SP 3 - Interactions of soil related ESF&S with land use practice under climate change
This subproject focuses on the analysis and assessment of the soil related ecosystem functions, their interaction with land use management and their vulnerability to the predicted climate change. The research will investigate how to stabilise key ecosystem services and thus sustain human livelihood. Within the region, current soil degradation is predominantly associated to overgrazing, unsustainable cropping techniques and human induced fires. In cooperation with partners from Botswana and Namibia the subproject concentrates on five tasks:
- Soil water availability and groundwater recharge
- Influence of land use management and climate change on soil carbon pools and sequestration
- Nutrient dynamics
- Interlinkage to the valuation of ecosystem services
- Agronomic benchmark sites
The tasks will be analysed on a selected set of study sites following a north-west to south-east climate gradient and representing the major natural landscape units with a variation of anthropogenic land use management. The results of this task will feed into the development of stakeholder oriented tools for management and decision making.
