Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
B) Project objectives
1) What were the initial project objectives?
The overall objective of the project was to develop a tool for integrated land use
planning at watershed scale that could contribute to improve sustainable agricultural
production systems in inland valleys in West Africa. This tool takes into account the
balance between production and protection objectives and should assist in making
informed decisions on allocating land use activities of small holder farmers across
the watershed on both agricultural and natural land.
Specific scientific and technological objectives were to:
•
Quantify the production, regulation (water, sediment and nutrient flows) and bio-
diversity functions of natural and agricultural ecosystems at farm and watershed
scale in three inland valleys in Ghana and Burkina Faso with distinct different
land use intensities.
•
Assess the economic importance of the tradeoffs and complementarities between
natural and agricultural ecosystems and the different functions they provide.
•
Develop a GIS-based tool for integrated, multi-functional watershed-level land
use planning for use by extension services and planners.
2) Have there been any (major) changes to these objectives and for what reason?
Yes: (a) nutrient flows and groundwater fluctuations were not quantified and the
results of the socio-economic survey were only partly processed into the tool due to
delays in the release of funds, (b) the tool was tailored to the case study areas in
Burkina Faso due to the delay in the supply of information, but not to the areas in
Ghana.
C) Project activities
1) Which activities were employed to meet the objectives?
•
Set up of project and collection of baseline information (WP1)
Characterization of inland valleys, village-level interviews, aerial photographs
and transect surveys, vegetation description, etc.
•
Monitoring activities on various themes and at various scales (WP2-4)
Biophysical monitoring of regulation functions at field and watershed level:
rainfall, runoff and streamflow and components of the mass and energy balances:
net radiation (radiometer), soil- (heatflux plates) and sensible heat (scintillo-
meter) fluxes; latent heat flux or evapotranspiration was the closing term.
•
Socio-economic monitoring at household level (WP4)
Collection of socio-economic information at the household level, quantification
of the production functions from both agricultural and natural lands, and
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