Madelene Ostwald

Linköping University | LiU · Department of Thematic Studies (TEMA)

As part of the carbon cycle, forests have a place in climate-related forest policies and trends. By describing forest-related measures driven by international climate negotiations, such as the afforestation and reforestation under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), or the...

The nutrient type and amount contributed from vermicompost varies depending on the source material, earthworm type used, agro-ecology and farmers’ management. These call for crop, soil and site-specific study. This study, therefore, aimed at determining: (i) the optimal vermicompost application rate/s for wheat and maize production; and (ii) the ro...

Agricultural production plays a strategic role in ensuring food security, income and employment for rural households across developing countries. Smallholder farming systems are complex, and efforts to transform them are undermined by climate change induced shocks as well as long-term changes. We employed a multi-stakeholder approach to develop an...

Trees in agroforestry parklands influence crops both through competitive and facilitative mechanism, but the effects are challenging to disentangle due to the complexity of the system with high variability in tree cover structure and species diversity and crop combinations. Focusing on a landscape in central Burkina Faso dominated by Vitellaria par...

Global population growth, especially in developing countries, will most likely require an increase in agricultural production, but the sustainability of this production cannot be achieved without the preservation of ecosystem functions. Therefore, farmers need to know about, and deal with, the trade-offs between agricultural productivity and ecosys...

Formas specialutlysning ’Att förverkliga de Globala hållbarhetsmålen’ från 2019/20 analyserades utifrån att ingen av de 11 tilldelade projekten (beviljningsgrad 6,6 procent) kom från Göteborgs universitet och Chalmers, trots att 30 (17 procent) av de 174 ansökningarna söktes från dessa universitet. Ansökningar, yttranden, dokument från Formas, kont...

Mapping of tree height is of great importance for management, planning, and research related to agroforestry parklands in Africa. In this paper, we investigate the potential of spotlight-mode data from the interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) satellite system TanDEM-X (TDM) for mapping of tree height in Saponé, Burkina Faso, a test site...

This document reports the results of the fourth workshop run by the project “Policy Dialogues on a Bioeconomy for Sustainable Development”. The project is co-financed by the Swedish Innovation Agency, Vinnova, and the SEI Governing Bioeconomy Pathways initiative. The overarching goal of the project is to facilitate a more constructive dialogue on t...

The study aimed at evaluating the impact of integrated watershed management on reducing soil erosion and changes in the livelihoods of rural farming households in Ethiopia. The changes in soil erosion for the years between 2002 and 2015 were estimated using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation model, while the impacts on livelihoods were assess...

Crop production statistics at the field scale are scarce in African countries, limiting potential research on yield gaps as well as monitoring related to food security. This paper examines the potential of using Sentinel-2 time series data to derive spatially explicit estimates of crop production in an agroforestry parkland in central Burkina Faso....

High expectations are put to multifunctional land use systems that they can provide solutions to the increasing global demand for land and food. In this literature review, we ask whether multifunctional landscapes hold specific opportunities for women in enhancing food production and security in a context of gender inequality guided by a framework...

In Swedish: ”Jo, skog är bra men träden i sig har många bra funktioner som bör beaktas. Åtgärder och strategier tas fram inom klimatanpassning där det ofta rör sig om värmebölja, torka eller översvämning och relaterade naturkatastrofer och i dessa avseenden kan träd göra en stor skillnad. Alltså, räkna in trädets många roller, även de som är utanf...

This book presents contemporary case studies of land use, management practices, and innovation in Africa with a view to exploring how multifunctional land uses can alleviate food insecurity and poverty. Food security and livelihoods in Africa face multiple challenges in the form of feeding a growing population on declining land areas under the impa...

Increasing sedentary agro-pastoralist livelihoods may be explained by land degradation, population pressure, agricultural commodification, and economic development. We reviewed scientific and ‘grey’ literature for the effects of enclosures on food security. Only 8% of the 114 reviewed scientific articles addressed food production, while 69% approac...

Increasing sedentary agro-pastoralist livelihoods may be explained by land degradation, population pressure, agricultural commodification, and economic development. We reviewed scientific and 'grey' literature for the effects of enclosures on food security. Only 8% of the 114 reviewed scientific articles addressed food production, while 69% approac...

We investigated the correlation between backscatter and soil moisture considering precipitation and crop effects using dual polarized Sentinel-1A data. The analyzed data consist of a time-series of 38 Sentinel-1A GRD images acquired on a 12-days repeat cycle from

ntroduction and aims In Sri Lanka, homegarden agroforestry systems cover about 13 percent of the land area and constitute a majority of Sri Lanka’s total annual crop and timber production. Despite Sri Lankan homegardens are considered desirable and sustainable land-use systems that produce a multitude of ecosystem services, their role in food secur...

This book presents contemporary case studies of land use, management practices and innovation in Africa with a view to exploring how multifunctional land uses can alleviate food insecurity and poverty. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of African development, agriculture, food security, land use, and environmental managem...

Recently, there has been growing interest in agroforestry systems due to their great potential to mitigate threats to household food and nutrition security from soaring food prices but also as carbon sinks. In Sri Lanka, smallholder farms such as homegardens constitute a majority of Sri Lanka’s total annual crop and timber production. Despite Sri L...

AgriFoSe203 Brief: Gender issues in contemporary research on agriculture for food security - Knowledge gaps and key issues across the AgriFoSe2030 themes Foreword Agriculture in low- and middle-income countries faces considerable challenges, ranging from increased food demand to climate change impacts, with rapidly evolving scope and complexity. A...

Forest conversion in the tropics is increasingly driven by global demand for agricultural forest-risk commodities such as soy, beef, palm oil and timber. In order to be effective, future forest conservation policies should include measures targeting both producers (the supply side) and consumers (the demand side) to address commodity-driven defores...

Focal Brief 2017:01 Agroforestry and other types of multifunctional land-use systems have increasingly been highlighted as win-win-win solutions to meet the challenges of climate change, agricultural intensification, secure ecosystem services as well as support to food security. In this brief the authors seek in the literature for evidence and info...

Key messages 1. In terms of homegardens and food security, the indirect effects such as adaptation to climate change or a variety of ecosystem services such as increased carbon uptake, better rainfall in ltration capacity and reduced erosion are the most commonly assessed (51%) impacts in the literature. 2. Homegardens in Sri Lanka are the poor lan...

Sri Lanka's natural forests are rich in biological diversity and endemic species of flora and fauna and are critical for soil conservation, watershed and flood control. The conservation, protection and sustainable management of these forests has motivated Sri Lanka to engage in REDD+ activities through the UN-REDD program. Another important land us...

High resolution satellite systems enable efficient and detailed mapping of tree cover, with high potential to support both natural resource monitoring and ecological research. This study investigates the capability of multi-seasonal WorldView-2 imagery to map five dominant tree species at the individual tree crown level in a parkland landscape in c...

Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity, and we are only starting to address it. Climate change scenarios indicate that poor people in developing countries will be particularly negatively affected, e.g. by increased temperature reducing their harvests or flooding due to sea-level rise and extreme weather events. There are also expe...

Dryland livestock production systems are changing in many parts of the world, as a result of growing human populations and associated pressure on water and land. Based on a combination of social and natural science methods, we studied a 30-year transformation process from pastoralism to a livestock-based agro-pastoral system in northwestern Kenya,...

Drylands cover around 40% of the world, host nearly 1/3 of its human population and 50% of the world ́s livestock, and has traditionally been used and managed by pastoralists through communal or common property rights based land tenure systems. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 40% of the total available land is utilized by 265 million pastoral/agro-pastoral...

Accurate and timely maps of tree cover attributes are important tools for environmental research and natural resource management. We evaluate the utility of Landsat 8 for mapping tree canopy cover (TCC) and aboveground biomass (AGB) in a woodland landscape in Burkina Faso. Field data and WorldView-2 imagery were used to assemble the reference datas...

Medan ett pärlband av IPCC-rapporter kavlats ut under det senaste halvåret har det hänt mycket kring det som kallas läckage. I varje fall i min värld. Läckage, något som läcker – och i fallet klimatförändringar gäller det växthusgaser. Som det behandlats inom klimatpolitiken har det inneburit att länder, ett projekt eller andra aktörer försöker min...

How much of India’s vast wasteland can be used for growing plants such as eucalyptus and Jatropha? As land demands have increased, the sustainable use of marginal lands has become increasingly important. In India about 47 million hectares, or 15 percent of the total geographical area, is classified as wastelands. Here we assess the climate and land...

Homegarden agroforestry systems are suggested to hold a large potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation. This is due to their multifunctional role in providing income, food and ecosystem services while decreasing pressure on natural forests and hence saving and storing carbon. In this paper, above-ground biomass carbon and tree species...

Detailed information on tree cover structure is critical for research and monitoring programs targeting African woodlands, including agroforestry parklands. High spatial resolution satellite imagery represents a potentially effective alternative to field-based surveys, but requires the development of accurate methods to automate information extract...

Drs Madelene Ostwald, Martin Persson and Sabine Henders describe their efforts to improve understanding relating to the phenomenon of carbon leakage from displacement of agricultural and forestry activities. The broader aim of the work is to improve policy-shaping mechanisms

Medan ett pärlband av IPCC-rapporter kavlats ut under det senaste halvåret har det hänt mycket kring det som kallas läckage. I varje fall i min värld. Läckage, något som läcker – och i fallet klimatförändringar gäller det växthusgaser. Som det behandlats inom klimatpolitiken har det inneburit att länder, ett projekt eller andra aktörer försöker min...

Tropical homegardens hold a large potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation due to their multi-functional role in providing income and ecosystem services while decreasing pressure on natural forests. However, there is still lack of quantitative data on homegardens and their landscape potential for carbon sequestration services. In this...

This paper explores the concept of homegardens and their potential functions as strategic elements in land-use planning, and adaptation and mitigation to climate change in Sri Lanka. The ancient and locally adapted agroforestry system of homegardens is presently estimated to occupy nearly 15 % of the land area in Sri Lanka and is described in the s...

Landscape scale quantification enables farmers to pool resources and expertise. However, the problem remains of how to quantify these gains. This article considers current greenhouse gas (GHG) quantification methods that can be used in a landscape scale analysis in terms of relevance to areas dominated by smallholders in developing countries. In la...

Detta brief baserar sig på ett remissvar till Näringsdepartementet. Remissvaret i februari 2013 kom som följd av Näringsdepartementets inbjudan till remiss på Europeiska kommissionens förslag till Europaparlamentets och rådets direktiv om ändringar av direktiv 98/70/EG om kvaliteten på bensin och dieselbränslen och om ändring av direktiv 2009/28/EG...

The GHG (greenhouse gas) mitigation potential from the agricultural sector is set to increase in coming decades. Much of the agricultural mitigation potential lies in developing countries where systems are dominated by smallholder farmers. There is therefore an opportunity for smallholders not only to gain environmental benefits from carbon friendl...

Together with 106 farmers who started growing Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.) in 2004–2006, this research sought to increase the knowledge around the real‐life experience of Jatropha farming in the southern India states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Launched as an alternative for diesel in India, Jatropha has been promoted as a non‐edible plant t...

This paper assesses quantification methods for carbon leakage from forestry activities for their suitability in leakage accounting in a future Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism. To that end, we first conducted a literature review to identify specific pre-requisites for leakage assessment in REDD. We then...

Together with 106 farmers who started growing Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.) in 2004–2006, this research sought to increase the knowledge around the real-life experience of Jatropha farming in the southern India states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Launched as an alternative for diesel in India, Jatropha has been promoted as a non-edible plant t...

In India expectations have been high on production of biodiesel from the oil-crop Jatropha. Jatropha is promoted as a drought-and pest-resistant crop, with the potential to grow on degraded soil with a low amount of inputs. These characteristics encourage hope for positive environmental and socio-economic impacts from Jatropha biodiesel production....

Grain for Green Program was launched in China as a national measure to control erosion and increase vegetation cover in 1999. With a budget of 40 billion US dollar, the program that targets cropland and barren land has today converted over 20 million hectares of land into primarily tree-based plantations. Even though the design of the program inclu...

Since the Swedish government and the EU intend to encourage farmers to expand energy crop production, knowledge of the factors motivating adoption decisions is vital to policy success. Earlier stud ...

This paper analyses environmental and socio-economic barriers for plantation activities on local and regional level and investigates the potential for carbon finance to stimulate the increased rates of forest plantation on wasteland, i.e., degraded lands, in southern India. Building on multidisciplinary field work and results from the model GCOMAP,...

The European Union requires that 10% of the energy in the transport sector shall come from renewable sources by 2020. In addition, biofuels used for transport need to fulfill certain sustainability requirements set out in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). To meet these requirements, the EU will need to produce and import large amounts of sustai...

This case study has been carried out as a comparison between two different land-use strategies for climate change mitigation, with possible application within the Clean Development Mechanisms. The benefits of afforestation for carbon sequestration versus for bioenergy production are compared in the context of development planning to meet increasing...

Small-scale farmers on marginal land in the Loess Plateau of China are adapting their livelihood to new situations and changes such as varying climate, new land-use policies, changing employment opportunities and new market situations. To avoid generalising explanations with regard to land-use change, interactions between proximate causes and under...

By using an integrated approach, tsunami affected land, vegetation and inhabitants were assessed to evaluate the potential to restore and protect coastal land in the context of Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism in Hambantota district in the south-eastern part of Sri Lanka. Firstly, assessments of the status of the tsunami affected area w...

This paper analyses the prospects for establishing afforestation and reforestation Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in Karnataka State, India. Building on multi-disciplinary fieldwork, the aim is to: (i) establish what type of plantations and forests that would best suit a forest-based project activity, considering global climate benefits...

With this issue of ETFRN News, containing more than 20 wide-ranging articles on forests and climate change, we wish to contribute to the discussion on the potential role of forests and forest management in mitigating and adapting to climate change.

The objective of this report is to explore the topic of carbon sinks in forest ecosystems, focusing on the issue of REDD. The report covers different angles: i) an overview of existing financial and methodological initiatives that currently invest in preparation and capacity building of potential REDD host countries, but also in REDD pilot projects...

This article explores the science-policy interactions between peer-reviewed literature and decisions and declarations on Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) taken at Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings. The results are based on a literature analysis capturing 88 articles published f...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the key aspects of transformation of universities towards sustainability, such as the ideal characteristics of the “sustainable university”, and the drivers and barriers in the transformation, by comparing the strategies of seven universities world‐wide. Design/methodology/approach A systems transfo...

This perspective discusses multi-functional biomass production systems, which are located, designed, integrated and managed so as to provide specific environmental services, in addition to biomass supply. Besides discussing the general concept and outlining a range of different possible applications, we present in somewhat more detail specific appl...

Global environmental problems such as climate change, tropical deforestation, loss of biodiversity and desertification are receiving serious attention of all stakeholders including scientists, citizens and policymakers. Interestingly, all these environmental issues are linked to land-use systems. Climate change and its manifestations, particularly...

Estimating the area and delineating the boundary of a land-use category for greenhouse gas inventory and of area dedicated for a proposed project is the first basic step in preparing a carbon inventory. Methods ranging from field measurements, such as a physical land survey, to more complex methods involving the use of a satellite available for est...

Carbon stocks and changes should be neither overestimated nor underestimated as far as can be judged (IPCC 2000). The uncertainty is normally high in biological and land-use sectors given the large variation in factors contributing to carbon stocks and changes. Uncertainty in the estimates that make up a carbon inventory is considered as a barrier...

Carbon inventory requiring estimation of carbon dioxide emissions and removals in land-use categories for national greenhouse gas inventory and changes in stocks of carbon in projects aimed at climate change mitigation has become increasingly important in global efforts to address climate change. Hence, there is a need for a handbook that provides...

Shaanxi Province in China has been exposed to climate variability and dramatic land-use policies. The aim here is to examine vegetation changes in this area on a regional scale from 2000 to 2004 in relation to land-use changes and climate traits. The data in this assessment include remote sensing information from moderate-resolution imaging spectro...

Changes are taking place in many developing countries causing land-use change. In China there has been enormous economic growth since 1978 followed by impacts on the environmental, social and economical conduct of the society. One of the counter actions taken by the Government to halt the environmental degradation in the Loess Plateau has been the...

The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) is often proposed to holistically capture vulnerability in assessments of livelihoods in aid and development programs. The full capacity of the approach has however only rarely been used in these assessments, lacking a clear account of processes of change and flexibility of assets, as well as the ability t...

With global concern on climate change impacts, developing countries are given special attention due their susceptibility. In this paper, change and variability in climate, land use and farmers' perception, adaptation and response to change are examined in Danangou watershed in the Chinese Loess Plateau. The first focus is to look at how climate dat...

A questionnaire survey covering 35% of all households in five villages was conducted in a local forest protection group in Orissa, India. The aim was to study dependency, involvement and attitude towards forest protection based on gender and caste. A conceptual model indicating differences between the groups was used as a base. Women experienced mo...

A support tool system comprising risk and priority analyses was illustrated in a geographical information system environment and also tested with data from two forest protection areas for comparison of the system output. The system is recommended as a management monitoring tool for areas where village forest protection at a local level is taking pl...

In Orissa 100 thousand ha of village plantations were established from 1985 to 1992 as an aid project to support the subsistence needs of rural poor and to relieve heavy pressure on the natural forests. The aim of this paper is to examine the welfare and environmental effects of these village plantations. To do this, extensive data collection was n...

Twenty-nine NOAA AVHRR images pre-produced in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were used to detect vegetation changes in three areas: a forest under local protection, a reference forest and the total forest area in Ranapur area, Orissa state, India. The data were from April 1992 to January 1996, a period when changes in forest vegetati...