Utilization of Agriculture Residues and Livestock Waste in Uzbekistan

In Uzbekistan, the integration of crops and livestock, and the use of manure as fertilizer, are traditional practices and is the basis of the farming systems, especially at smallholder level. Nowadays local farmers prefer to use traditional and low-cost technologies for recycling the livestock manure through: anaerobic biodigestion (biodigesters); aerobic biodigestion (composting) and by direct application as organic fertilizer. The livestock waste treatment technique, however, are still too simple and improving is going insignificant. The monitoring system of manure composition, or its allocation to the drop fields is not completely developed. Fuel wood in the arid zones of Uzbekistan is often scarce as a result of deforestation and range degradation, leading to the ever-increasing role of animals as providers of manure for fuel, in addition to means of transport. Phasing out of energy subsidies has also caused that livestock manure, is not returned to the land, but used for heating and cooking, because alternative energy sources are no longer available or affordable. A number of local initiatives on improving waste management procedures waste processing enterprise are implemented in different cities. Biomass has been also a traditional energy source for the production of biogas, and a promising direction of energy in the agrarian sector of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has a big potential of biomass energy in the amount of 0.3 million ton of oil equivalent. Energy generated from biomass may satisfy 15-19 % of energy needs of Uzbekistan. Such method of energy production will also resolve the environmental protection issues: use of methane gas considerably reduces CO2 emission into the atmosphere. Besides, the biological residue of the process will provide the country's agriculture with high quality fertilizers. Biogas installations have already been tested at a stock-breeding farm "Milk Agro" in Zangiota village of Tashkent region. Practical results are already achieved: the farm is using biogas for its electricity and heating needs, fertilizers were put on the farm's fields Uzbekistan has also a big potential for production of bioethanol from crop residues and wasted crops: rice straw, wheat straw and corn stover are the most favourable bioethanol feedstock. 15 improved lines tested by ICBA (International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture) in Uzbekistan showed perspectives of sorghum stover for bioethanol production.assessment, agriculture residues, bio-ethanol, bio-gas, marginal lands, livestock waste, Uzbekistan, Central Asia

Climate change and disaster impact reduction

Based on papers presented at the 'UK - South Asia Young Scientists and Practitioners Seminar on Climate Change and Disaster Impact Reduction' held at Kathmandu, Nepal on 5-6 June, 2008

Desertification

IPCC SPECIAL REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND LAND (SRCCL) Chapter 3: Climate Change and Land: An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystem

Guide to the Dr. Jane Claire Dirks-Edmunds Papers

This collection reflects the life work of Dr. Jane Claire Dirks-Edmunds, a student and professor of Linfield College. A dedicated and scrupulous woman, the majority of the collection consists of her research, teaching materials, and correspondence. The collection also includes research and correspondence by Dr. Jane Claire Dirks-Edmunds’s mentor, Dr. James A. Macnab

Lowland river responses to intraplate tectonism and climate forcing quantified with luminescence and cosmogenic 10Be

Intraplate tectonism has produced large-scale folding that steers regional drainage systems, such as the 1600 km-long Cooper Ck, en route to Australia’s continental depocentre at Lake Eyre. We apply cosmogenic 10Be exposure dating in bedrock, and luminescence dating in sediment, to quantify the erosional and depositional response of Cooper Ck where it incises the rising Innamincka Dome. The detachment of bedrock joint-blocks during extreme floods governs the minimum rate of incision (17.4±6.5 mm/ky) estimated using a numerical model of episodic erosion calibrated with our 10Be measurements. The last big-flood phase occurred no earlier than ~112–121ka. Upstream of the Innamincka Dome long-term rates of alluvial deposition, partly reflecting synclinal-basin subsidence, are estimated from 47 luminescence dates in sediments accumulated since ~270 ka. Sequestration of sediment in subsiding basins such as these may account for the lack of Quaternary accumulation in Lake Eyre, and moreover suggests that notions of a single primary depocentre at base-level may poorly represent lowland, arid-zone rivers. Over the period ~75–55 ka Cooper Ck changed from a bedload- dominant, laterally-active meandering river to a muddy anabranching channel network up to 60 km wide. We propose that this shift in river pattern was a product of base-level rise linked with the slowly deforming syncline–anticline structure, coupled with a climate-forced reduction in discharge. The uniform valley slope along this subsiding alluvial and rising bedrock system represents an adjustment between the relative rates of deformation and the ability of greatly enhanced flows at times during the Quaternary to incise the rising anticline. Hence, tectonic and climate controls are balanced in the long term