Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2017

Deforestation

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

The Relationship Between Carbon Emissions, Land Use Change And The Oil Palm Industry Within Southeast Asia, Savanna L. Booth May 2017

The Relationship Between Carbon Emissions, Land Use Change And The Oil Palm Industry Within Southeast Asia, Savanna L. Booth

Master's Projects and Capstones

Tropical forests store the largest amount of carbon globally by sequestering up to 2.7 Gt of carbon every year in soils and vegetation. Deforestation and the conversion of tropical peatland soil have contributed to global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, as well as significantly hindering tropical ecosystems and the natural carbon sequestration potential that could potentially help mitigate atmospheric CO2 levels. Deforestation has increased rapidly since the 1970’s across Southeast Asia with oil palm contributing to 61% of deforestation between 2010 and 2015 with emissions reaching 22.1 million tons CO2-eq during that time. The conversions of tropical peatlands …

Go to article

Global Deforestation Prediction: Summer Internship At Clark Labs, Tianze Li, Yahsee Joshi May 2017

Global Deforestation Prediction: Summer Internship At Clark Labs, Tianze Li, Yahsee Joshi

Sustainability and Social Justice

This paper is a description of our internship with Clark Labs in the summer of 2016. We worked as research assistants in the Deforestation Risk Prediction project for Ecosystem Services team. This goal of the project was to predict deforestation at global, continental and national level. Our responsibilities were to choose the variables that may influence the deforestation and to use Land Change Modeler in TerrSet to test the variables and create the deforestation prediction maps. We highly recommend this internship with Clark Labs to other GISDE students who are interested in land change analysis.

Go to article

Precipitation Drivers Of Cropping Frequency In The Brazilian Cerrado: Evidence And Implications For Decision-Making, Keith R. Spangler, Amanda H. Lynch, Stephanie A. Spera Apr 2017

Precipitation Drivers Of Cropping Frequency In The Brazilian Cerrado: Evidence And Implications For Decision-Making, Keith R. Spangler, Amanda H. Lynch, Stephanie A. Spera

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

The Amazon basin has been subjected to unprecedented rates of land-use change over the past several decades, primarily as a result of the expansion of agriculture. Enhanced rain forest conservation efforts toward the end of the twentieth century slowed deforestation of the Amazon but, in turn, increased demand for land repurposing in the adjacent Cerrado (savanna) region, where conservation regulations are less strict. To maintain or increase yields while minimizing the need for additional land, agricultural producers adopted a form of intensification in which two rain-fed crops are planted within a single growing season (double cropping). Using 10 years (August …

Go to article

The Giving Trees: The (Un)Sustainability Of Palm Oil In Indonesia, Amber Rosche Mar 2017

The Giving Trees: The (Un)Sustainability Of Palm Oil In Indonesia, Amber Rosche

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Palm oil is the main source of cooking oil for much of Africa, Asia and Brazil. Due to the increasingly high demand for palm oil, countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia have cleared millions of acres of tropical rainforests to create space for oil palm plantations. This deforestation has led to extreme environmental and social concerns such as the burning of peatlands, the endangerment of a number of species, including the Sumatran Tiger, rhinos and orangutans, and the displacement of native populations. Indonesia is the world’s largest consumer and producer of palm oil, producing almost half of the world’s supply …

Go to article

Just Research, Ki’Amber Thompson '18 Jan 2017

Just Research, Ki’Amber Thompson '18

EnviroLab Asia

The trip to Malaysia Borneo was an eye-opening experience that reinforced the need for researchers to listen to the indigenous peoples and to integrate their knowledge and understanding of place into any scientific, political, or policy analyses designed to restore the impact of deforestation and dam projects in the region.

Go to article

Up Close: An Interview, Madi Vorva '17 Jan 2017

Up Close: An Interview, Madi Vorva '17

EnviroLab Asia

A long-time US activist against the deleterious impact of oil-palm deforestation in Southeast Asia learned a great deal about the indigenous peoples’ struggles there to gain control over their lives and livelihoods.

Go to article

The Impacts Of Logging And Palm Oil On Aquatic Ecosystems And Freshwater Sources In Southeast Asia, Isabelle Ng '17 Jan 2017

The Impacts Of Logging And Palm Oil On Aquatic Ecosystems And Freshwater Sources In Southeast Asia, Isabelle Ng '17

EnviroLab Asia

The process of deforestation has large environmental implications on terrestrial as well as aquatic habitats. Palm oil plantations lead to sedimentation and agricultural runoff into streams and rivers. Such high nutrient inputs could lead to eutrophication, bioaccumulation, and toxic blooms, which could lead to changes in aquatic ecosystems as well as drinking water quality for surrounding communities. Pollutants from streams and rivers are furthermore, channeled down into estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems, thus negatively impacting those areas as well. One possible way to reduce the amount of runoff is by treating the waste produced by palm oil mills as well …

Go to article

Institutional Responses To Pressures For Sustainable Palm Oil, Stephen Marks, Justin Lauw '18, Shivang Mehta '19, Fernando Salud '17 Jan 2017

Institutional Responses To Pressures For Sustainable Palm Oil, Stephen Marks, Justin Lauw '18, Shivang Mehta '19, Fernando Salud '17

EnviroLab Asia

As the two leading palm oil producing countries, Indonesia and Malaysia have come under external pressures to limit deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions related to land use conversion for oil palm cultivation. We examine various institutional frameworks that have emerged to mediate these pressures. These frameworks can be distinguished by their geographic scope—domestic, region, and global—as well as by the nature of control—private, non-profit, and governmental. The frameworks have taken the form of sustainability certification systems from non-profit organizations or governments, corporate sustainability policies, or the setting through global or bilateral negotiations of voluntary national targets for limiting deforestation or …

Go to article