Development of an integrated generic model for multi-scale assessment of the impacts of agro-ecosystems on major ecosystem services in West Africa

Authored by Mehdi Saqalli, Mahamadou Belem

Date Published: 2017

DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.07.018

Sponsors: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: UML Other Narrative

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

This paper presents an integrated model assessing the impacts of climate change, agro-ecosystem and demographic transition patterns on major ecosystem services in West-Africa along a partial overview of economic aspects (poverty reduction, food self-sufficiency and income generation). The model is based on an agent-based model associated with a soil model and multi-scale spatial model. The resulting Model for West-Africa Agro-Ecosystem Integrated Assessment (MOWASIA) is ecologically generic, meaning it is designed for all sudano-sahelian environments but may then be used as an experimentation facility for testing different scenarios combining ecological and socioeconomic dimensions. A case study in Burkina Faso is examined to assess the environmental and economic performances of semi-continuous and continuous farming systems. Results show that the semi-continuous system using organic fertilizer and fallowing practices contribute better to environment preservation and food security than the more economically performant continuous system. In addition, this study showed that farmers heterogeneity could play an important role in agricultural policies planning and assessment. In addition, the results showed that MOWASIA is an effective tool for designing, analysing the impacts of agro-ecosystems. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Tags

Climate Climate change Management Dynamics cattle Land-use Land use policy Soil degradation systems Niger Framework Resources Integrated assessment modeling Coupled component model