Research AreasAgrobiodiversity, Climate Change, Crops, Forestry & Agroforestry, Land Management, Livestock, Soils
CountriesBurkina Faso, Ethiopia
TimelineStart Date: 1 December 2008 | End Date: 31 May 2011
The overal goal of this project is the development of a data and knowledge base that gives easily accessible information to assist local land-users in adapting to climate hange in their specific region. Simultaneously the data base can be used as fundament for land-use-decisions in a broad variety of socio-economic contexts.
It aims to develop climate change scenarios for the next 100 years on a regional/local scale for Sub-Saharan Africa (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia) and their impact on land use systems. The project aims at achieving ready-to-use scenarios and recommendations for agroforestry and silvopastoral ecosystems on a highly-resolved spatial scale. Ocean-atmosphere coupled global circulation models (GCM) will be used as the basis for downscaling onto a regional and local level. Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere-Transfer(SVAT)-models for a plot scale will be used to simulate competition of plants for space, PAR radiation, water and nutrients.
The capacity of the plant to cope with different environments will be estimated by measured and modeled leaf water potential.Present vegetation structure and function will be determined by means of remote- ensing and ground based measurements. Their future distribution will be derived from their habitat requirements and climate scenarios. Current forms of agriculture and livestock husbandry practices will be evaluated in the specific regions and confronted with future climate scenario conditions.
The project is structured into the following eight subprojects keeping modelling and measurement components as key categories.
Subproject I: Present and future climate at a local scale;
Subproject II: 3D SVAT-models for quantifying interaction of multiple plants;
Subproject III: Energy balance model for ruminants in their outdoor environment;Subproject IV: Large-scale distribution of vegetation structures;
Subproject V: Small-scale structures of vegetation;
Subproject VI: Physiological parameters of woody and crop plants;
Subproject VII: 3-D-radiation field in different land use systems; and
Subproject VIII: Animal husbandry, fodder plants and nutrient budgets.Outputs for this project correspond to the above sub-projects. They are as follows.
Output 1: Atmospheric models for short term forecasts and long term projections for regional and local scales;
Output 2: Adaptation of SVAT-models to local vegetation types
Output 3: Energy budget model for ruminant units in their different environments
Output 4: Digital maps of vegetation distribution and environmental factors on larger scales
Output 5: Digital maps of biophysical structures of individual plants on a small scale
Output 6: Data base of leaf water potentials, of sap flows and of photosynthetic respond curves for different plants
Output 7: Set of values for 3D-short and long wave radiation within vegetation types; and
Output 8: Data base of energy of fodder-plants and the contribution of excrements to soil fertilization
- NARI - National Agricultural Research Institute
- Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA)
- Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Africa (ZIAF)
- George AUgust Universitat Gottingen (GAUG)
- Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany