explain the effects of shifting cultivation on the environment

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479.t001. However, this future may also provide better opportunities for production and income generation if development efforts are sensitive to the needs of shifting cultivators [73,74]. Writing review & editing, Affiliation After the soil loses its fertility, the land is abandoned and the cultivator moves to a new plot. In Mexico, however, the trend has been towards decreasing areas under shifting cultivation. Eutrophication is considered to be a serious environmental concern since it often results in the . The authors estimated that these areas made up 13.1% of the countrys total land area in 2010; assuming the Democratic Republic of the Congo has a land area of 2.27 million km2 [59], this would amount to nearly 30 Mha, compared to 16 Mha based on the global GLC2000 data set in Silva et al. In soil-based agriculture, soil health is the most important foundation of a healthy farm ecosystem. If and when the occurrence of shifting cultivation in a grid cell fell below 5% (mean value for very low), shifting cultivation was assumed to disappear in that grid cell. For each grid cell, the occurrence of shifting cultivation declined linearly by the mid-point of the estimated losses in 2030, 2060 and 2090 (see Section 3.4). Moreover, it is not possible to know in detail how the respondents arrived at their assessment of past and future extents of shifting cultivation. Secondly, the detection and monitoring of complex shifting cultivation mosaics using automated remote sensing approaches remains challenging [33,38,39] and the mentioned small spatio-temporal signature of vegetation clearings and regrowth is very specific to shifting cultivation and visual interpretation is therefore suitable [40]. Human influence on the land is accelerating because of rapid population growth and increasing food requirements. Fig 1B to Fig 1E show examples of different zoom levels used to decide whether the pattern in the GFC data is indeed related to shifting cultivation Fig 1E (showing pattern of clearing for the current year of cultivation and different stages of fallow) or not Fig 1D (larger scale clearings with young rubber). The 270 first authors of these papers were listed and their email addresses were found. 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. archeological studies or historical studies of shifting cultivation in Europe), duplicates, and papers whose authors had deceased in the meantime, 282 papers remained. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. The effects on seasons of a changing climate are already being seen across the country and vary region to region: temperatures have risen across seasons, growing seasons have become longer, precipitation patterns have changed, and extreme precipitation events have increased in frequency and severity. Climate change is a leading cause of deforestation. - Madagascar: Shifting cultivation is expected to remain widespread, especially along the eastern escarpment, until well beyond 2030. Furthermore we wish to express our gratitude to the two reviewers as well as the editor for the very useful comments and inputs. According to Olofsson et al. 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. Shifting cultivation, which is still prevalent in the uplands of eastern Bangladesh, contributes significantly to forest loss and is the main cause of land degradation. As the data we used (GFC as well as Bing and Google imagery) cover the period from 2000 to 2014 and 2015, respectively, our assessment of the current extent of shifting cultivation does not relate to any specific year. In addition, the methods used in the different national and regional assessments vary greatly and are far from being standardized. - Myanmar: Shifting cultivation is estimated to mostly disappear sometime between 2060 and 2090 if conflicts between union government and ethnic armed groups are resolved. South America shows mixed trends: Areas under shifting cultivation have clearly decreased in the southern Brazilian Amazon, whereas survey responses indicate that they are expanding in other parts of the Brazilian Amazon and in Peru. The major disadvantage of Shifting Cultivation is that many trees in the forest are cut and this increases soil infertility and leads to soil . However, the areas indicated for each country vary greatly depending on the source. Meanwhile, the area under shifting cultivation has decreased by 71.22% from 1997 and forest cover has decreased by 4.41% during the period. 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]. This trend, which was also identified by van Vliet et al. The area of interest ranges from 30S and 30N (6,704 one-degree cells on landmass), while the area investigated includes 2,817 cells. The increase of shifting cultivation in Myanmar shown in Fig 6 is due to a marked underestimation in the Butler map, which can possibly be explained by the limited availability of information about Myanmar after the military government came to power in 1962. Climate change has caused increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks. 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. Yes In a book called Shifting cultivation policies: Balancing environmental and social sustainability (2017), an outline of the role of government and local institutions in regulating shifting . 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. Shifting cultivation remains widespread, despite decreases in its extent over the last four to five decades. It is a serious environmental concern since it can result in the loss of biodiversity, damage to natural habitats, disturbances in the water cycle, and soil erosion. From this, we excluded regions where shifting cultivation can safely be assumed to not have been present for centuries (e.g. Writing review & editing, Roles In fact, they should be understood as best guesses about general patterns rather than temporally and spatially accurate predictions, as land use transitions often happen suddenly, causing abrupt changes over large areas [23]. 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. It is a sustainable method of farming in the rainforest. The global shift towards this model of farming in the last sixty years has come with many costs. An area of 1,000 Mha was mentioned by Davidson et al. Describes the cultivation systems employed and the problems generated erosion, burning, harm to indigenous plants and animals. But soil health is negatively impacted by industrial agriculture practices like monocropping, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and more. 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. In addition to searching the Web of Science, we also consulted three major book publications that could be assumed to contain relevant information [2426]. Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture. 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. This has led to a paucity of global information on certain land use systems, including shifting cultivation at the global level. Conceptualization, Letting it dry and burning it off. Shifting cultivation, which is still prevalent in the uplands of eastern Bangladesh, contributes significantly to forest loss and is the main cause of land degradation. Extreme weather. Australia, the Gulf States, arid areas in Africa) or where it disappeared several decades ago (e.g. Visualization, northern Zambia and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), parts of southeastern Africa (e.g. Climate change will also worsen a range of risks to the Great Lakes. There is a need to transform shifting cultivation to sustainable intensification. Many of the other decreases from Butlers to our map (dark brown in Fig 6) can also most likely be related to the actual disappearance of shifting cultivation in these areas that have seen significant land use transitions over the past 40 to 50 years. [1], possibly owing to the scale (1-km resolution) of the GLC2000 data sets. d. It accounts for 26% of the gross domestic product. [1] used the Global Land Cover 2000 (GLC2000) data set [53] and the Map of the Ecosystems for Central America [54] to estimate the extent of shifting cultivation at the global scale. 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 . However, adequate prediction of land usebased emissions requires an improved understanding of megatrends in land use systems change [2,5]. The very low occurrence of shifting cultivation within a majority of cells, particularly in the Americas, points towards shifting cultivation being either a form of cultivation practiced in landscapes where only a minor share of the land is used for agriculture (e.g. Cultivation (tillage) is a practice that has been introduced to Australia from Europe by our farming pioneers. Forest and trees play an important role in balancing the environment. 1,063 likes, 4 comments - Simran IAS Academy (@simranias) on Instagram: "#Learnbymaps is here to explain you about #Slash and #Burn Cultivation Slash and burn #agricultu." Simran IAS Academy on Instagram: "#Learnbymaps is here to explain you about #Slash and #Burn Cultivation Slash and burn #agriculture is also called the shifting cultivation. Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen K, Denmark, Roles The principle of cultivation is to turn the soil into a fine tilth to provide the ideal environment for seeds to germinate. Analysis of Landsat data back to Landsat4 (launched in 1982) could provide more than 30 years of pan-tropical records, covering a time of significant change in the distribution of shifting cultivation across the humid tropics and perhaps also in the length of fallow periods. 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. Formal analysis, 70% of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture 2. [24], who in turn had cited Dixon et al. Consequently, if further research (e.g. Both conditions apply to considerable parts of Central Africa. For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click Disadvantages of Shifting cultivation: Deforestation Loss of fertility of a specific site Soil erosion Tree burning generates air pollution. For example, many of the commercial or smallholder oil palm and rubber plantations that cover large areas of Southeast Asia today are on land that was formerly used for shifting cultivation [1821]. The map shows that shifting cultivation is still present across large areas of the humid tropics. We did not perform any detailed spatial delineation of the actual area under shifting cultivation, as the goal of our study was to provide a global one degreegridded product. [1]. 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. These approaches, however, are still in the making and will require substantial resources. b. Our cautious estimation indicates that the global extent of shifting cultivation, including currently cultivated fields and all stages of fallows, may amount to roughly 280 Mha, with the largest share in Africa, followed by the Americas and Asia. Farmers will have to shift what they grow and how they grow it to keep up with an expanding population. However, the expert survey confirms that shifting cultivation has fully disappeared between the 1970s and the 2000s in various areas of mainland Southeast Asia, such as southern Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, and China. Any change in the climate of an area can affect the plants and animals living there, as well as the makeup of the entire ecosystem. Predicting future trends in the development of any form of land use requires extreme caution [23,69]. https://www.britannica.com/topic/shifting-agriculture. Such areas are found in parts of Southeast Asia (e.g. Nevertheless, shifting agriculture is an adaptation to tropical soil conditions in regions where long-term, continued cultivation of the same field, without advanced techniques of soil conservation and the use of fertilizers, would be extremely detrimental to the fertility of the land. 5. 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%). The length of time that a field is cultivated is usually shorter than the period over which the land is allowed to regenerate by lying fallow. To approximate the current extent of shifting cultivation landscapes globally we used the results of a time-series analysis of mainly Landsat images characterizing forest extent and change [8], hereafter referred to as Global Forest Change (GFC) data set. Initially, we considered all 6,704 one-degree cells covering the land area between 30S and 30N, where shifting cultivation is likely to occur [17]. No, Is the Subject Area "Asia" applicable to this article? It is a form of farming practice that entails clearing a land parcel by felling and burning trees. Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. The areas newly classified as having shifting cultivation (blue in Fig 6) are more likely to have been missed in the Butler map than to represent actual new areas under shifting cultivation, as many of these regions are well known to still have significant shifting cultivation landscapes. Articles with data at subnational scales were only considered if the subnational area studied constituted the main area of shifting cultivation in the given country (and thus a reasonable estimate of the national extent of shifting cultivation). IWGIA - IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs [3037]) such approaches cannot yet be up-scaled to global level due to data availability as well as computational limitations. Cultivation was also a traditional form of weed control. - Papua New Guinea: Shifting cultivation may persist well into the second half of this century, perhaps even until 2090. 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. It upsets the ecological balance as it disturbs many eco-systems of that region due to destruction of natural vegetation. A plot of land is cleared by cutting the trees and burning them. Venezuela [67]), and Madagascar [68]. In shifting agriculture a plot of land is cleared and cultivated for a short period of time; then it is abandoned and allowed to revert to its natural vegetation while the cultivator moves on to another plot. The study by Silva et al. here. Thirty-eight email addresses were no longer functional and 7 authors declined to participate for various reasons. Shifting cultivation decreases the activities of useful microorganisms found in the soil. We compared this result to Butlers (1980) binary (presence or absence) map of shifting cultivation, gridded into one-degree cells. From droughts and wildfires to pests and pathogens, climate change is wreaking havoc on the world's forests. When looking at this comparison, it is important to keep in mind that only full disappearance of shifting cultivation within a one-degree cell will show as a change between the two data sets; gradual decreaseswhich normally precede full disappearanceare not captured if the occurrence of shifting cultivation in the respective cells according to our present estimate remains greater than 5%. The ranges are based on the expert survey and observed trends between the Butler map and our 2010 classification (Fig 5). Shifting agriculture has frequently been attacked in principle because it degrades the fertility of forestlands of tropical regions. We have nonetheless ventured to display our estimates in predictive maps because they are based on a spatially explicit analysis in 2010. Thus that abandoned land then gets ample . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479.t002. To stress the interactions between society and the environment, the driving forces (D), pressures (P), states (S), impacts (I), and response (R) (DPSIR) framework approach . Writing original draft, The history of shifting cultivation is as old as the history of agriculture itself. Sample: 2A Score: 7 This response earned full credit and demonstrates a comprehensive understanding of subsistence agriculture and the sustainability of shifting cultivation in the past and for the future. Soil is the foundation of most types of agriculture. Based on visual inspection of annual global deforestation data [8] from 2000 to 2014 and very high-resolution satellite imagery. On this basis, we can provide a preliminary overview of regional and national trends in the development of the extent of shifting cultivation over the past 40 to 50 years. Solution: a. India is an agricultural country. This article first questions the share of responsibility assigned to traditional agriculture it may well be overestimated because of unclear definitions, uncertain estimates, and potential political biases. The selection process ensured that all are experts in the field, but there may be disciplinary or personal differences in the way that especially the future of shifting cultivation was assessed. No, Is the Subject Area "Africa" applicable to this article? Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 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. Hence, the occurrence level was estimated and not measured and the classification was based on a coarse assessment of the landscape (also see accuracy assessment below). Validation, in the Amazon and parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo), or a residual form of cultivation in landscapes that have mostly been transformed to other land uses (such as permanent agriculture or tree crops, e.g. Eutrophication is the process in which a water body becomes overly enriched with nutrients, leading to plentiful growth of simple plant life. Citation: Heinimann A, Mertz O, Frolking S, Egelund Christensen A, Hurni K, Sedano F, et al. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184479.s001. 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. An online questionnaire was designed and sent to these 270 authors in September 2015 using survey monkey. The Neolithic Revolutionalso referred to as the Agricultural Revolutionis thought to have begun about 12,000 years ago. The spatio-temporal pattern of the annual deforestation data from 2000 to 2014 at a resolution of 30 meters provides the basis for our approximation. The effects of shifting cultivation are devastating and far-reaching in degrading the environment and ecology of these regions. Shifting cultivation systems are commonly associated with rural poverty and forest degradation. Yes After eliminating papers that were not related to recent shifting cultivation in the tropics (e.g. (Fig 2A): the global distribution of the stratified sample of the 328 one-degree cells used in the validation data set. Regarding Central and South America, the only available source [57] used the secondary forest class as defined in FAOs Forest Resource Assessment 1990 [58] as a proxy and stated the area under shifting cultivation to be 165 Mha. We estimate that shifting cultivation landscapes currently cover roughly 280 million hectares worldwide, including both cultivated fields and fallows. For large parts of insular Southeast Asia and South Asia (e.g. Lastly, it is also problematic that shifting cultivation has been subject to recycling of statements about its importance that have no basis in thorough empirical research. This technique serves to clear the field and enrich the soil with nutrients from the ash. Our point of departure is a global map of the distribution of primitive subsistence agriculture produced by Butler in 1980 [13], a visual inspection of the distribution of shifting cultivation based on the 20002014 Global Forest Change (GFC) data set [8] and very highresolution satellite imagery, as well as an expert survey. To assess the accuracy of our estimated occurrence levels of shifting cultivation on the landscape, this validation data was used to calculate the actual area shares of the 1/100 by 1/100 one-degree cells classified as having shifting cultivation in validation data for all 328 one degree samples cells. within global land-use models) needs spatially explicit estimates of areas under shifting cultivation at intervals lying between the status shown in the Butler map (1960s to 1970s) and our estimations for 2010 (e.g. Yes 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. [24]). The validation of shifting cultivation mapping is generally challenging due to the lack of reference data [41,42]. It ensures the forest will recover. More widespread signs of shifting cultivation were found mostly in small pockets, with the exception of larger areas in Central Africa (e.g. Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, Roles In Asia, we expect that continued rapid economic development and the related changes in agricultural practices and, more importantly, in the economic structure (from the primary to the secondary and tertiary sectors) may cause shifting cultivation to disappear faster than in Africa or the Americas. By contrast, we expect that shifting cultivation will persist for a longer time in Africa, especially in Central Africa. teamsters local 456 corruption, pottery barn friends and family sale dates,

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