Economic development: natural resources interventions / investments component. Final Report

This study has underscored the imperative obligation especially on the part of the riparian states Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to develop the abundant natural resources in the LVB and its extensive catchment to realize the potential income generation and employment benefits to reduce poverty in the basin and protect the ecosystem. For several decades, cumulative environmental degradation largely associated with human activities (industrial and urban eftluence from the bordering towns and cities of Lake Victoria), run off rain water and diminishing oxygen in the lake have negatively affected the lake's ecosystem and reduced its natural resource base especially the fish stocks and certain plants resulting from diminishing size of wetlands and receding shores of the lak

Geospatial method of siting sustainable sanitary landfill in Johor Malaysia

To obtain an accurate and precise result in any sanitary landfill siting study, one must be able to identify important criteria which are very crucial and challenging in geoinformatics. The level of importance of each criterion varies from one region or country to another. In this research, intensive literature review was carried out to extract the most important criteria to be used in siting sanitary landfill sites in the study area in accordance with local and international guidelines. Three main criteria were identified: environmental, social, and economic. They were divided into thirteen sub-criteria; water bodies, geology, soils, elevation, slope, residential areas, archeological sites, airports, population, roads, railways, infrastructures, and land use and land cover which were used to produce the map of the best potential sites. Ranking and weighing of each criterion was done using AHP pair-wise comparison matrix and normalization of the matrix to get the weight of each criteria. The study revealed that, 54% of the study area were unsuitable areas for sanitary landfill site, 12% less suitable, 21% suitable and 13% most suitable. Three most suitable potential sites were identified among the various sites from the class of most suitable sites in the final map and were validated using the satellite imagery of the study area via Google Earth PRO and field survey. This method can be an advanced alternative to the existing methodologies for selecting relevant criteria in siting sanitary landfill and for long-term planning of solid waste management

East Africa Future Water Scenarios to 2050

We have analysed two possible development scenarios for the extended Lake Victoria Basin (eLVB.) Each scenario combines a plausible socio-economic development pathway with climate change impacts calculated for the GHG concentration pathway RCP6.0 (i.e. medium climate change). A Reference Scenario (REF) applies the storyline and quantification of one of the IPCC’s Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSP), the ‘Middle of the Road’ scenario (SSP2). The East-Africa Regional Vision scenario (EA-RVS) portrays the vision of the region, as expressed in several vision studies and the first stakeholder workshop of the study. - Data comes as Excel files - Supplementary to the report: East Africa Water Scenarios to 2050 - The Excel Files have been used in the second workshop “East Africa Future Water Scenarios to 2050”, from December 4-6, 2018 in Entebbe, Uganda, for consultation and joint learning and for discussion and fine-tuning of modelling result

Assessing industrial development influence on land use/cover drivers and change detection for West Bank East London, South Africa

South Africa’s nationwide socio-economic industrial development zone drive focuses on alleviating of the apartheid social ills legacy. To ensure sustainable industrial ecological development, land-cover monitoring is needed though limited attention has been accorded. This study, aimed at assessing the influence of East London Industrial Development Zone (ELIDZ) on land-use/land-cover (LULC) drivers and detecting LULC changes for 15 years over the West Bank East London. An integration of remote sensing with qualitative approaches was adopted to provide robust temporal and spatial LULC change analysis. Object-based classification was performed on the satellite images for 1998, 2007 and 2013. Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalised Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) complemented and validated observed land cover changes. The study reveals that industrial development has been a key driver for land-use changes in West Bank. The classification indicated that vegetation (5.97%) and bare land (-9.06%) classes had the highest percentage increase and decrease respectively. Water (0.02%) and bare land (-0.6%) classes had the lowest annual rate of change. Built-up and bare land classes varied considerably. An overall land-cover classification mean accuracy assessment of 97.24% and a mean Kappa coefficient of 0.95 were attained for the entire study period. This study offers the value of integrated methods in monitoring land-cover change to enhance informed decision-making especially in rapidly changing landscapes for conservation purposes.This manuscript stems from the corresponding authors’ postgraduate study and who performed most of the experiments.The University of Pretoria and the United State Geological Survey (USCS).http://www.ripublication.comam2019Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorolog

Food industry site selection using geospatial technology approach

Food security has been an ongoing concern of governments and international organizations. One of the main issues in food security in Developing and Sanctioned Countries (DSCs) is establishment of food industries and related distributions in appropriate places. In this respect, geospatial technology offers the most up-to-date Land Cover (LC) information to improve site selection for assisting food security in the study area. Currently food security issues are not comprehensively addressed, especially in DSCs. In this research, ASTER L1B and LANDSAT satellite data were used to derive various LC biophysical parameters including build-up area, water body, forest, citrus, and rice fields in Qaemshahr city, Iran using different satellite-derived indices. A Product Level Fusion (PLF) approach was implemented to merge the outputs of the indices to prepare an improved LC map. The suitability of the proposed approach for LC mapping was evaluated in comparison with Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) classification techniques. For implementing site selection, the outcomes of satellite-derived indices, as well as the city, village, road, railway, river, aqueduct, fault, casting, abattoir, cemetery, waste accumulation, wastewater treatment, educational centre, medical centre, military centre, asphalt factory, cement factory, and slope layers were obtained using Global Positioning System (GPS), on-screen digitizing, and image processing were used as input data. The Fuzzy Overlay and Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) methods were adopted to perform site selection process. The outcomes were then classified and analyzed based on the accessibility to main roads, cities and raw food materials. Finally, the existing industrial zones in the study area were evaluated for establishing food industries based on site selection results of this study. The results indicated higher performance of PLF method to provide up-to-date LC information with an overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient values of 95.95% and 0.95, respectively. The site selection result obtained using WLC method with the accuracy of 90% was superior, thus it was selected for further analyses. Based on the achieved results, the study has proven the applicability of current satellite data and geospatial technology for food industry site selection to resolve food security issues. In conclusion, site selection using geospatial technology provides a great potential for a reliable decision-making in food industry planning, as a significant issue in agro-based food security, especially in sanctioned countries

Integration of Organic Farm Waste into Smallholder Banana-Coffee-Based Farming Systems in the Kagera Region, NW Tanzania

In the studied Kagera region (NW Tanzania), smallholder banana-coffee-based farming systems developed over hundreds of years. To this day, they traditionally consist of four components: the older and younger homegardens (kibanja and kikamba in the local Bantu language), woodland (kabira), and grassland (rweya). The management of organic farm waste has played an essential role in maintaining soil fertility, diversity, and agricultural productivity in these agroforestry systems. However, rapid population growth since Tanzania’s independence in the 1960s, an influx of refugees in the 1990s, and accompanying environmental degradation have shaped large parts of the study region. As a result, farm sizes, crop yields, and food security have declined, soils and farming systems have degraded, and impoverishment has increased. The overall objective of this study was to investigate whether degraded homegardens can be transformed back into multifunctional, sustainable, and fertile agroforestry systems through sustainable organic farm waste management. Organic farm waste embraced crop and tree residues, kitchen and food waste including cooking ash (as inorganic residue), livestock manure and urine, animal bones, as well as human faeces and urine. The objective was subdivided into three targets and related research foci: (1) to understand the status quo of organic farm waste management in the research area, (2) to evaluate modification options for sustainable banana-coffee-based systems, and (3) to evaluate an optimisation of organic farm waste management to increase agricultural production. An interview of 150 smallholder households on the current availability and uses of organic farm waste was conducted (1). The survey encompassed geographical variables, economic data, and household and agricultural information relating to the Water-Soil-Waste Nexus and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. A farm household typology was constructed to categorise the farm households according to their biomass production and use of organic farm waste. Five focus group discussions were held in a local farmer field school to evaluate training on sustainable land use management (2). The farmer field school had trained about 750 farm households in de-graded banana-coffee-based farming systems in the last two decades. Also here, a typology construction of trained farm households was created. Both typologies were compared to each other. Nutrient cycles of the homegardens of trained and untrained farm house-holds were calculated (3) using the following scenarios: S0: business as usual; S1: the use of 80% of the available human urine; S2: the incorporation of 0.5 t yr-1 of the herbaceous legume species Crotalaria grahamiana into the soil; S3: the production of 5 m3 yr-1 of CaSa-compost (human excreta and biochar) and its application on 600 m2 of land; and S4: a combination of S1, S2, and S3. Results revealed that integrated organic farm waste management still plays a key role in farm nutrient and soil fertility management in these farming systems, but to a lower extent than in the past (status quo). Smallholder farmers that apply organic farm waste to their fields – using in situ, pit, ring-hole, and mixed composting techniques – have higher yields. However, the knowledge on waste management – traditionally passed on from generation to generation – has declined. Today, only one-third of these households earn a reasonable living from their agricultural products. Female-led households with a high age-dependency ratio and farmers with problematic socio-economic backgrounds continue to be the most vulnerable to food insecurity. In comparison, the implementation of training on sustainable land-use management has considerably improved farmers’ livelihoods. Successfully implemented knowledge on sustainable soil and farm nutrient management, including the modification of composting techniques, afforestation, selection of appropriate crop and tree species, improved labour allocation and time management, agricultural record-keeping, as well as gender-responsive communication and decision-making, has led to a transition: from degraded agricultural to multifunctional agroforestry systems. However, also here, one-third of the trained farmers has hardly transformed at all and has remained vulnerable to difficulties with food security, income diversification, and access to education. Comparing the nutrient balance between the homegardens of untrained and trained households, the homegardens of trained households are more likely to have a positive nutrient balance than those of untrained ones. Although untrained households would improve the nutrient balance under all management scenarios, their nutrient balances do not actually turn positive, especially not for nitrogen. Besides, nutrient cycles in the homegardens of all households remain ‘open’ because farmers currently import nutrients from the surrounding area, e.g., through fodder from the grassland. To overcome this dependency, short-term nutrient deficiencies might be alleviated with a precise application of mineral fertiliser and by fostering zero grazing. However, limited access to mineral fertiliser, labour-intensive manure collection and compost production against a background of land scarcity, labour shortage, prolonged dry seasons, and socio-economic imbalances, remain major challenges. To conclude, action needs to be taken and supporting policies and regulations need to be developed, e.g., on the safe use of organic farm waste and wastewater in smallholder agriculture to contribute towards achieving key Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. The relevant goals are Goal 2 (Zero hunger), Goal 7 (Affordable and clean energy), and Goal 15 (Life on land). None of the un-trained smallholder households lives under the conditions that these goals intend to prescribe. Only one-third of the trained farming households is one step closer to achieving these targets. To counteract this, a roadmap may serve as a starting point for future initiatives to develop coherent policies and science-based guidelines.:List of figures 7 List of tables 13 Abbreviations and acronyms 17 Units 20 Abstract 21 Zusammenfassung 23 1 Introduction 29 1.1 Problem identification and structure of this thesis 29 1.2 Study area 31 1.2.1 Environment 31 1.2.2 History and development of agriculture 37 1.2.3 Social, economic, and ecological challenges 44 1.3 Objectives 46 1.4 Research questions 47 1.4.1 The status quo of organic farm waste management 48 1.4.2 The transition towards multifunctionality 49 1.4.3 The optimisation of farm waste management 50 1.5 List of publications 53 2 Status quo of organic farm waste management 55 Highlights 55 Graphical abstract 56 Abstract 56 Keywords 57 2.1 Introduction 57 2.2 Background 59 2.2.1 The development of banana-coffee-based farming systems in Karagwe 59 2.2.2 The traditional role of organic farm waste 62 2.3 Materials and methods 63 2.3.1 Study area 63 2.3.2 Methods 65 2.4 Results 67 2.4.1 Farm household typology 67 2.4.2 Status quo of the farm waste management 72 2.4.3 Today's gender roles in agriculture 75 2.5 Discussion 78 2.6 Conclusions and recommendations 81 2.7 Declaration of competing interest 82 2.8 Acknowledgements 82 2.9 References 83 3 Traditional and adapted composting practices 91 Abstract 91 3.1 Introduction 92 3.1.1 Banana-coffee-based farming systems in the highlands of Tanzania 95 3.1.2 Composting practices 98 3.1.3 Traditional: In-situ and pit composting 100 3.1.4 Adapted: On-surface composting 101 3.2 Case studies 102 3.2.1 Traditional composting in the Kagera region 102 3.2.2 On-surface composting in the Morogoro region 104 3.3 Discussion 107 3.4 Conclusion 109 3.5 References 110 4 Transition towards multifunctional farming systems 115 Graphical abstract 115 Highlights 116 Abstract 116 Keywords 117 4.1 Introduction 117 4.2 Materials and methods 120 4.2.1 Study area 120 4.2.2 CaSa-compost 120 4.2.3 Data collection 121 4.2.4 Data analysis 124  4.3 Results 125 4.3.1 Group A: Successful farm households 126 4.3.2 Group B: Moderate successful farm households 134 4.3.3 Group C: Failing farm households 136 4.3.4 Remaining challenges and bottlenecks 138 4.4 Discussion 139 4.5 Conclusions and recommendations 143 4.6 Acknowledgements 144 4.7 References 145 5 Optimised nutrient management 155 Abstract 155 Keywords 156 5.1 Introduction 157 5.2 Materials and methods 158 5.2.1 Study area 158 5.2.2 Data 160 5.3 Results 175 5.4 Discussion 181 5.4.1 Methodology 181 5.4.2 Results 181 5.5 Conclusions and recommendations 186 5.6 Appendix A 188 5.7 References 192 6 Synthesis 199 6.1 Summary and discussion of the results 199 6.1.1 The status quo of organic farm waste management 199 6.1.2 The modification of traditional farm waste management 203 6.1.3 The optimisation of farm waste management 206 6.2 Relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 208 6.3 Outline of a roadmap for the implementation of the SDG target 2.4 211 6.4 Limitations 215 6.5 Concluding discussion and recommendations 215 7 References 221 8 Appendix 233 8.1 Data set of smallholder farm households 233 Abstract 234 Keywords 235 8.1.1 Specifications table 235 8.1.2 Value of the data 237 8.1.3 Data description 237 8.1.4 Experimental design, materials, and methods 238 Ethics statement 240 Declaration of competing interest 240 Acknowledgments 240 References 240 8.2 Survey data 243 8.2.1 Meta data 243 8.2.2 Geographical data 245 8.2.3 Household information 251 8.2.4 Agricultural information 257 8.2.5 Economic data and Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus 285 8.2.6 Gender-specific distribution of tasks within the farming family 298Bananen-Kaffee-basierte Anbausysteme haben eine lange Tradition in Ostafrika. In der Kagera-Region im Nordwesten Tansanias entwickelten sich über Jahrhunderte hinweg ertragreiche Bananen-Kaffee-basierte Anbausysteme in kleinbäuerlicher Landwirtschaft. Die Böden der Hausgärten waren durch die kontinuierliche Zugabe von kompostierten organischen Abfällen dunkel, humusreich und fruchtbar. Jedoch verlor dieses nachhaltige Agroforstsystem in der Kagera-Region in den letzten 50 Jahren zunehmend an Bedeutung. Die Gründe dafür waren in erster Linie der rasche Anstieg der Bevölkerung seit der Unabhängigkeit Tansanias in den 1960er-Jahren sowie der Zustrom von Flüchtlingen in den 1990er-Jahren. Beides führte zu einer Erhöhung der Nachfrage nach Nahrungsmitteln, Baumaterial und Brennholz, die noch immer wichtigste Energiequelle zum Kochen mit einhergehender Degradierung, massiver Entwaldung sowie nachlassender Erhaltung der Bodenfruchtbarkeit und das Auslassen notwendiger Brachzeiten und Gründungen. Infolgedessen wurden den Böden über fünf Jahrzehnte mehr Nährstoffe entzogen als zugefügt, was zu einer Abnahme der Bodenfruchtbarkeit führte. Die Ernteerträge aller ein- und mehrjährigen Kulturpflanzen sind zurückgegangen und die Böden sowie die Vegetation der Hausgärten sind teilweise stark degradiert. Seitdem sind die Ernährungssicherheit und der Wohlstand der lokalen Bevölkerung sowie die für Tansanias Wirtschaft wichtigen Exporte von Bananen (Musa L.) und Kaffee (Coffea canephora L. var. robusta) aus der Kagera-Region gefährdet. Ziel dieser Dissertation war es, zu untersuchen, ob der jetzigen Degradierung der Hausgärten, die für die Ernährungssicherung der Bevölkerung entscheidend sind, durch eine erneute, stärkere und nachhaltige Einbindung organischer Abfälle entgegengewirkt werden kann und so wie einst multifunktionale, nachhaltige und fruchtbare Agroforstsysteme entstehen können. Dieses Ziel wurde in drei untergeordnete Ziele unterteilt: (1) das Verständnis des Ist-Zustandes des organischen Abfallmanagements im Forschungsgebiet, (2) die Untersuchung von Modifikationsmöglichkeiten für nachhaltige Bananen-Kaffee-basierte Agrarforstsysteme sowie (3) die Evaluierung der Optimierungsmöglichkeiten des organischen Abfallmanagements zur Steigerung der landwirtschaftlichen Produktion. Für jedes Ziel wurde eine Forschungsfrage entwickelt: (1) Inwieweit werden die organischen Abfälle bereits genutzt (Ist-Zustand) und kann abgeschätzt werden, ob das momentane Abfallmanagement ausreicht, um die Bodenfruchtbarkeit und die Produktion von Nahrungsmitteln und Energieträgern zu erhöhen und damit die Armut zu reduzieren; (2) Ob und wie das derzeitige Management organischer Abfälle verbessert werden könnte, um die Bodenfruchtbarkeit und die Biomasseproduktion zu erhöhen; (3) Ob und wie negative Nährstoffbilanzen in positive umgewandelt werden können, wenn das organische Abfallmanagement in den Anbausystemen optimiert und verbessert in den landwirtschaftlichen Stoffkreislauf integriert werden würde. Zur Beantwortung der ersten Frage wurden 150 kleinbäuerliche Haushalte zu ihrer aktuellen landwirtschaftlichen Produktion, der Verfügbarkeit und Aufbereitung von organischen Abfällen sowie deren Verwendung im Anbau der wichtigsten ein- und mehrjährigen Kulturpflanzen befragt. Die Befragung umfasste geografische und ökonomische Daten sowie haushaltsbezogene und landwirtschaftliche Informationen in Bezug auf den Wasser-Boden-Abfall-Nexus und den Wasser-Energie-Nahrungsmittel-Nexus. Mit den erhobenen Daten wurde eine expertenbasierte Typologie der befragten Haushalte erstellt, um diese nach ihrer Biomasseproduktion sowie der Nutzung von organischen Abfällen zu kategorisieren. Bezüglich der zweiten Frage wurden fünf Fokusgruppendiskussionen mit den Ausbildern und Ausbilderinnen einer lokalen Bauernschule durchgeführt, die in den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten mehr als 700 kleinbäuerliche Haushalte in nachhaltiger Landwirtschaft schulten. Dabei wurde ebenfalls eine expertenbasierte Typologie der geschulten Haushalte erstellt. Beide Haushaltstypologien wurden hingehend ihrer Biomasseproduktion, organischen Abfallnutzung und Wohlstandes miteinander verglichen. Im Rahmen der dritten Fragestellung wurden die Nährstoffkreisläufe der Hausgärten von geschulten und nicht geschulten Bauernhaushalten analysiert. Dabei wurden folgende Szenarien berücksichtigt: S0: der normale Betrieb ohne Änderungen (Ist-Zustand); S1: die Nutzung von 80 % des verfügbaren menschlichen Urins; S2: die Einarbeitung von 0,5 Tonnen pro Jahr der krautigen Leguminosenart Crotalaria grahamiana in den Boden; S3: die Produktion von jährlich 5 Kubikmetern CaSa-Kompost, bestehend aus menschlichen Ausscheidungen und Biokohle, und dessen Ausbringung auf 600 Quadratmetern in den Hausgärten; und S4: eine Kombination aus S1, S2 und S3. Entsprechende Daten wurden der Literatur entnommen. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass die Einbindung organischer Abfälle auch in degradierten Bananen-Kaffee-basierten Anbausystemen noch immer eine Schlüsselrolle im Nährstoff- und Bodenfruchtbarkeitsmanagement spielt, jedoch zu einem niedrigeren Ausmaß als noch vor 50 Jahren. An Bedeutung verlor dabei auch die traditionelle Weitergabe des Wissens über Kompostierung durch erschwerte sozio-ökonomische Bedingungen. Generell wurde festgestellt, dass Kleinbauernfamilien, die organische Abfälle auf ihren Feldern ausbringen, höhere landwirtschaftliche Erträge erzielen. Das Potenzial zur Erhaltung der Bodenfruchtbarkeit wird dabei jedoch aktuell nicht vollständig ausgeschöpft, und nur ein Drittel der herkömmlichen kleinbäuerlichen Haushalte erzielt einen den Lebensumständen annähernd angemessenen Lebensunterhalt (Ist-Zustand). Ein weiteres Drittel der ungeschulten Haushalte nutzt organische Dünger zu einem geringeren Ausmaß und erzielt deswegen und wegen weiterer Schwächen im landwirtschaftlichen Management geringere Ernteerträge. Sie sind damit stärker armutsgefährdet als die erstgenannte Gruppe. Jedoch sind v. a. Haushalte, die von alleinerziehenden Frauen geführt werden (ebenfalls ein Drittel der befragten Haushalte), am stärksten von Ernährungsunsicherheit und Armut betroffen. Dabei spielen problematische, sozio-ökonomische Hintergründe eine erschwerende Rolle. Um das Ausmaß dieser Armutsspirale zu verringern, entwickelte eine lokale Bauernschule eine umfangreiche Ausbildung im Bereich nachhaltiger Landwirtschaft. Die erfolgreiche Implementierung der Ausbildung in die eigene Produktion hat die Lebensgrundlage von mindestens einem Drittel der geschulten Bauernhaushalte deutlich verbessert. Erfolgreich umgesetztes Wissen haben dazu geführt, dass degradierte Bananen-Kaffee-basierte Anbausysteme sich zunehmend zu multifunktionalen Agroforstsystemen entwickeln. Hierdurch hat sich nur für ein Drittel der ausgebildeten Bauern bereits die Lage signifikant verbessert. Ein weiteres Drittel befindet sich noch in dem Transformationsprozess. Ihre Erträge bleiben jedoch unter denen der ersten Gruppe. Die dritte Gruppe innerhalb der geschulten Bauernhaushalte konnte das erworbene Wissen wiederum nicht oder nur kaum in die Praxis umsetzen. Diese Gruppe bleibt in Bezug auf Ernährungssicherheit, Einkommens-diversifizierung und Zugang zu Bildung stark vulnerabel. Im Vergleich der Nährstoffbilanzen der Hausgärten zwischen den geschulten und den ungeschulten Bauernhaushalten zeigen erstere eher eine positive Nährstoffbilanz als letztere. Obwohl sich die Nährstoffbilanzen der Felder ungeschulter Haushalte unter allen Managementszenarien verbessern würden, würden sie jedoch noch negativ bleiben, insbesondere für Stickstoff. Darüber hinaus sind die Nährstoffkreisläufe in den Hausgärten aller Familien nicht geschlossen, da ein Großteil der Nährstoffe aus der Umgebung importiert wird, z. B. durch die Verwendung von Futtermittel aus dem umliegenden Grasland.:List of figures 7 List of tables 13 Abbreviations and acronyms 17 Units 20 Abstract 21 Zusammenfassung 23 1 Introduction 29 1.1 Problem identification and structure of this thesis 29 1.2 Study area 31 1.2.1 Environment 31 1.2.2 History and development of agriculture 37 1.2.3 Social, economic, and ecological challenges 44 1.3 Objectives 46 1.4 Research questions 47 1.4.1 The status quo of organic farm waste management 48 1.4.2 The transition towards multifunctionality 49 1.4.3 The optimisation of farm waste management 50 1.5 List of publications 53 2 Status quo of organic farm waste management 55 Highlights 55 Graphical abstract 56 Abstract 56 Keywords 57 2.1 Introduction 57 2.2 Background 59 2.2.1 The development of banana-coffee-based farming systems in Karagwe 59 2.2.2 The traditional role of organic farm waste 62 2.3 Materials and methods 63 2.3.1 Study area 63 2.3.2 Methods 65 2.4 Results 67 2.4.1 Farm household typology 67 2.4.2 Status quo of the farm waste management 72 2.4.3 Today's gender roles in agriculture 75 2.5 Discussion 78 2.6 Conclusions and recommendations 81 2.7 Declaration of competing interest 82 2.8 Acknowledgements 82 2.9 References 83 3 Traditional and adapted composting practices 91 Abstract 91 3.1 Introduction 92 3.1.1 Banana-coffee-based farming systems in the highlands of Tanzania 95 3.1.2 Composting practices 98 3.1.3 Traditional: In-situ and pit composting 100 3.1.4 Adapted: On-surface composting 101 3.2 Case studies 102 3.2.1 Traditional composting in the Kagera region 102 3.2.2 On-surface composting in the Morogoro region 104 3.3 Discussion 107 3.4 Conclusion 109 3.5 References 110 4 Transition towards multifunctional farming systems 115 Graphical abstract 115 Highlights 116 Abstract 116 Keywords 117 4.1 Introduction 117 4.2 Materials and methods 120 4.2.1 Study area 120 4.2.2 CaSa-compost 120 4.2.3 Data collection 121 4.2.4 Data analysis 124  4.3 Results 125 4.3.1 Group A: Successful farm households 126 4.3.2 Group B: Moderate successful farm households 134 4.3.3 Group C: Failing farm households 136 4.3.4 Remaining challenges and bottlenecks 138 4.4 Discussion 139 4.5 Conclusions and recommendations 143 4.6 Acknowledgements 144 4.7 References 145 5 Optimised nutrient management 155 Abstract 155 Keywords 156 5.1 Introduction 157 5.2 Materials and methods 158 5.2.1 Study area 158 5.2.2 Data 160 5.3 Results 175 5.4 Discussion 181 5.4.1 Methodology 181 5.4.2 Results 181 5.5 Conclusions and recommendations 186 5.6 Appendix A 188 5.7 References 192 6 Synthesis 199 6.1 Summary and discussion of the results 199 6.1.1 The status quo of organic farm waste management 199 6.1.2 The modification of traditional farm waste management 203 6.1.3 The optimisation of farm waste management 206 6.2 Relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 208 6.3 Outline of a roadmap for the implementation of the SDG target 2.4 211 6.4 Limitations 215 6.5 Concluding discussion and recommendations 215 7 References 221 8 Appendix 233 8.1 Data set of smallholder farm households 233 Abstract 234 Keywords 235 8.1.1 Specifications table 235 8.1.2 Value of the data 237 8.1.3 Data description 237 8.1.4 Experimental design, materials, and methods 238 Ethics statement 240 Declaration of competing interest 240 Acknowledgments 240 References 240 8.2 Survey data 243 8.2.1 Meta data 243 8.2.2 Geographical data 245 8.2.3 Household information 251 8.2.4 Agricultural information 257 8.2.5 Economic data and Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus 285 8.2.6 Gender-specific distribution of tasks within the farming family 29

Remote detection of invasive alien species

The spread of invasive alien species (IAS) is recognized as the most severe threat to biodiversity outside of climate change and anthropogenic habitat destruction. IAS negatively impact ecosystems, local economies, and residents. They are especially problematic because once established, they give rise to positive feedbacks, increasing the likelihood of further invasions and spread. The integration of remote sensing (RS) to the study of invasion, in addition to contributing to our understanding of invasion processes and impacts to biodiversity, has enabled managers to monitor invasions and predict the spread of IAS, thus supporting biodiversity conservation and management action. This chapter focuses on RS capabilities to detect and monitor invasive plant species across terrestrial, riparian, aquatic, and human-modified ecosystems. All of these environments have unique species assemblages and their own optimal methodology for effective detection and mapping, which we discuss in detail

Diversity II water quality parameters from ENVISAT (2002–2012): a new global information source for lakes

The use of ground sampled water quality information for global studies is limited due to practical and financial constraints. Remote sensing is a valuable means to overcome such limitations and to provide synoptic views of ambient water quality at appropriate spatio-temporal scales. In past years several large data processing efforts were initiated to provide corresponding data sources. The Diversity II water quality dataset consists of several monthly, yearly and 9-year averaged water quality parameters for 340 lakes worldwide and is based on data from the full ENVISAT MERIS operation period (2002–2012). Existing retrieval methods and datasets were selected after an extensive algorithm intercomparison exercise. Chlorophyll-a, total suspended matter, turbidity, coloured dissolved organic matter, lake surface water temperature, cyanobacteria and floating vegetation maps, as well as several auxiliary data layers, provide a generically specified database that can be used for assessing a variety of locally relevant ecosystem properties and environmental problems. For validation and accuracy assessment, we provide matchup comparisons for 24 lakes and a group of reservoirs representing a wide range of bio-optical conditions. Matchup comparisons for chlorophyll-a concentrations indicate mean absolute errors and bias in the order of median concentrations for individual lakes, while total suspended matter and turbidity retrieval achieve significantly better performance metrics across several lake-specific datasets. We demonstrate the use of the products by illustrating and discussing remotely sensed evidence of lake-specific processes and prominent regime shifts documented in the literature. The Diversity II data are available from https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.871462, and Python scripts for their analysis and visualization are provided at https://github.com/odermatt/diversity/.</p

Mapping Species Composition of Forests and Tree Plantations in Northeastern Costa Rica with an Integration of Hyperspectral and Multitemporal Landsat Imagery

An efficient means to map tree plantations is needed to detect tropical land use change and evaluate reforestation projects. To analyze recent tree plantation expansion in northeastern Costa Rica, we examined the potential of combining moderate-resolution hyperspectral imagery (2005 HyMap mosaic) with multitemporal, multispectral data (Landsat) to accurately classify (1) general forest types and (2) tree plantations by species composition. Following a linear discriminant analysis to reduce data dimensionality, we compared four Random Forest classification models: hyperspectral data (HD) alone; HD plus interannual spectral metrics; HD plus a multitemporal forest regrowth classification; and all three models combined. The fourth, combined model achieved overall accuracy of 88.5%. Adding multitemporal data significantly improved classification accuracy (p less than 0.0001) of all forest types, although the effect on tree plantation accuracy was modest. The hyperspectral data alone classified six species of tree plantations with 75% to 93% producer's accuracy; adding multitemporal spectral data increased accuracy only for two species with dense canopies. Non-native tree species had higher classification accuracy overall and made up the majority of tree plantations in this landscape. Our results indicate that combining occasionally acquired hyperspectral data with widely available multitemporal satellite imagery enhances mapping and monitoring of reforestation in tropical landscapes