Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
for 10 years in local systems and for 50-200 years in large regional ground-
water systems.
Landscape redesign - possibilities for farming without harming
If we seek sustainable management of rural landscapes, we need to develop
and deploy a suite of novel land uses that are matched to the diverse climate,
soils, hydrological conditions and, to some extent, the native biota of the
Australian continent. These land uses, in combination, need to deliver water
and nutrient leakage rates past the root zone or across the land surface that
approach those under natural vegetation. This will require radical change to
land use incorporating:
development of commercially driven tree production systems and/or
novel tree species for large areas of the current crop and pasture
zones. These would include trees to produce fruits, nuts, oils,
pharmaceuticals, bush foods and forestry products such as specialty
timbers, charcoal, and biomass energy
new farming systems made up of novel mixes of all the best current
annual and perennial plants, the best agronomy, companion
plantings, rotations and combinations
new forms of cereals, pulses, oilseeds and forages selected or bred for
characteristics that substantially reduce deep drainage and nitrogen
leakage, and
new land assessment tools that
best locate trees, other perennial plants, high-value annuals, and
native vegetation to meet water quantity and quality targets, and
biodiversity goals, and
facilitate identification and re-assignment of land so that on some
parts of the landscape, productivity is greatly enhanced (double
yield) and other parts are removed from production to provide a
range of ecosystem services and protect the native biota.
To realise this vision, we will need to pioneer the development of new
landscapes. These will comprise mosaics of tree crops driven by large-scale
industrial markets such as biomass fuels, high-value annual crops, mixed
perennial-annual cropping systems, and areas devoted to maintaining those
elements of the Australian biota dependent on native vegetation. Devising
the optimal placement of these land uses for salinity control, productivity
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