Sustainability of agricultural land use in undulating terrain of northeast Thailand
2004
Patma Vityakon(Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen (Thailand). Faculty of Agriculture. Department of Land Resources and Environment)
Sustainability of a land-use system can occur if the land-use activities do not cause excessive land degradation. Studies in a representative mini-watershed in an undulating terrain of Northeast Thailand employing various indicators of land degradation including nutrient balance, soil erosion and soil organic matter at the plot and landscape (mini-watershed) levels were conducted. The studies showed that serious land degradation occurred in the undulating terrain having undergone land-use change from forest to agriculture. However, the land degradation has not occurred uniformly in various subsystems in the mini-watershed and those that had different land-use systems. It was found that monoculture of field crops in the uplands led to land degradation, while the paddy rice land use in the lowlands did not produce the degradation. Furthermore, the forest (the original land use) did not produce land degradation and appeared to be sustainable. In order to mitigate degradation in cultivated land with special emphasis on the uplands that has been under monoculture field crops, measures that mimic the natural forest system were recommended. The first measure is to increase the diversity of vegetation, especially increase number of trees, in cultivated land both in the plot and the landscape levels and the second measure is to grow plants that produce high return of appropriate quality organic residues.
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