ZEF theme: Sustainable use of natural resources
2014
2014.
Smallholder Specialization Strategies along the Forest Transition Curve in Southwestern Amazonia.
World Development,
64 Supplement 1
: S149-S158
.
(Open Access)
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2014.
Why Fruit and Vegetable Production is Not Fruitful for Uzbek Farmers?.
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Review
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Review
2014.
Making use of the ecosystem services concept in regional planning - trade-offs from reducing water erosion.
Landscape Ecology,
: 15
.
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2014.
Value, institutional complementarity and variety in coupled socio-ecological systems.
Ecosystem Services,
.
(Open Access)
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2014.
Decentralization and Institutional Development in East African Forest Landscapes.
(ZEF Policy Brief 11)
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[PDF | 292.21KB]
2014.
A balance score card tool for assessing how successful the ecosystem services concept is applied in participatory land use planning.
Landscape Ecology ,
29(8)
: 1435-1446
.
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2014.
Decentralization and institutional development in East African forest landscapes.
ZEF Policy Brief No. 11
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2014.
The Evolution of Socio-Ecological Systems: Changing Palm Species Management in the Colombian Amazon as an Indicator of Ecological and Institutional Change.
Journal of Environmental Planning and Management,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2014.973480
: 1-22
.
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2014.
An innovation systems approach to enhanced farmer adoption of climate-ready germplasm and agronomic practices. CAPRi Working Paper No. 116. Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute (peer-reviewed).
CAPRi Working Paper No. 116. Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute.(peer-reviewed)
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2014.
Do You Have 5 Minutes To Spare? –The Challenges Of Stakeholder Processes In Ecosystem Services Studies..
Landscape Online,
DOI 10.3097/LO.201467
.
2014.
Multiple Lines of Evidence for the Origin of Domesticated Chili Pepper, Capsicum annuum, in Mexico.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS),
111
: 6165-6170
.
(Open Access)
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2014.
Impact of season, fuel load and vegetation cover on fire mediated nutrient losses across savanna agro-ecosystems: the case of northern Ghana.
Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems,
102 (1)
.
2014.
The role of conservation agreements in disaster risk reduction: the case of Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape (MMPL) in the Philippines.
In: Murti, Radhika and Buyck, Camille (eds.):
Safe havens: protected areas for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
104-115.
(Open Acess)
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2014.
Organic agriculture in Bhutan: potential and challenges.
Organic Agriculture ,
4
: 209-221
.
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2014.
Constraints and opportunities for tree diversity management along the forest transition curve to achieve multifunctional agriculture.
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability,
54-60
: 54-60
.
(Open Access)
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2014.
Biomass Productivity-Based Mapping of Global Land Degradation Hotspots. ZEF Discussion Paper 193..
Abstract: Land degradation is a global problem affecting negatively the livelihoods and food security of billions of people, especially farmers and pastoralists in the developing countries. Eradicating extreme poverty without adequately addressing land degradation is highly unlikely. Given the importance and magnitude of the problem, there have been recurring efforts by the international community to identify the extent and severity of land degradation in global scale. As discussed in this paper, many previous studies were challenged by lack of appropriate data or shortcomings of their methodological approaches. In this paper, using global level remotely sensed vegetation index data, we identify the hotspots of land degradation in the world across major land cover types. In doing so, we use the long-term trend of inter-annual vegetation index as an indicator of biomass production decline or improvement. Besides the elimination of technical factors, confounding the relationship between the indicator and the biomass production of the land, we apply a methodology which accounts for masking effects of both inter-annual rainfall variation and atmospheric fertilization. We also delineate the areas where chemical fertilization could be hiding the inherent land degradation processes. Our findings show that land degradation hotpots cover about 29% of global land area and are happening in all agro-ecologies and land cover types. Land degradation is especially massive in grasslands. About 3.2 billion people reside in these degrading areas. However, the number of people affected by land degradation is likely to be higher as more people depend on the continuous flow of ecosystem goods and services from these affected areas. As we note in the paper, this figure, although, does not include all possible areas with degraded lands, it identifies those areas where land degradation is most acute and requires priority actions in both in-depth research and management measures to combat land degradation. Our findings indicate that, in fact, land improvement has also occurred in about 2.7% of global land area during the last three decades, providing a support that with appropriate actions land degradation trend could be reversed, and that the efforts to address land degradation need to be substantially increased, at least by a factor, to attain the vision of Zero Net Land Degradation. We also identify concrete aspects in which these results should be interpreted with caution, the limitations of this work and the key areas for future research.
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2014.
Separation of the bioclimatic space of Himalayan tree Rhododendron predicted by ensemble suitability models.
Global Ecology and Conservation,
1
: 2-12
.
(Open Access)
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2014.
Targeting conservation agriculture in the context of livelihoods and landscapes.
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment,
187
: 47-51
.
(Open Access)
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2014.
Early survival and growth of six afforestation species on abandoned cropping sites in irrigated drylands of the Aral Sea Basin.
Arid Land Research and Management,
28
: 410-427
.
2014.
Tree cover transitions and food security in Southeast Asia.
Global Food Security,
3
: 200-208
.
(Open Access)
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2014.
Assessing stakeholders' perceptions and values towards social-ecological systems using participatory methods.
Ecological Processes,
3:22
: 1-22
.
(Open Access)
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2014.
Biomass-based value webs – a new perspective for emerging bioeconomies in developing countries. Rural 21, Vol 48(3), pp. 16-18.
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2014.
The value web approach – so that the South can also benefit from the bioeconomy..
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2014.
Safety Nets, Gap Filling and Forests: A Global-Comparative Perspective.
World Development,
64 Supplement 1
: S29-S42
.
(Open Access)
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2013
2013.
Forest Governance Reforms in Eastern Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Institutional, Livelihood and Forest Sustainability Outcomes.
In: F. W. Gatzweiler (eds.):
): Institutional and Livelihood Changes in East African Forest Landscapes. Decentralization and Institutional Changes for Sustainable Forest Management in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
Peter Lang.
17 - 48.
2013.
Mobile Technology Trends and their Potential for Agricultural Development (ZEF Working Paper No. 123).
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2013.
Enhancing smallholder market participation through mobile phone-enabled services: The case of M-Farm in Kenya (paper presented at INFORMATIK 2013).
2013.
Roger Leakey. Living with the trees of life: Towards the transformation of tropical agriculture. Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics. Vol. 114, No 1.
Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics. Vol. 114, No 1
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2013.
Urban Needs and Protected Areas: Interfaces between Arba Minch Town and Nech Sar National Park in Southern Ethiopia.
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2013.
Resilience in Food Value Chains - A Feasibility Study. Swiss Federdal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich.
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[PDF | 1.62MB]
2013.
The Legal Framework of Vietnam’s Water Sector: Update 2013.
(ZEF Working Paper 116)
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[PDF | 747.55KB]
2013.
Economics of Land Degradation Initiative: Methods and Approach for Global and National Assessments ZEF-Discussion Papers on Development Policy No. 183, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
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[PDF | 1.89MB]
2012
2012.
Farming and cropping systems in the West African Sudanian Savanna WASCAL research area: Northern Ghana, Southwest Burkina Faso and Northern Benin. ZEF Working Paper Series 100.
ZEF Working Paper Series 100
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2012.
The Social Dimension of EU Biofuel Policy. In: Ecologic Briefs – Selection.
2012.
Contesting the National Park theorem? Governance and land use in Nech Sar National Park, Ethiopia.
(ZEF Working Paper 104)
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[PDF | 3.13MB]
2012.
Consumption and Production: Changing perceptions of water in northern Ghana.
In: Hahn, H.P, K. Cless and J. Soentgen (eds.):
People at the Well.
Campus, Frankfurt.
145-169.
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2012.
From Ethnic Violence to Seeds of Peace: Pastoralists, Youth and Intercommunity Peacebuilding in Northwestern Kenya.
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2012.
White paper of the 2012 winter school on Limits to Growth Revisited.
Volkswagen Foundation
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