Assessing the Impacts of Large-Scale Agro-Industrial Sugarcane Production on Biodiversity: A Case Study of Wonji Shoa Sugar Estate, Ethiopia

Degefa, Sileshi; Saito, Osamu

doi:10.3390/agriculture7120099

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(39 reference statements)

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“…1). The average elevation of the site is 1540 m above the mean sea level (Firehun et al, 2013), and it covers a 12,000 hectares area (Degefa & Saito, 2017). The total size of out-growers and the estate grow sugarcane farm areas on 7000 ha and 5000 ha, respectively Furrow irrigation system is used to water a total land area of 7022.24 ha out of which 1118.67 ha, is owned by seven local cooperative farmer associations.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Combined Use of Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2A Imagery for Improved Sugarcane Yield Estimation in Wonji-Shoa, Ethiopia

Abebe

Tadesse

Gessesse

2021

J Indian Soc Remote Sens

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In this study, a support vector regression (SVR) approach based on a radial basis function was used for estimating sugarcane yield in the Wonji-Shoa sugarcane plantation (Ethiopia) combining Landsat 8 (L8) and sentinel 2A (S2A) data. Vegetation Indices(VIs) involving visible, near-infrared, and shortwave infrared bands were calculated from the L8 and S2A sensor observations, and seasonal cumulative values were computed for the period June to October in the 9th month and June to November in the 10th month of the year for 2016/17 to 2018/19 cropping seasons. Sugarcane yield was predicted using the SVR, Multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN), and Multiple linear regression (MLR) methods. Then, a tenfold cross-validation approach was implemented for the performance evaluation. The results showed significant correlations between sugarcane yield and cumulative values of VIs computed during the 10th month in the growing season. The results also revealed that the estimation accuracy of sugarcane was better using the combined L8 and S2A (RMSE = 12.95 t/ha, and MAE = 10.14 t/ha) than using the S2A data alone (RMSE = 14.71 t/ha, and MAE = 12.18 t/ha). Comparing SVR results with MLPNN and MLR disclosed that SVR outperforms the other two models in terms of prediction accuracy. Overall, this study demonstrated the successful application of the SVR in developing a model for Sugarcane yield estimation and it may provide a guideline for improving the estimations of sugarcane in the study area.

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Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Combined Use of Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2A Imagery for Improved Sugarcane Yield Estimation in Wonji-Shoa, Ethiopia

Abebe

Tadesse

Gessesse

2021

J Indian Soc Remote Sens

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“…AWs are presently considered one of the main livestock predators in the Ethiopian Highlands and are heavily persecuted [9]. However, they may also provide an ecological benefit to farmers if they feed upon pests such as rodents and insects, which cause significant damage to crops in small-holder farms in Ethiopia [13][14][15][16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging ecology of African wolves ( Canis lupaster ) and its implications for the conservation of Ethiopian wolves ( Canis simensis )

et al. 2019

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African wolves (AWs) are sympatric with endangered Ethiopian wolves (EWs) in parts of their range. Scat analyses have suggested a dietary overlap between AWs and EWs, raising the potential for exploitative competition, and a possible conservation threat to EWs. However, in contrast to that of the well-studied EW, the foraging ecology of AWs remains poorly characterized. Accordingly, we studied the foraging ecology of radio-collared AWs ( n = 11 individuals) at two localities with varying levels of anthropogenic disturbance in the Ethiopian Highlands, the Guassa-Menz Community Conservation Area (GMCCA) and Borena-Saynt National Park (BSNP), accumulating 845 h of focal observation across 2952 feeding events. We also monitored rodent abundance and rodent trapping activity by local farmers who experience conflict with AWs. The AW diet consisted largely of rodents (22.0%), insects (24.8%), and goats and sheep (24.3%). Of the total rodents captured by farmers using local traps during peak barley production (July to November) in GMCCA, averaging 24.7 ± 8.5 rodents/hectare/day, 81% ( N = 3009) were scavenged by AWs. Further, of all the rodents consumed by AWs, most (74%) were carcasses. These results reveal complex interactions between AWs and local farmers, and highlight the scavenging niche occupied by AWs in anthropogenically altered landscapes in contrast to the active hunting exhibited by EWs in more intact habitats. While AWs cause economic damage to local farmers through livestock predation, they appear to play an important role in scavenging pest rodents among farmlands, a pattern of behaviour which likely mitigates direct and indirect competition with EWs. We suggest two routes to promote the coexistence of AWs and EWs in the Ethiopian highlands: local education efforts highlighting the complex role AWs play in highland ecosystems to reduce their persecution, and enforced protection of intact habitats to preserve habitat preferred by EWs.

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“…However, the sugarcane expansion and intensification are not only limited to species abundance, as Degefa and Saito (2017) have found a relation between sugarcane expansion, species abundance, and species' resources requirements. Other aspects of biodiversity loss have been evaluated in terms of eco-toxicity generated by high inputs use in sugarcane production (Felício et al, 2018;Qian et al, 2017;Haynes et al, 2000), and the correlated risks on species extinction, or the invasion of a new insect acquiring more resistance to pesticide (Dusfour et al, 2010).…”

Section: Biodiversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

What are the Impacts of Sugarcane Production on Ecosystem Services? A Review

Chami¹,

Daccache²,

Moujabber³

2020

Preprint

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Since the 1950s sugarcane production has grown rapidly from less than 0.5 billion tonnes in the late 50s to reach over 1.9 billion tonnes in 2012 on about 27 million hectares of agricultural land. This expansion has been boosted by the high demand for bioethanol promoted as a sustainable bioenergy source which accounted in 2010 for the biggest share of the global biofuel market. Despite its benefits, the scientific debate on sugar is growing especially that counterarguments are so many, including negative impacts on different interacting ecosystems and human well-being, e.g. bigger stress on land and water resources, environmental externalities on air, a harmful impact on the biodiversity and endemic species, negative environmental externalities, health, and socio-economic aspects. This paper provides a narrative systematic review (SR) of the impacts of sugarcane production on these different ecosystems employing the ecosystem services framework for its acceptance by policy-makers. The references included for the SR were 163 and results showed that the majority of the studies are from Brazil, Australia, South Africa and the USA (≈ 75% of the literature), most of them were from peer-reviewed journals (85%), and most of the case studies adopted a quantitative research approach (93%). The literature assessed showed that sugarcane, like all agro-systems, depends on the practices and techniques to transform negative impacts into positive externalities on ecosystems and human well-being. However, the literature studied failed to include the inter-linkage in sugarcane production impacts’ and therefore to evaluate the related ecosystem services with respect to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) framework to account for existing trade-offs. Therefore, the findings are addressed to the scientific community and decision-maker for an intensification of interdisciplinary and integrated research based on the MA framework to cover all ecosystem services, for sustainable development of the sugarcane sector.

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Assessing the Impacts of Large-Scale Agro-Industrial Sugarcane Production on Biodiversity: A Case Study of Wonji Shoa Sugar Estate, Ethiopia

Cited by 18 publications

References 38 publications

Combined Use of Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2A Imagery for Improved Sugarcane Yield Estimation in Wonji-Shoa, Ethiopia

Combined Use of Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2A Imagery for Improved Sugarcane Yield Estimation in Wonji-Shoa, Ethiopia

Foraging ecology of African wolves ( Canis lupaster ) and its implications for the conservation of Ethiopian wolves ( Canis simensis )

What are the Impacts of Sugarcane Production on Ecosystem Services? A Review

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