Paper/Poster/Presentation Title
Landscape-scale interactions between pastures, crops, trees and cattle in savanna grassland systems
Keywords
Coupled social-ecological model framework, crop-livestock integration, agricultural intensification, agent-based model
Start Date
16-9-2020 2:20 PM
End Date
16-9-2020 2:40 PM
Abstract
Conversion of rangelands into cropland has been promoted for agricultural intensification of up to 400 million ha land in the Guinea Savannah. Realistic assessment of potential environmental and socio-economic side-effects is difficult as large areas, changing climate, soil, hydrological, plant, animal and human aspects need to be considered. The predominant cattle grazing systems on pasture under Acacias are complex including herd mobility in the landscape. Interactions between soils, plants and animals include plant reactions to grazing (resprouting, resource allocation), effects of pasture quality on animal nutrition and subsequently of manure quality on soil fertility. Herders design management strategies to cope with drought, expanding cropping areas (constraining herd mobility), and labour constraints. We present a recently developed coupled integrated model (MLL), of an agent-based economic model (MPMAS), a soil-plant model (LUCIA) and a herd model (LIVSIM). Lucia is spatially distributed, operates at landscape scale, and provides daily water, soil, soil organic matter and plant (including grasslands) dynamics. An extended LIVSIM simulates herd nutrition and reproduction, milk and meat production of multiple herds in the landscape. MPMAS simulates monthly agent decisions on land use, grazing locations and household economics. We show results from coupled model runs of rangelands in transition to crop-livestock systems at the Borana plateau, South Ethiopia, under scenarios of climate change, pasture accessibility and cattle selling strategies, and discuss applications of MLL in context with environmental impacts of agricultural intensification. Scenario runs demonstrate the added value of the high temporal and spatial resolution, feedbacks on animal performance during stress periods (dry season feed quality; fodder availability under climate change), pasture degradation risks under current or adaptive herd management strategies. The ability of the coupled models to dynamically simulate feedback processes makes it a valuable tool for assessing LUC impacts on systems performance, ecosystem functions and livelihood impacts.
Landscape-scale interactions between pastures, crops, trees and cattle in savanna grassland systems
Conversion of rangelands into cropland has been promoted for agricultural intensification of up to 400 million ha land in the Guinea Savannah. Realistic assessment of potential environmental and socio-economic side-effects is difficult as large areas, changing climate, soil, hydrological, plant, animal and human aspects need to be considered. The predominant cattle grazing systems on pasture under Acacias are complex including herd mobility in the landscape. Interactions between soils, plants and animals include plant reactions to grazing (resprouting, resource allocation), effects of pasture quality on animal nutrition and subsequently of manure quality on soil fertility. Herders design management strategies to cope with drought, expanding cropping areas (constraining herd mobility), and labour constraints. We present a recently developed coupled integrated model (MLL), of an agent-based economic model (MPMAS), a soil-plant model (LUCIA) and a herd model (LIVSIM). Lucia is spatially distributed, operates at landscape scale, and provides daily water, soil, soil organic matter and plant (including grasslands) dynamics. An extended LIVSIM simulates herd nutrition and reproduction, milk and meat production of multiple herds in the landscape. MPMAS simulates monthly agent decisions on land use, grazing locations and household economics. We show results from coupled model runs of rangelands in transition to crop-livestock systems at the Borana plateau, South Ethiopia, under scenarios of climate change, pasture accessibility and cattle selling strategies, and discuss applications of MLL in context with environmental impacts of agricultural intensification. Scenario runs demonstrate the added value of the high temporal and spatial resolution, feedbacks on animal performance during stress periods (dry season feed quality; fodder availability under climate change), pasture degradation risks under current or adaptive herd management strategies. The ability of the coupled models to dynamically simulate feedback processes makes it a valuable tool for assessing LUC impacts on systems performance, ecosystem functions and livelihood impacts.
Stream and Session
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