Publications related to Agroforestry

Civil war hinders crop production and threatens food security in Syria

Assessing the impact of violent conflict on Syrian agriculture is challenging given data limitations and attributability issues. Using satellite data at 30 m spatial resolution, we found that the extent of productive cropland showed greater interannual var ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2022

Growing maize landraces in industrialized countries: from the search for seeds to the emergence of new practices and values

Marianna Fenzi

In industrialized countries, maize cultivation is mainly associated with the use of hybrid varieties and input-intensive monocultures. Despite the homogeneity of European maize landscapes, alternative models of maize production based on landraces exist. Un ...

2022

Structural variation of forest edges across Europe

Matteo Tolosano

Forest edges are interfaces between forest interiors and adjacent land cover types. They are important elements in the landscape with almost 20% of the global forest area located within 100 m of the edge. Edges are structurally different from forest interi ...

ELSEVIER2020

Model of crop growth, water flow, and solute transport in layered soil

David Andrew Barry, Jiancheng Yang

Agro-ecohydrological models are essential for managing scarce water resources and ensuring crop productivity. Here, a one-dimensional agro-ecohydrological model, LAWSTAC, capable of simulating water and solute transport in layered soil coupled with crop gr ...

2019

Improving slash-and-burn agriculture in Central Menabe, Madagascar

Justine Marie Gay des Combes

Slash-and-burn agriculture is considered as an important driver of deforestation in the tropics. In Madagascar, a biodiversity hotspot, this type of agriculture particularly threatens the tropical forest cover. On the south-western coast of the island, in ...

EPFL2017

Responses of soil properties and crop yields to different inorganic and organic amendments in a Swiss conventional farming system

Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Luca Bragazza, Guillaume Blanchet

In agro-ecosystems, fertilization practices are crucial for sustaining crop productivity. Here, based on a 50-year long-term experiment, we studied the influence of fertilization practices (inorganic and/or organic) and nitrogen (N) application rates on (i ...

Elsevier Science Bv2016

Associative interplay of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa QS40) with nitrogen fertilizers improves sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) productivity and fertility of aridisol

Alexandre Buttler, Luca Bragazza, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Muhammad Saleem Arif, Muhammad Riaz

The environmental and economic impacts of chemical fertilizer have encouraged farmers to integrate them with organic materials, an important nutrient management strategy for sustainable agriculture production. In the present study, we conducted field exper ...

Elsevier Science Bv2016

Linking historical land use to present vegetation and soil characteristics under slash-and-burn cultivation in Madagascar

Alexandre Buttler, Rodolphe Schlaepfer, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Andry Randriamikatra Randrianarison

Aim: In this paper, we link historical land use of cultivated parcels formerly slashed and burnt, with current secondary vegetation and soil characteristics, in the region of evergreen rain forest in Madagascar. Aim is to understand the legacy effect of fo ...

Wiley-Blackwell2016

Dynamics of Forage Production in Pasture-woodlands of the Swiss Jura Mountains under Projected Climate Change Scenarios

Alexandre Buttler, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, François Gillet, Thomas Spiegelberger, Alexander Ludwig Johannes Peringer

Silvopastoral systems of the Swiss Jura Mountains serve as a traditional source of forage and timber in the subalpine vegetation belt, but their vulnerability to land use and climate change puts their future sustainability at stake. We coupled experimental ...

Resilience Alliance2013

Obtaining natural-like flow releases in diverted river reaches from simple riparian benefit economic models

Paolo Perona

We propose a theoretical river modeling framework for generating variable flow patterns in diverted-streams (i.e., no reservoir). Using a simple economic model and the principle of equal marginal utility in an inverse fashion we first quantify the benefit ...

Elsevier2013

A game-theoretical model of deforestation in human-environment relationships

Antonio Rodrigues

We studied a two-person game regarding deforestation in human–environment relationships. Each landowner manages a single land parcel where the state of land-use is forested, agricultural, or abandoned. The landowner has two strategies available: forest con ...

2009

Stratégies villageoises pour la gestion des paysages forestiers du Menabe Central, Madagascar

Clémence Dirac Ramohavelo

Introduction In order to reduce deforestation, the current attitude of conservation programmes and forest politics does no longer ban the local populations from the forests, because such measures present negative consequences for the communities. Today's t ...

EPFL2009

Dualities in plant tolerance to pollutants and their uptake and translocation to the upper plant parts

Jean-Paul Schwitzguebel

There is a duality in plant tolerance to pollutants and its response to the pollutants’ stress. On the one hand some plants, (hyper)tolerant to heavy metals, are able to hyperaccumulate these metals in shoots, which could be beneficial for phytoremediation ...

2009

Modelling the impact of flooding stress on the growth performance of woody species using fuzzy logic

Rodolphe Schlaepfer

Among the driving processes responsible for riparian forest dynamics the species-specific impact of flooding on the development of woody plants plays a key role-particularly for lowland rivers. Only a few of the forest succession models currently in use in ...

2008

Short-term effects of cattle browsing on tree sapling growth in mountain wooded pastures

Alexandre Buttler, Charlotte Vandenberghe, François Frelechoux

Browsing by livestock has been identified as an important factor preventing tree regeneration in wooded pastures. Two field experiments were performed to investigate the effects of cattle browsing on tree sapling growth in a mountainwooded pasture. Two siz ...

2007

Comportement en traction d'éléments en Béton de Fibres Ultra Performant combiné aces des barres d'armature

Eugen Brühwiler, Emmanuel Denarié, John Wuest, Julien Michels

L’objectif des interventions sur des ouvrages d’art est d’améliorer la durabilité et d’augmenter la résistance pour assurer la sécurité structurale. La combinaison de BFUP avec des armatures, peuvent répondre à ces exigences. Le comportement à la rupture d ...

2005

Process-based, spatially-explicit modelling of riparian forest dynamics in Central Europe : tool for decision-making in river restoration

Christian Glenz

During the last decades public awareness of the limitations of traditional engineering practices and the imperative to conserve nature have led to changes in river management; including river restoration measures. The enlargement of the fluvial corridor is ...

EPFL2005