked like a scene from an apocalyptic film, video footage shows a thick wall of dust approaching the city and quickly blanketing its buildings, cars and people.

A project designed using local plants and finding just how well it survived the severe drought

 

Photo credit: New World Associates, Landscape Architects

Surviving the Drought

Posted by New World on Monday, April 3, 2017 Under: Drought

It’s great to visit a project designed using local plants and finding just how well it survived the severe drought we’ve been experiencing in Cape Town over the last few years!

Bloemhof Electricity Headquarters was constructed in winter 2013 and had established over 3 summer seasons before the water was turned off in November 2016 with the onset of Stage 3B water rationing, no irrigation! This is the ultimate test of a planting scheme’s success.

We visited site in late March 2017 after 5 months of a very hot, dry and windy summer wondering what we would find. Thankfully, it was a success! Over 90% of the planting survived, probably over 95% in ground, but only about 50% of roof planters survived sadly. That was the end of over 3 years of good growth and full development of the shrubs.

The secret to the success can be put down to good soil preparations, careful plant choice, and the advantage of 3 years establishment albeit that the last two summers were in drought. Irrigation was always limited on the project to hand watering on an as-needed basis, so the plants were slowly weaned off wet nursery conditions.

It was interesting to see that the soil conditions were patchy and a couple dry places with higher plant losses or droughting occurred. It remains to be seen if these plants will recover from dropping their leaves, a typical drought response, or if the plants have succumbed. Wild Rosemary seemed to suffer the most in one area drier than elsewhere.

On the other hand, there were beds in the car parks naturally watered from permeable paving; the restios planted there, which are typically quite drought sensitive and died elsewhere, were thriving, lush and green, from all the water that penetrated the paving and was directed under their roots.

Lessons learnt: good soil preparations, and we used a soil wetter called Terracottem to boost soil water retention, composting, mulching, and good plant research and selection, came together to produce a scheme that has substantially survived the drought, saving on replanting costs and reducing precious potable water consumption.

Read: http://new-world-associates.com/blog/surviving-the-drought

Plants, soil and climate change

Data was provided from CEH’s climate change manipulation experiment, which has been running for 18 years in Cloceanog forest, a wet Welsh upland site with a peat layer resulting from seasonal waterlogging. Credit: Rachel Harvey

 

Future climate change will affect plants and soil differently

A new study has found that soil carbon loss is more sensitive to climate change compared to carbon taken up by plants. In drier regions, soil carbon loss decreased but in wetter regions soil carbon loss increased.

Date:

March 7, 2017

Source:

Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Summary:

A new study has found that soil carbon loss is more sensitive to climate change compared to carbon taken up by plants. In drier regions, soil carbon loss decreased but in wetter regions soil carbon loss increased. This could result in a positive feedback to the atmosphere leading to an additional increase of atmospheric CO2 levels.

Read the full article: Science Daily

Soil Erosion, Desertification and Dust Storms

 

Disappearance of topsoil causes desert expansion and crop reduction in regions across the world. – https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/20/6c/2a/206c2ad371d266ecb1bb2a3539ac15a6.jpg

Mother Earth News

How Soil Erosion Contributes to Desertification and Dust Storms

Combating desertification is not fighting against nature, but restoring a respect for it.

 

Dust obscures the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan (2001). Credit: Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE

3 WAYS YOUR FOOD CHOICES COULD REVERSE DESERTIFICATION

by WANQING ZHOU

On World Day to Combat Desertification (June 17), explore how agriculture has contributed to desertification, how it can help reverse this trend, and what you can do right now.

Eight decades have passed since “black blizzards”—massive dust storms—blocked sunlight and smothered people, animals, and vegetation in the American Great Plains. Due in large part to unsustainable ranching and farming practices, the once-lush pastures of the U.S. Midwest were transformed into a massive Dust Bowl through desertification.Practices similar to the ones that brought the dust storms in the 1930s are still prevalent in the United States and are being adopted by developing countries worldwide. Intensive tilling, over-fertilizing, the destruction of microbes in the soil through the application of pesticides, and continuous grazing are all practices that are spreading.

Some foresee another Dust Bowl returning to the United States. Other regions of the world are struggling with their own crises. Sand storms originating in the desertifying Mongolian Plateau, for example, have been recurring in Northern China for more than 15 years.

The solution, according to natural resource scientists, is simple: cover the soil with plants. Among the most promising paths is regenerative agriculture and ranching—an ecological approach to producing more-sustainable foods, clothing, and fuels while rebuilding ecosystems.

As society deepens its understanding of how systems in nature work as a whole to maximize productivity across ecosystems, agricultural production can shift to mimic “nature’s way” in our own production activities and to allow our broken ecosystems to heal.

Invasive sedge protects dunes better than native grass

 

Photo credit: Science Daily

The Superstorm Sandy storm surge breached the dune line and created a channel that is stabilized by American beachgrass (Ammophila breviligulata) on the left and Asiatic sand sedge (Carex kobomugi) on the right.

Credit: Bianca Charbonneau

Invasive sedge protects dunes better than native grass, study finds

Date:

January 25, 2017

Source:

University of Pennsylvania

Summary:

An invasive dune plant has an advantage over its native counterpart: the invasive is better at preventing erosion of dunes during big storms, report investigators.

The invasive species Carex kobomugi, or Asiatic sand sedge, was first found along the East Coast of the United States at New Jersey’s Island Beach State Park in 1929. The species is aggressive, outcompeting native vegetation and reducing local biodiversity. In many places, land managers have made great efforts to remove it.

But a new study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology and led by University of Pennsylvania doctoral candidate Bianca Charbonneau finds that the invasive plant does have one advantage over its native counterpart, Ammophila breviligulata, or American beach grass: the invasive is better at preventing erosion of dunes during big storms.

With a warming climate battering the coast with more severe storms, the research suggests that, to protect coastal communities, managers may want to give weight to the virtues of the non-native species.

“In order to make an informed management decision, you really need to know all the cards at play and this is an important one,” said Charbonneau, a student in the School of Arts & Sciences’ Biology Department. “If you value the natural composition and habitats afforded by native plant diversity, you should be trying to control this invasive. If your priority is protecting houses on the coast, you might consider letting it lie, or at least letting it lie until there is a plan to replace it so you do not leave a vulnerable unvegetated area in a dune. However, there is a caveat in that we do not know how dunes develop with one species versus another in terms of growth rate and shape.”

Read the full story: Science Daily

Protecting the environment, empowering people(IFAD)

 

 

https://www.ifad.org/documents/10180/e036916a-9d15-463f-8952-56d1566d7ac8

The Drylands Advantage

Protecting the environment, empowering people 

“Recognition of the true value of ecosystem services, and of the opportunities they offer, will enable better planning and realization of the full economic potential of dryland ecosystems, rebutting the common perception that drylands are ‘economic wastelands’” (IUCN, 2009).

Table of Contents

Acronyms 4

Introduction 5

China: Boosting biodiversity for benefits to people and the environment 9

Jordan: Sustainable land management 15

Nicaragua: Nutrition security in the Dry Corridor in the face of El Niño 21

Senegal: What a little freshwater can do 27

Swaziland: Grass-roots governance beats overgrazing and gully erosion 32

Conclusions and next steps 37

References and resources consulted 39

How to prevent desertification in NW China

 

Photo credit: Xinhua

Ecological barrier under construction to prevent desertification in NW China

(Xinhua)

http://en.people.cn/NMediaFile/2016/1121/FOREIGN201611211328000408816750184.jpg

Farmers build barriers with hay to create grid patterns that stabilize sand dunes in Minqin County, Wuwei, northwest China’s Gansu Province, Nov. 19, 2016. Local government planned to spend six years from 2015 to build an ecological barrier to stabilize sand and prevent desertification, which is 500km long and 1000 meters wide. (Photo/Xinhua)

Read the full story: People’s Daily

Willows and cottonwoods can be grown from cuttings into full, healthy plants to stabilize the soil.

 

Volunteers stabilize stream bank

The weather might have been cool and wet this fall, but that didn’t stop the Elk River Alliance and their amazing volunteers from joining forces to work on a couple of stream bank restoration projects.  Thanks to the world of ecological restoration, it is possible to stabilize and rehabilitate an eroded bank by using plants instead of conventional methods, such as riprap. A major benefit of using plants as opposed to conventional bank stabilization methods is that they add to the longterm health of the aquatic ecosystem by providing shelter, habitat and adding nutrients to the stream.

Stream banks can be bioengineered by placing live plant material in the side of the bank and allowing the material to grow. Many plant species, such as willows and cottonwoods, can be grown from cuttings into full, healthy plants.

This means that shoots can be harvested and planted in the fall while they are dormant and then in the spring, when it warms up and the snow melts, they will start to bud and grow roots and shoots. These roots will continue to grow into the eroded soil over the next several years and will stabilize the ground.

This is exactly what volunteers did to help a stream bank on Lizard Creek! The site had failed in 2013 and the ERA had previously banded together with concerned citizens and park users to restore the site. The slope was well on its way to becoming stabilized, but to reduce the erosion that was still occurring they came around for a second pass. More cottonwood and willow cuttings were harvested and planted into the bank between the existing rows. By this time next year, these new cuttings will already be stabilizing the soil.

Another way that stream banks can be stabilized is by planting young plants that will continue to grow in them. This technique is more costly, but can be equally effective if care is taken to give the plants their best shot with lots of water and soil amendments.

Read the full article: The Free Press

 

TerraCottem for erosion control of sandy soils all over the world

 

Photo credit: WVC

Erosion control of sandy soil by appying TerraCottem soil conditioner in the Antwerp harbour area

by Prof. Dr. Willem Van Cotthem (Ghent University, Belgium)

 

With the purpose of creating a new dock in the vicinity of Antwerp (Belgium), a large area was covered with sandy bottom sediments of the river Schelde, excavated by dredging. As these newly formed sandy soils are mostly nutrient deficient, it is extremely difficult to cover them with a vegetation layer to control wind erosion.  Their fertility and water retention capacity is generally too low, so that seeding with traditional grass species is mostly inefficient.  Even if these grasses germinate after some good rains, the young plants perish because the sand is unable to retain sufficient moisture and nutrients.

As a result of this drought and nutrient poverty, the young grasses will soon dry, which automatically leads to erosion, particularly in between the seeding lines of the grasses (see picture above).

In order to sustain an efficient vegetation layer on newly formed sandy soils, one has to condition those soils to improve their water retention capacity and fertility.  Thats’s where the soil conditioning technology TerraCottem (www.terracotten.com) plays an important role.

The TerraCottem soil conditioners are a proprietary mixture of more than twenty components each from different groups all assisting in the plant growth processes in a synergetic way (see: http://www.terracottem.com/terracottem-soil-conditioning-technology):

• The growth precursors play a very important role in the initial growth phase of the plant. They activate root cell elongation and differentiation, and promote leaf development and biomass production.  In addition, roots are encouraged to grow more rapidly to depths where more water is present.
• The cross-linked hydroabsorbent polymers absorb and store water that is normally lost to evaporation and leaching, reducing the volume and frequency of necessary irrigation by up to 50%.  This water is then kept at the disposal of the plant that accesses the stored water on demand through its root hairs, keeping the water in the root zone for a longer period of time.
• The specially selected fertilizers provide balanced nutrition to the plants based upon macro and microelements.
• TerraCottem’s carrier materials are selected for their chemo-physical properties (CEC, WRC, etc.) and their characteristics which allow homogeneous distribution of all components.

In view of an optimal development of a grass layer (turf), TerraCottem Turf has been developed. “Based on the TerraCottem principle, it contains zeolite, a 100 percent natural volcanic mineral that helps increase soil fertility and water retention.  The product’s benefits are further boosted by the inclusion of turf specific fertilizers and humic acids which have a positive effect on water retention capacity, soil structure and microbiological activity.   All this, to get quicker grass establishment, enhanced root and plant growth and improve the quality of turf, seeded grass and sprigs.”

At the start of our experiment in the Antwerp harbour area, the yellow sandy surface was completely barren and wind erosion was dramatic.  The experimental perimeter was divided into two parts:

(1) Left side of the photo above: The untreated part where a mixture of traditional grasses was directly sown in the sandy soil.

(2) Right on the photo: The TerraCottem-treated part (100 g per square meter, to a depth of 30 cm).

Thanks to some good rains, the grasses of the untreated part germinated and developed into a vegetation layer in which the seeding lines remained visible weeks after the start of the experiment.  During windy periods, sand grains were blown out from these uncovered parts between the grass lines.  Wind erosion and drought effect continued and finally the grasses died (see brown grasses in the picture).

Due to the improved water retention capacity and the higher fertility at the TerraCottem-treated part, the grasses developed soon into a closed turf layer, where wind erosion was totally reduced (see green “pasture” at the right hand side of the picture).

This experiment showed clearly that the soil conditioner TerraCottem is an excellent tool in the combat of erosion.  It deserves to be applied at the largest scale in the combat of desertification and all the applications to mitigate drought.