This book, with contributions from leading academics - and including reviews and case studies from Ethiopian Church forests - provides a valuable reference for advanced students and researchers interested in forest and other natural resource management, ecology and ecosystem services as well as restoration options. The book addresses various aspects including a general overview of Ethiopian church forests, the present role and future challenges of church forests. It also discusses their structure and diversity in the context of sustainability and discusses restoration options for surrounding landscapes, under consideration of the circumstances of the land and the needs of surrounding communities. The intended readership includes natural resource professionals in general as well as forestry professionals in particular (practitioners, policymakers, educators and researchers). The book will provide the reader with a good foundation for understanding Ethiopian forest resources and restoration options of degraded landscape.
Forest degradation as a result of logging, shifting cultivation, agriculture and urban development is a major issue throughout the tropics. It leads to loss in soil fertility, water resources and biodiversity, as well as contributes to climate change. Efforts are therefore required to try to minimize further degradation and restore tropical forests in a sustainable way. This is the first research-based book to examine this problem in East Africa. The specific focus is on the forests of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda, but the lessons learned are shown to be applicable to neighbouring countries and others in the tropics. A wide range of forest types are covered, from dry Miombo forest and afromontane forests, to forest-savannah mosaics and wet forest types. Current management practices are assessed and examples of good practice presented. The role of local people is also emphasized. The authors describe improved management and restoration through silviculture, plantation forestry and agroforestry, leading to improvements in timber production, biodiversity conservation and the livelihoods of local people.
This book aims to systematically elaborate how land-use change directly or indirectly exerts impacts on the ability of ecosystems to provide services for human society. The relationship between land use, ecosystem services and human well-being is a hot topic, and there have been some important achievements in this field, but its continuing growth means that it warrants further research. The unique viewpoint, the scientific analysis methods and the precise language of this book make it not only a valuable guide for professors conducting research, but also a reference resource to help governments make decisions on relevant policies. Prof. Jinyan Zhan is an associate professor at the School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, China.
Ethiopia is facing environmental and poverty challenges, and urgently needs effective management of its environmental resources. Much of the Ethiopian landscape has been significantly altered and reshaped by centuries of human activities, and three-quarters of the rural population is living on degraded land. Over the past two decades the country has seen rapid economic and population growth and unparalleled land use change. This book explores the challenges of sustaining the resource base while fuelling the economy and providing for a growing population that is greatly dependent on natural resources for income and livelihoods. Adopting a political ecology perspective, this book comprehensively examines human impacts on the environment in Ethiopia, defining the environment both in terms of the quantity and quality of renewable and non-renewable natural resources. With high levels of economic production and consumption also come unintended side effects: waste discharges, emissions of pollutants, and industrial effluents. These pollutants can degrade the quality of water, air, land, and forests as well as harm the health of people, animals, and other living organisms if untreated or disposed of improperly. This book demonstrates how the relationship between society and environment is inherently and delicately interwoven, providing an account of Ethiopia’s current environment and natural resource base and future considerations for environmentally sustainable development.
This book compiles available knowledge of the response of mountain ecosystems to recent climate and land use change and intends to bridge the gap between science, policy and the community concerned. The chapters present key concepts, major drivers and key processes of mountain response, providing transdisciplinary orientation to mountain studies incorporating experiences of academics, community leaders and policy-makers from developed and less developed countries. The book chapters are arranged in two sections. The first section concerns the response processes of mountain environments to climate change. This section addresses climate change itself (past, current and future changes of temperature and precipitation) and its impacts on the cryosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and human-environment systems. The second section focuses on the response processes of mountain environments to land use/land cover change. The case studies address effects of changing agriculture and pastoralism, forest/water resources management and urbanization processes, landscape management, and biodiversity conservation. The book is designed as an interdisciplinary publication which critically evaluates developments in mountains of the world with contributions from both social and natural sciences.
Eucalyptus, a genus of over 800 species, is a multiproduct crop par excellence. Not only is it grown for timber, pulp and fuelwood, but, as the Aborigines discovered thousands of years ago, it has numerous medicinal and aromatic properties. Since the first commercial distillation of eucalyptus oil 150 years ago, a vast array of eucalyptus-based pro
This book describes the latest advances, innovations and applications in the field of waste management and environmental geomechanics as presented by leading researchers, engineers and practitioners at the International Conference on Sustainable Waste Management through Design (IC_SWMD), held in Ludhiana (Punjab), India on November 2-3, 2018. Providing a unique overview of new directions, and opportunities for sustainable and resilient design approaches to protect infrastructure and the environment, it discusses diverse topics related to civil engineering and construction aspects of the resource management cycle, from the minimization of waste, through the eco-friendly re-use and processing of waste materials, the management and disposal of residual wastes, to water treatments and technologies. It also encompasses strategies for reducing construction waste through better design, improved recovery, re-use, more efficient resource management and the performance of materials recovered from wastes. The contributions were selected by means of a rigorous peer-review process and highlight many exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaboration among different waste management specialists.
Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region worldwide, has only recently begun to fully address the issues of meeting the water needs of its rapidly growing population, to reduce the deepening poverty besetting the region and to accelerate economic growth. The Nile Basin, characterized by sharp spatial and temporal variations in water resources and including countries with different economies, social and political structures and capacities, illustrates the challenges of developing and managing the waters of the Nile River and its tributaries, lakes and wetlands equitably among its 10 riparian countries. Ethiopia, the major source of the Nile but one of the poorest countries in the Nile Basin, has recently begun to implement plans to harness more Nile water through hydroelectric and irrigation development both for national use and for transboundary development as part of the Nile Basin Initiative. The Ethiopian government and communities, by using different management approaches and resources, are trying to boost water, energy and food production, strengthen conservation efforts and mitigate potential repercussions of water resources development. These initiatives and programs have not been comprehensively examined. In this study, the editors address these and other issues surrounding water resources management in all economic and water sectors in Ethiopia within the setting of the Nile Basin, the first comprehensive treatment of this subject. The wide scope of this book is consistent with the tenets of integrated water resources management, which demand that all water uses be managed in an integrated fashion for optimum and sustainable benefits to all water users, both humans and ecosystems. This book reveals the impacts of various resource management approaches and practices in Ethiopia and the Nile Basin. Specifically, it examines how deforestation and prevailing land use practices have exacerbated soil aridity and flood events, why irrigated agriculture and hydropower development have caused floodplain degradation, livelihood hardships and water-related diseases, where industrial and agricultural development is increasingly polluting water resources, how household water supplies can be obtained through rainwater harvesting and the dependence on hydropower reduced through alternative energy sources and how misguided government policies have impeded efforts to deal with these and other challenges. Results reveal dynamic interrelationships between these processes and identify the human and environmental driving forces, which must be understood in effective integrated water resources management. Another unique contribution of this book is the examination of the role of government and communities in managing water resources in Ethiopia. Results show that the top-down approach used by the socialist Derg government in soil and water conservation and social programs exacerbated water problems and reduced community participation. Moreover, the failure of its economic program reduced agricultural production, increasing dependency on relief food and further impeding community initiatives in soil and water conservation activities. Many elements of central planning persist in spite of the decentralization drive by the current government, but there is evidence that integration of the top-down and bottom-up approaches to water resources management is necessary (and feasible) to strengthen and up-scale programs to the national level. The book identifies a number of customary water and soil management practices and institutions that may strengthen especially community-based rainwater harvesting, small-scale irrigation, reforestation, soil and water conservation and flood control efforts. This is an important book for researchers and students of resources management, rural development, hydrology and African studies.
In 2005, The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) provided the first global assessment of the world's ecosystems and ecosystem services. It concluded that recent trends in ecosystem change threatened human wellbeing due to declining ecosystem services. This bleak prophecy has galvanized conservation organizations, ecologists, and economists to work toward rigorous valuations of ecosystem services at a spatial scale and with a resolution that can inform public policy. The editors have assembled the world's leading scientists in the fields of conservation, policy analysis, and resource economics to provide the most intensive and best technical analyses of ecosystem services to date. A key idea that guides the science is that the modelling and valuation approaches being developed should use data that are readily available around the world. In addition, the book documents a toolbox of ecosystem service mapping, modeling, and valuation models that both The Nature Conservancy and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) are beginning to apply around the world as they transform conservation from a biodiversity only to a people and ecosystem services agenda. The book addresses land, freshwater, and marine systems at a variety of spatial scales and includes discussion of how to treat both climate change and cultural values when examining tradeoffs among ecosystem services.
