Sustainable Ecosystem Services Framework for Tropical Catchment Management: A Review

Abstract

The monsoon season is a natural phenomenon that occurs over the Asian continent, bringing extra precipitation which causes significant impact on most tropical watersheds. The tropical region's countries are rich with natural rainforests and the economies of the countries situated within the region are mainly driven by the agricultural industry. In order to fulfill the agricultural demand, land clearing has worsened the situation by degrading the land surface areas. Rampant land use activities have led to land degradation and soil erosion, resulting in implications on water quality and sedimentation of the river networks. This affects the ecosystem services, especially the hydrological cycles. Intensification of the sedimentation process has resulted in shallower river systems, thus increasing their vulnerability to natural hazards (i.e., climate change, floods). Tropical forests which are essential in servicing their benefits have been depleted due to the increase in human exploitation. This paper provides an overview of the impact of land erosion caused by land use activities within tropical rainforest catchments, which lead to massive sedimentation in tropical rivers, as well as the effects of monsoon on fragile watersheds which can result in catastrophic floods. Forest ecosystems are very important in giving services to regional biogeochemical processes. Balanced ecosystems therefore, play a significant role in servicing humanity and ultimately, may create a new way of environmental management in a cost-effective manner. Essentially, such an understanding will help stakeholders to come up with better strategies in restoring the ecosystem services of tropical watersheds.

Predicting the impact of logging activities on soil erosion and water quality in steep, forested tropical islands

“…Increased logging activities not only directly affects soil retention, but also result in shifts in community composition of freshwater species (Lin et al 2017) through a range of downstream impacts of increased sediment runoff, including changes in hydrological processes (Pattanayak and Wendland 2007), sediment build up in streams (Zafirah et al 2017), and direct effects of suspended sediment on freshwater fishes (Wenger et al 2017). Indeed, the current composition of freshwater fish communities on Kolombangara has been shaped by previous logging activities (Keith et al 2016).…”

A Review of Environmental Isotopes: Its Prospective Applications in Disaster-risk Management of Watershed

“…13 Environmental isotopic fingerprints within the biogeochemical cycles are very important in reconnaissance study of environmental impact assessment. 15,16 Among the advantages of utilising stable isotope elements of hydrogen and oxygen in isotope hydrogeology studies are:…”

“…Fundamentally, environmental isotopes in hydrogeology and hydrology studies are focused on aspects of origin, groundwater dating and systematic patterns of isotopic composition of global precipitation. [46][47][48] Stable isotopes (hydrogen-1 H-2 H, carbon-12 C-13 C, nitrogen-14 N-15 N, oxygen- 16 O- 18 O, sulphur-32 S- 34 S and strontium- 86 Sr-88 Sr) are naturally occurring elements and are considered as unique elements as they can be integrated into water molecules with minimal effect of the retardation process and with less significance to the movement of dissolved constituents. 14 Such characteristics lead to the extension of physical and geochemical studies of groundwater-surface water interaction such as, determining the composition of the isotopes and chemicals of groundwater as represented by the components of rock mineralogy in the aquifer, determining the recharge area and determining the origin of the groundwater.…”

“…Increase in deforestation activity would cause the erosion process to be generated and thus, river sedimentation and increase risk of natural disaster. 16 Several studies will be presented to highlight its importance. Figure 2 shows the locations of several study highlighted in disaster risk management.…”

Future prospects of delignification pretreatments for the lignocellulosic materials to produce second generation bioethanol

“…The first‐generation technologies may have a negative impact on biodiversity . The negative impacts on biodiversity include the following: loss of natural land by direct conversion of natural ecosystems, loss of tropical forest, loss of wetlands, soil erosion, and pollution of watercourses . Consequently, the curiosity to develop the second‐generation ethanol has increased.…”