explain the effects of shifting cultivation on the environment

The land takes many years to replenish just at the cost of providing yield for 2 to 3 years. Based on existing data and knowledge, we have made a first attempt at estimating possible future trends in the distribution of shifting cultivation until 2090. This is called shifting cultivation. These systems are naturally suited for harsh environments and fragile ecosystems of the tropics. Our review of the more recent literature revealed surprisingly few studies containing regional or global estimates of areas under shifting cultivation. Eutrophication is the process in which a water body becomes overly enriched with nutrients, leading to plentiful growth of simple plant life. Visual interpretation has well-known limitations in terms of subjectivity and potentially limited reproducibility [29], but there are two main reasons why a visual approach has been chosen: Firstly, while a number of approaches has recently been developed to detect shifting cultivation based on automated approaches at the regional and national level using remote sensing data (e.g. Fig 1A shows a one-degree square of northern Laos. Yes Most plants and animals live in areas with very specific climate conditions, such as temperature and rainfall patterns, that enable them to thrive. This approach, however, suffers from the shortcoming that land cover data are of very limited use in estimating land use practices, which is acknowledged by Silva et al. Using recent regional and national automated classification of shifting cultivation as reference (e.g. We then made an estimate of trends in occurrence of shifting cultivation for these aggregated regions for 2030, 2060 and 2090 also taking into account the historical trends between the Butler map and our 2010 classification. Nonetheless, it is more evidence-based than the 1,000 Mha of unclear origin that are repeatedly cited in the literature (e.g. Writing original draft, The excessive growth (or bloom) of algae and plankton in a water body are indicators of this process. Environment; What you can do right now to advocate for the planet. Solution: a. India is an agricultural country. No, Is the Subject Area "Africa" applicable to this article? The results indicate that shifting cultivation is likely to persist longest in Africa. In addition to searching the Web of Science, we also consulted three major book publications that could be assumed to contain relevant information [2426]. An area of 1,000 Mha was mentioned by Davidson et al. Accordingly, they emphasized that the need for global data on annual global gridded land-use transitions from past-to-future presents a large and underdetermined problem [2]. 70% of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture 2. Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Human influence on the land is accelerating because of rapid population growth and increasing food requirements. It is a sustainable method of farming in the rainforest. But information about such landscapes is urgently needed to improve the . - Central Africa: Shifting cultivation is estimated to persist well into the 2060s or longer due to the vast reserve of remote forested areas. With 62% of the investigated one-degree cells in the humid and sub-humid tropics currently showing signs of shifting cultivationthe majority in the Americas (41%) and Africa (37%)this form of cultivation remains widespread, and it would be wrong to speak of its general global demise in the last decades. The negative effects of abusing shifting cultivation are devastating and far-reaching in degrading the environment and ecology of the affected region. Cultivation was also a traditional form of weed control. Cultivation of the earth after clearing is usually accomplished by hoe or digging stick and not by plow. As for the entire global level assessment of all the 2,817 one degree cells considered, the GEFC and available very high resolution imagery (i.e. It ensures the forest will recover. Cultivation (the preparation of land for planting crops) on the plot is done for a few years until the fertility of the formerly burned land is reduced. After analyzing the spatially differentiated changes between the status in the 1960s to 1970s as shown in the Butler map and our data for 2010 (Fig 6), we combined them with data from our expert survey about changes in areas under shifting cultivation between 1970 to 2000 and 2000 to 2010 as well as with information from the literature. northern Zambia and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), parts of southeastern Africa (e.g. Formal analysis, India, Bangladesh), comparison of the maps (Fig 6) and the survey responses point to similar trends. - Madagascar: Shifting cultivation is expected to remain widespread, especially along the eastern escarpment, until well beyond 2030. No, Is the Subject Area "Surveys" applicable to this article? Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned while post-disturbance fallow vegetation is allowed to freely grow while the cultivator moves on to another plot. Recent international efforts to compare and synthesize different earth system models have come with a strong focus on quantifying the past, current, and future contributions of land use to climate change [14]. Maps created in QGIS 2.16. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479.g001. In this specific case 1088 or 10.88% of the 1/100 degree cells within the one-degree sample cell were detected as having shifting cultivation in the validation data sets. Intensive agriculture has dominated the global food production . Surprisingly, our estimate is not too far from the 259 Mha proposed in Silva et al [1], even though their estimate excludes large areas under shifting cultivation and includes areas under other forms of agriculture and natural vegetation. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479.s001. Methodology, The 270 first authors of these papers were listed and their email addresses were found. In addition, we used available very highresolution satellite imagery from Bing and Google (most images dating from the period between 2008 and 2015; visited between September and April 2015) in an ArcGIS Desktop 10.4 and QGIS environment to examine visually whether a given area for which the GFC data indicated a spatio-temporal pattern of small-scale clearings consistent with shifting cultivation, was indeed likely to be under shifting cultivation. Meanwhile, about 54% people, living in the rural areas, are engaged in practicing it. Describes the cultivation systems employed and the problems generated erosion, burning, harm to indigenous plants and animals. The system is destabilized by long cultivation and short fallow periods. The map shows that shifting cultivation is still present across large areas of the humid tropics. We have nonetheless ventured to display our estimates in predictive maps because they are based on a spatially explicit analysis in 2010. There was a bias towards responses from researchers who worked in Southeast Asia (see Fig 3); but this is also the world region where most research on shifting cultivation has been done, whereas Africa has the fewest studies and is clearly under-represented in light of the considerable occurrence of shifting cultivation there [17,44]. Traditional Agriculture and its impact on the environment - Jagranjosh.com (Source of imagery in 2D and 2E: Pansharpened Landsat 8 image, acquisition date January 5 2014, available from the U.S. Geological Survey.). See also slash-and-burn agriculture. Panama, Guatemala) well into the 2000s. Despite the limited number of survey responses on Central and South America, it appears that here, unlike in Southeast Asia, areas under shifting cultivation have not seen a strong decline over the last 20 years. 5 Causes of Deforestation | One Tree Planted There is a need to transform shifting cultivation to sustainable intensification. Spencer [45] indicates an approximate area under shifting cultivation (currently cultivated fields plus all stages of fallows) of around 110 million hectares (Mha) for Asia. This became particularly evident when Hurtt et al. - Myanmar: Shifting cultivation is estimated to mostly disappear sometime between 2060 and 2090 if conflicts between union government and ethnic armed groups are resolved. [2] included shifting cultivation in a global harmonization of land use states and transitions from past to future: they found only one (hand-drawn) global map of shifting cultivation, in a book on economic geography dating from 1980 [13]. Mexico and Brazil) likely to see a fairly rapid decrease and disappearance. Also when considering the different levels of occurrence of shifting cultivation estimated based on the overall impression of the landscape per one-degree cell, the accuracies were high (see confusion matrix in Table 2), with an overall classification accuracy of 87.8%. It coincided with the end of the last ice age and the beginning of the. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479, Editor: Benjamin Poulter, Montana State University Bozeman, UNITED STATES, Received: September 2, 2016; Accepted: August 24, 2017; Published: September 8, 2017. What is the Relationship Between Deforestation And Climate Change? While keeping in mind the inherent limitations of these predictions, we can identify a number of more specific patterns. Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, No, Is the Subject Area "Agriculture" applicable to this article? Writing original draft, Roles Extreme weather. Visualization, In Central Africa, shifting cultivation also remains very widespread, with an even higher occurrence than in West Africa; in certain areas it is still expanding, such as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo [36]. In our classification the occurrence for shifting cultivation was estimated at a low level, meaning 1019%, which in this case was in line with the validation data set. As growing only one kind of plant on the same piece of farmland depletes and exhausts the soil by depriving it of the biodiversity, farmers tend to artificially boost the fertility of their impacted fields by applying chemical fertilizers. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479.g004. With these caveats in mind, we aggregated responses to the national scale and to three supranational regions: the tropical parts of 1) Central and South America, 2) Africa, and 3) Asia. No, PLOS is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation, #C2354500, based in San Francisco, California, US, Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479, ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/003/y1860e/y1860e00.pdf, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cg.html. The maps focus on the tropical parts of Central and South America, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the Southwest Pacific for two reasons: 1) These areas have the most biomass, causing land use transitions in these areas to have a particularly high impact on global carbon emissions; and 2) shifting cultivation is most widespread in these areas today [17]. Shifting Cultivation: Features, Extent and Environmental Impacts On the basis of archaeological evidences and radio-carbon dating, the origin of shifting cultivation could be traced back to about 8000 BC in the Neolithic period which witnessed the remarkable and revolutionary change in man's mode of production of food as from hunter and gatherer he became food producer. shifting agriculture, system of cultivation that preserves soil fertility by plot (field) rotation, as distinct from crop rotation. Yet most of the common farming techniques employed in . here. Concludes by addressing the need to protect and conserve the natural forests and wild life. PDF research article International Journal of Commerce and Business Shifting cultivation: more than a means of livelihood Environmental Impacts of Food Production - Our World in Data Shifting cultivation has often been blamed as the main cause of deforestation and forest degradation [911,14,15], but evidence is growing that when shifting cultivation is discontinued, it is often replaced by intensified land uses with higher environmental impacts [16,17]. d. It accounts for 26% of the gross domestic product. After the soil loses its fertility, the land is abandoned and the cultivator moves to a new plot. Logging Agricultural methane doesn't only come from animals, though. We used a search string similar to the one used for the literature review: [Title]: "Shifting cultivation" or swidden or "slash-and-burn" or "slash and burn" or "shifting agriculture" AND [Year published]: 20052015. Methodology, We believe that this represents a significant improvement on the shifting cultivation predictions that have been used so far in global land use models to estimate future greenhouse gas emissions, and we hope that our estimates can be a valuable input for future comparisons between models and international synthesis studies such as the upcoming Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experiments [27] and the next Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479.t002. Shifting cultivation remains widespread, despite decreases in its extent over the last four to five decades. For Southeast Asia, Schmidt-Vogt et al. Shifting cultivation and deforestation: A study from Indonesia The most important questions included: The information provided by the respondents related to very different spatial scales, ranging from village to district, provincial, and, in some cases, national scales. Peninsular Malaysia, central and southern Thailand) [28]. Regarding South and Southeast Asia, a meta-analysis by van Vliet et al. This is reflected both in the comparison of the two spatial data sets (Fig 6) and in the survey responses. The earlier 15-20 years cycle of shifting cultivation on a particular land has reduced to two or three years now. This indicates that, despite the subjectivity involved on estimating the landscape level of occurrence of shifting cultivation in our classification, the method led to reproducible and accurate results. The number of estimates of areas under shifting cultivation at regional and national scales in the literature is also very limited. Silva et al. This will be useful in improving the characterization of land surface and land use dynamics for earth system models and large-scale carbon and greenhouse gas accounting. Furthermore, it should be noted that the large difference between the two spatial data sets (Fig 6) in arid and semiarid parts of Africa (Sahelian and Sudanian zones of northern Africa as well as parts of southern Africa) is partly due to the fact that Butler included other, non-shifting smallholder farming systems in his map. e. The validation of the estimation of landscapes showing signs of shifting cultivation revealed that 95.1% of the one-degree cells showing signs of shifting cultivation in the validation data correspond to the results in our classification. The difference appears plausible if we consider that Spencers estimate is based on a hand-drawn map and that Asia has seen considerable decreases in shifting cultivation since that map was created (see section on recent trends below). Monoculture Farming Explained: What Are The Pros And Cons? The result shows that 68% of population practice shifting cultivation where out of it 69% of the locals depend on other activities other than agriculture but a high percent of people still. Writing review & editing, Roles Given the unavailability of automated approaches to detect shifting cultivation at a global level and deliver data in a timely manner for ongoing earth system modeling, we have used a visual interpretation approach to detect shifting cultivation. The plot is left alone for longer than it was cultivated, sometimes up to 10 or more years, to allow wild vegetation to grow on the plot of land. About half of tropical deforestation is commonly explained by the expansion of traditional agriculture (shifting cultivation). For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Forests occupy nearly a third of Earth's land surface, providing humans and countless other species with a wide range of benefits and services from ecological functions such as water and air . Nearly two-thirds of its population depends directly on agriculture for its livelihood. (Fig 2C): One-degree cell with a mesh of 1/100 degree cells as a basic unit for the validation data set, green cells having a shifting cultivation occurrence class of >1% in our global classification. Globally, sixty-two per cent of the investigated one-degree cells showed signs of shifting cultivation, with surprisingly similar shares across the 3 regions, ranging between 59 and 65% (Table 1) In absolute terms, the majority of cells with shifting cultivation are located in the Americas and Africa (almost 78%). Methodology, Soil is the foundation of most types of agriculture. While our estimates are based on non-automated methods and expert information from different parts of the world, we argue that our work nonetheless advances the state of knowledge considerably, especially with regard to earth system modeling scenarios, which have proved sensitive to the inclusion of shifting cultivation and up to now have used shifting cultivation data based on a hand drawn map from the 1980s. [43] when using the same source material for the classification as for the reference or validation data, it is essential to create the reference/validation data with a more accurate process than the classification. Shifting cultivation (SC) is a traditional land-use system to ensure livelihood in the Amazon (Villa et al., 2020).The traditional SC have small areas (0.1-0.8 ha) and short cycles of agriculture (1-3 years) with high crop diversity followed by fallow periods of 2-7 years [Fig. Data curation, Methodology, Taking into consideration the stratification criteria, 328 one-degree cells were randomly selected to be validated. It upsets the ecological balance as it disturbs many eco-systems of that region due to destruction of natural vegetation. In addition, the methods used in the different national and regional assessments vary greatly and are far from being standardized. 5 Ways Climate Change Impacts Forests - College of Natural Resources News Venezuela [67]), and Madagascar [68]. The major disadvantage of Shifting Cultivation is that many trees in the forest are cut and this increases soil infertility and leads to soil . Yucatan Peninsula [66], northern South America (e.g. More widespread signs of shifting cultivation were found mostly in small pockets, with the exception of larger areas in Central Africa (e.g. Climate change will bring more frequent and severe extreme weather events, including extreme precipitation, wind disturbance, heat waves, and drought. broad scope, and wide readership a perfect fit for your research every time. This figure was elaborated by the first author using ArcGIS 10.4. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479.g007. Our main objectives in this study are therefore 1) to review published knowledge about current status and past trends in the development of the global extent of shifting cultivation; 2) to assess the recent global distribution of shifting cultivation and, based on these trends and expert statements, 3) to provide a first estimation of the future extent and spatial distribution of shifting cultivation until 2090.

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