Agricultural Practices in Oil Palm Plantations and Their Impact on Hydrological Changes, Nutrient Fluxes and Water Quality in Indonesia

Comte, Irina; Colin, François; Whalen, Joann K.; Grünberger, Olivier; Caliman, Jean‐Pierre

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-394277-7.00003-8

Cited by 150 publications

(139 citation statements)

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“…Variation in the distribution of aquatic insects across sampling stations showed that the highest abundance and diversity was in oil palm plantation (OP), followed by secondary forest (SF) and oxbow-lake (OB). Oil palm plantations have been reported may increase nutrient and sediment export into streams (Comte et al 2012) while secondary forests have been showed to return high amounts of nutrients in litter fall and act as nutrient sinks (Brown & Lugo 1990;Silva et al 2011), therefore significant in the aquatic food web structure and ecosystem processes (Douglas 2005). This suggests that abundant organic matter in oil palm plantation and secondary forest could have influenced the high distribution of aquatic insects in LKR.…”

Section: Distribution and Diversity Of Aquatic Insects Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Quality and Aquatic Insects Study at the Lower Kinabatangan River Catchment, Sabah: In Response to Weak La Niña Event

Harun¹,

Al‐Shami²,

Dambul³

et al. 2015

JSM

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Section: Distribution and Diversity Of Aquatic Insects Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Quality and Aquatic Insects Study at the Lower Kinabatangan River Catchment, Sabah: In Response to Weak La Niña Event

Harun¹,

Al‐Shami²,

Dambul³

et al. 2015

JSM

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“…Although we acknowledge that in reality development would be spread across the landscape at different times, the scheduling of development was not the primary issue of concern, but scheduled development could be incorporated in future models. Large amounts of mineral fertiliser containing nitrogen and phosphorus (500 to 1,000 kg/ha) are required for oil palm growth, with treatments varying over time (Comte et al 2012). We accounted for changing levels of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) from fertiliser treatments and differing erosion potential for each stage of oil palm maturity in our model by varying pollutant coefficients for sediments and nitrogen at three stages:…”

Section: Landmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The impacts of oil palm plantations to terrestrial ecosystems are clear (Fitzherbert et al 2008), but their effects on marine ecosystems are not well understood. Erosion from new plantations can result in poor water quality from increased sediments, nutrients and pollutants (e.g., agrochemicals) (Ah Tung et al 2009;Comte et al 2012). To exacerbate this issue, development of palm oil plantations is occurring upstream of sensitive and biodiverse habitats, such as coral reefs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However lands leased to oil palm companies for commercial plantations are often undervalued, and costs of development can be disproportionally distributed amongst local communities (Anderson 2006). Erosion and fertiliser use from oil palm plantations can increase sediment and nutrient loads in runoff, which can compromise downstream coastal ecosystems and fisheries (Comte et al 2012). A key challenge in ridge-to-reef planning for coastal land-use change such as oil palm development is to account for connections between land and marine environments whilst allowing for ongoing or increasing resource exploitation (Agrawal & Redford 2006), but successful examples are rare (but see Chapter 3 and Arkema et al (2015)).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We stress that our scenarios are not meant to predict future land-uses in any way, although the new "best practices" sustainability criteria for oil palm development may be an important consideration for future oil palm expansion in the tropics. In regions where expansion and deforestation has already occurred in upland areas, alternative management practices may be required to reduce erosion and runoff, such as building terraces, restoring heavily degraded lands, especially peatlands, and rehabilitation of mangroves, to improve the condition and build resilience of degraded or vulnerable downstream ecosystems (Comte et al 2012;Fairhurst & McLaughlin 2009). We also acknowledge that this study does not fully explore all criteria to reduce oil palm impact.…”

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Managing direct and indirect threats to marine ecosystems to balance multiple objectives

Tulloch¹

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Human activities affecting the environment are intensifying. In marine ecosystems, direct stressors of overfishing and habitat destruction have led to biodiversity declines, prompting calls for conservation action and more sustainable resource management. Managing stressors becomes more challenging when stressors interact, or are indirect, whereby the source of the threatening activity is displaced from impacts, such as the localised effects of global warming, or runoff from land-use change degrading coral reefs. Effective management requires improved understanding of ecosystem responses to multiple stressors and consideration of interactions between stressors and species.Opposing objectives and outcomes of marine conservation (i.e. reducing stressors) versus resource management (often increasing stressors) compromise effective decision-making. Approaches are needed that include ecological and socio-economic information to promote long-term sustainability of extractive uses, protect functioning ecosystems, and conserve biodiversity. The choice of tool used to inform ecosystem management is typically constrained by management goals and available resources -spatial planning is typically used for conservation, whereas resource management relies more on population modelling.The goal of this thesis is to harness spatial and population modelling techniques to combine resource management with biodiversity conservation and link direct and indirect stressors to marine biodiversity persistence. Chapter 1 provides the context for the thesis, where I explore these themes and outline differences in decision-making for conservation versus extraction. In Chapter 2, I explore how agencies have managed stressors to date, and show that a decision-theoretic approach known as "structured decision-making" (SDM) is a more logical and effective way of managing stressors than traditional approaches that map threats. SDM requires clear objectives, canvassing of alternative management options, and linking outcomes for biodiversity to the effectiveness of each management option. SDM ensures that conservation actions occur where they are the most cost-efficient or effective. I apply recommendations from Chapter 2 in two case studies for managing multiple stressors to marine ecosystems: 1) spatial planning for oil palm agriculture and coral reef fisheries in Papua New Guinea (Chapters 3 and 4), and 2) managing whale species affected by harvesting, climate change and krill population dynamics in the Southern Hemisphere (Chapters 5 and 6).In Chapter 3 I combine ecosystem models and threat maps with spatial conservation planning to predict responses of coral and seagrass ecosystems to changing land uses. My novel framework identifies high priority areas for marine reserves whilst accounting for indirect impacts of land use change such as oil palm development and uncertainty in future stressor intensities. I demonstrate ii how we can reduce adverse impacts of oil palm expansion and make more effective whole-ofsystem decisions for coasta...

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IN‐Palm: An agri‐environmental indicator to assess nitrogen losses in oil palm plantations

et al. 2020

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Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is currently cultivated on 19 million ha, and palm oil represents more than one-third of the global vegetable oil market. Addition of nitrogen (N) via legume cover crop and fertilizers is a common practice in industrial oil palm plantations, however, there is a tendency for N loss, thus contributing significantly to environmental effects. To improve the sustainability of palm oil production, it is crucial to determine which management practices minimize N losses.Continuous field measurements would be cost-prohibiting as a monitoring tool, and in the case of oil palm, available models do not account for all the potential nitrogen inputs and losses or management practices. In this context, we developed IN-Palm, a model to help managers and scientists estimate N losses to the environment and identify best management practices. The main challenge was to build the model in a context of knowledge scarcity. Given these objectives and constraints, we developed an agri-environmental indicator, using the INDIGO method and fuzzy decision trees. We validated the N leaching module of IN-Palm against field data from Sumatra, Indonesia. IN-Palm is implemented in an Excel file and uses 21 readily available input variables to compute 17 modules. It estimates annual emissions and scores for each N-loss pathway and provides recommendations to reduce N losses.IN-Palm predictions of N leaching were acceptable according to several statistics, with a tendency to underestimate nitrogen leaching. Thus, we highlighted necessary improvements to increase IN-Palm precision before use in plantations.

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Agricultural Practices in Oil Palm Plantations and Their Impact on Hydrological Changes, Nutrient Fluxes and Water Quality in Indonesia

Cited by 150 publications

References 53 publications

Water Quality and Aquatic Insects Study at the Lower Kinabatangan River Catchment, Sabah: In Response to Weak La Niña Event

Water Quality and Aquatic Insects Study at the Lower Kinabatangan River Catchment, Sabah: In Response to Weak La Niña Event

Managing direct and indirect threats to marine ecosystems to balance multiple objectives

IN‐Palm: An agri‐environmental indicator to assess nitrogen losses in oil palm plantations

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