Sara Brogaard

Rural Reforms and Changes in Land Management and Attitudes: A Case Study from Inner Mongolia, China

The international science community stresses the importance of the local perspective in the context of dryland degradation. This paper explores changes in management and attitudes in a mixed farming system in northern China, since the introduction of the economic reforms in the early 1980s, and the following changes in land-use rights. The area encompasses a dune landscape scattered with crop-land, as well as the Daqinggou Nature Reserve, an area of natural vegetation. According to farmers new varieties of maize in combination with increased use of fertilizers have improved yields, though high yield variability persists due to erratic rainfall. Farmers acknowledge the importance of the 30-year contract on cultivated land in 1997 for their investment in long-term management, but emphasize the importance of chemical fertilizers for short-term economic survival. The farmers stressed the negative impact of grazing and cultivation on soil erosion and stated that differences in vegetation composition and cover in the nature reserve are due to anthropogenic factors.

Living without buffers—illustrating climate vulnerability in the Lake Victoria basin

Exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity are essential, albeit theoretically vague, components of climate vulnerability. This has triggered debate surrounding how these factors can be translated into, and understood in, an empirical context subject to present and future harm. In this article, which draws on extensive fieldwork in the Lake Victoria Basin of Kenya and Tanzania, we illustrate how exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity play out in the context of climate vulnerability and discuss how they interact in situ. Using a mixed methods approach including survey data, rainfall data and a suite of participatory methods, such as focus groups and interactive mapping of seasonal calendars, we identify how climate-induced stressors affect smallholder farmers’ well-being and natural resources. Drawing on the seasonal calendar as a heuristic, and climate vulnerability terminology, we illustrate when, where and how these climate-induced stressors converge to constrain farmers’ livelihoods. Our analysis indicates that farmers in the basin face a highly uncertain future with discernible, but differentiated, adaptation deficits due to recurring, and potentially worsening, patterns of hardship.

Science: policy interfaces in impact assessment procedures

Modelling tools used in impact assessment procedures can be regarded as tools for communication between science and policy. In order to create an integrated system for modelling not only the scientific components have to be in place but also the science/policy interfaces in the assessment procedures have to be identified and their social dynamics understood.

Social Dynamics of Renewable Energy—How the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive Triggers Land Pressure in Tanzania

The European Union plays a globally influential role in environmental legislation, with policies and regulation rooted in particular norms. Through a narrative on regulatory capitalism, ecological modernization, and diffusion, we trace how the promotion of renewable energy in transport through subsidies, mandatory targets, and prescriptive criteria for liquid biofuels mobilize social forces for its market development. The study identifies prevailing norms, mechanisms of decision making, and the network of actors involved in this regulatory regime and also identifies where and through whom its expansion influenced decisions in Tanzania. The findings show how this regime emphasizes systematic eco-innovation of energy technologies, has a substitutable approach to natural capital, and subordinates social concerns to economic efficiency. The analysis shows how this regime mobilized a broader network of actors with similar interests, who mediated the political space of liquid biofuels in Tanzania in ways which conflicted with a domestic critique concerning land use.

Crop Water Requirements in Cameroon’s Savanna Zones Under Climate Change Scenarios and Adaptation Needs

Rain-fed agriculture is practiced on approximately 80 percent of global agricultural land area (Wani et al. 2009). It accounts for about 70 percent of the global staple foods production (Cooper et al. 2009). This is the main mode of production favored by poor farmers in the developing world and other economically deprived societies (Wani et al. 2009). The contribution to global food supply from rain-fed agriculture is forecasted to decline from 65 percent at present to 48 percent in 2030 (Bruinsma 2003). The decline of precipitation forecast for some regions of the African savanna may affect agricultural production in different ways. During the already dry months, the decline of precipitation is likely to reduce the resilience of some plants (Vanacker et al. 2005). This is especially true for many ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly grass and shrub savannahs, which are shown to be highly sensitive to short-term availability of water due to climate variability (Vanacker et al. 2005). While the ranges of species may shift as a result of changing climate, this shift may probably not be in cohesive and intact units and are likely to become more fragmented (Channell and Lomolino 2000). This stimulates interest in understanding the effects of climate change on the potential for rain-fed agriculture for particular regions where this practice has important economic and social implications. While observed and measured data increasingly support predictions of a warmer world in the next 50 100 years, the impact of rising temperatures on rainfall distribution patterns in the semi-arid tropics of Africa remain far less certain (Cooper et al. 2009). African countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their dependence on rain-fed agriculture, low economic power, low levels of human and physical capital, and poor infrastructure (Nelson 2009). The negative effects of climate change on agricultural production are especially pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa because of the significant contribution of the agricultural sector to the GDP, export earnings, and employment (Fan et al. 2009). Cameroon, like many countries in sub-Saharan Africa has a high share of total poverty in the rural sector and a high share of GDP growth originating in agriculture (De Janvry 2009). Less than 1 percent of total agricultural land area in Cameroon is equipped for irrigation

Estimation of PAR over Northern China from Daily NOAA AVHRR Cloud Cover Classifications

Abstract Incoming Photosynthetic Active Radiation (PAR) is an essential variable for modelling aboveground primary production of ecosystems through the light‐use efficiency approach. A method is presented where daily classifications of cloud cover (CLAVR) from the NOAA AVHRR satellite sensor is used to estimate surface incident short wave (SW) flux from which PAR can be assessed. The study area is the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR) of northern China. Daily time steps of calculated theoretical incoming global radiation outside the atmosphere, is adjusted according to the clear, mixed or cloudy classification in the NOAA Pathfinder data set at 8x8 km grid‐cells. For the different CLAVR classifications, empirical relationships to atmospheric transparency were established against ground measurements of SW flux. Clear pixels corresponded to an average 61% penetration of the theoretical radiation at the top of the atmosphere and mixed and cloudy pixels to 47% and 40% respectively. The CLAVR time series is evaluated regarding consistency and diurnal precision against measured SW flux and hours of bright sunshine. Modelled monthly fluxes over the growing season were acceptable compared to measured (NRMSE = 6. 6%) and about as good as deriving fluxes from measurements of bright sunshine hours. The global NOAA Pathfinder archive provides an opportunity to assess PAR over the past 20 years at a considerably higher spatial resolution than with methods based on geo‐stationary meteorological satellite data sets and without interpolations from scarce measurements of bright sunshine hours.