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Environmental Consequences of the Demise in Swidden Cultivation in Southeast Asia: Carbon Storage and Soil Quality

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Abstract

The effects of swidden cultivation on carbon storage and soil quality are outlined and compared to the effects of the intensified production systems that swidden systems of Southeast Asia transform into. Time-averaged aboveground carbon stocks decline by about 90% if the long fallow periods of traditional swidden cultivation are reduced to 4 years and by about 60% if swidden cultivation is converted to oil palm plantations. Stocks of soil organic carbon (SOC) in tree plantations are 0–40% lower than stocks in swidden cultivation, with the largest losses found in mechanically established oil palm plantations. Impacts of tree plantations on soil quality are to a large extent determined by management. Conversion of swiddening to continuous annual cropping systems brings about substantial losses of time-averaged aboveground carbon stocks, reductions of SOC stocks and generally leads to declining soil quality. Knowledge of carbon storage in belowground biomass of tree based systems of the tropics is sparse but failure to include this pool in carbon inventories may significantly underestimate the total biomass of the systems. Moreover, studies that consider the ecological reasons behind farmers’ land use decisions as well as spatial variability in biogeophysical and edaphological parameters are needed to evaluate the effects of the ongoing land use transitions in Southeast Asia.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the Ford Foundation for funding a workshop in Hanoi in March 2008 where the data for this paper was discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Thilde Bech Bruun

  2. Department of Agriculture and Ecology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Andreas de Neergaard

  3. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Deborah Lawrence

  4. Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Alan D. Ziegler

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  1. Thilde Bech Bruun
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  2. Andreas de Neergaard
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Correspondence to Thilde Bech Bruun.

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Bruun, T.B., de Neergaard, A., Lawrence, D. et al. Environmental Consequences of the Demise in Swidden Cultivation in Southeast Asia: Carbon Storage and Soil Quality. Hum Ecol 37, 375–388 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-009-9257-y

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