Tutorials
Intermediate-Level
Exercises for Advanced Users
In this part, you will start to gradually increase your skill in applying
FALLOW Model through some exercises with increasing complexity of simulation’s
scenarios:
1. Comparison between shifting cultivation and permanent agriculture
2.
Reconstruct land-use/cover change history
1. Comparison between shifting cultivation and permanent agriculture
INTRODUCTION: This exercise will train you on how to simulate two scenarios
in order to compare the consequences of shifting cultivation and permanent
agriculture on food security, watershed functions, biodiversity and carbon
stocks.
· Make sure that you use the available maps with the size of 10x10 grids to speed up the calculation process (see How to select the working maps from available data in the list).
· Run a simple shifting cultivation scenario as been trained in Getting started with FALLOW.
· See the results on some consequences:
·
Go to the sheet “Output Menu” by clicking the Output button
. Select
“Watershed Functions” from the diagram. Click the red-square
button on the left of the row “Plot average sediment loss”.
Try to also see other output parameters provided in this watershed functions
sheet.
·
Go back to the sheet “Output Menu” by clicking the Output
button
and select “Biodiversity” from the diagram. Click the red-square
button on the left of the row “Total landscape biodiversity”.
·
Go back to the sheet “Output Menu” by clicking the Output
button
and select “Carbon Stocks” from the diagram. Click the red-square
button on the left of the row “Plot-average carbon stocks”.
·
Go back to the sheet “Output Menu” by clicking the Output
button
and select “Food Security” from the diagram. Click the red-square
button 
on the left of the row “Food sufficiency and its cumulative”.
· Please extract and retain your current results so that you’ll be able to compare with the results of the next scenario (see: How to extract and retain the current results).
·
To run the permanent agriculture scenario, go to the sheet “Input
Menu” by clicking the Input button 
and please select “Cropping Implementation” from the diagram
and change the value of “Cropping time on the same plot” from
2 into 100 or more. Update your change by clicking the Updating button
provided
under the table and always confirm to do rewrite saving to the existing
file by clicking Yes-Save-Yes respectively.
·
Run the simulation by clicking the Run button
.
· Repeat the above steps to see the results on some consequences.
· Extract and retain your current results and compare the results on some consequences (biodiversity, watershed functions, food security and carbon stocks) with the previous scenario (see: How to extract and retain the current results).
· What did you find? Is permanent agriculture better than shifting cultivation? Why did carrying capacity of the landscape in term of food security crash when people applied permanent agriculture?
2.Reconstruct
land-use/cover change history
INTRODUCTION: In this part, you will develop some scenarios to reconstruct
land-use/cover change history, which are grouped into three main episodes
of land-use evolution:
· Episode 1: Market introduction, agroforestry development and NTFP
· Episode 2: Tenure recognition through agroforestry and plantation development
·
Episode 3: When one plantation is replaced by another
Episode 1. Market introduction, agroforestry development and NTFP
INTRODUCTION: At first, shifting cultivation practices done by a group
of people lived on a forested landscape were really subsistent. All yields
were for their own needs. When other groups of people came to their landscape
as traders and exchanged some merchandise with some foods from the natives,
it was the time when market was introduced on the landscape. Through the
market, the natives then began to recognise other noon-food agricultural
products that could be sold in the market, such as latex, honey, etc.
Then, some of them planted some rubber trees on their fallowed areas and
some of them harvested honey from the forest. It was the time when people
lived on the landscape practiced agroforestry and NTFP. Now, you will
exercise on how to develop such scenario in FALLOW, run the simulation
and see some consequences of the changing landscape on biodiversity, carbon
stocks, watershed functions and food security.
· Make sure that you use the available maps with the size of 10x10 grids to speed up the calculation process (see How to select the working maps from available data in the list).
· Make sure that you have set your scenario for shifting cultivation running mode (not permanent agriculture). Check which parameter should be modified in the previous exercise: Comparison between shifting cultivation and permanent agriculture.
·
Go to the sheet “Local Setting” by clicking this button:
.
· Change “Main product of NTFP” into NTFP (Bee Honey).
·
Go to the sheet “Input Menu” by clicking the Input button
.
·
To activate market on the landscape, select “Aggregate Level Household
Economics” from the diagram and change the value of “Exchange
food at the market?” into 1. Do not forget to update your change
by clicking the Updating button
provided under the table and always confirm to do rewrite saving to the
existing file by clicking Yes-Save-Yes respectively.
·
Back to the sheet “Input Menu” by clicking the Input button
.
·
To activate labour allocation for NTFP gathering activities, go back to
the sheet “Input Menu” by clicking the Input button
and select “Labor Allocation” from the diagram.
·
Change the value of “Allocate labor for ntfp (bee honey) gathering?”
into 1 and update your change by clicking the Updating button
provided under the table and always confirm to do rewrite saving to the
existing file by clicking Yes-Save-Yes respectively.
·
Now, go back to the sheet “Input Menu” by clicking the Input
button
again.
·
Since people now recognise two other livelihoods besides cropping activities,
which are agroforestry and NTFP gathering activities, they should experience
those three activities in term of returns to labour could be earned. Now,
select “Local Knowledge” from the diagram. Let’s initialise
returns to labour from those three activities at the same level. It could
be interpreted that initially people had the same chance to adopt three
types of land-use systems. To do that, put 1 for the values of “Initial
knowledge on returns to labor of cropping activities”, “Initial
knowledge on returns to labor of rubber agroforestry”, and “Initial
knowledge on returns to labor of ntfp (bee honey) gathering”. Do
not forget to update your change by clicking the Updating button
provided under the table and always confirm to do rewrite saving to the
existing file by clicking Yes-Save-Yes respectively.
·
Run the simulation by clicking the Run button
.
·
Now, see the land-use/cover change of the scenario you’ve run. Click
the Output button .
Select “Succession & Landuse/cover Change” from the diagram.
Click the red-square button
on the left of the row “All land-use/cover type (cropped field,
forest, agroforest, rubber plantation, oil palm plantation)” and
confirm to run the batch file by clicking OK. A PCRaster graph-plotting
window will pop up, showing the dynamics of all land-use/cover types on
the landscape, started from cropped-field (red line), forests (yellow
line) and agroforests (green line). You should have no plotted data of
plantations. From this graphs, you should see how forests were converted
into cropped-fields and agroforests. Try yourself to see results on the
succession dynamics of forests and the production-age dynamics of agroforests.
What can you tell from those results? Why forests never got any chance
to have succession?
·
From your above results, forests have actually not gone from the landscape,
but they were fallowed into more useful type of land-use system for people,
which was agroforests. To test the hypothesis that agroforests could in
some extent replace the function of forests on the landscape, you should
check the consequences of such changes. First, go to the sheet “Output
Menu” by clicking the Output button
. Select “Watershed Functions” from the diagram. Click the
red-square button
on the left of the row “Plot average sediment loss”. You can
prove that at relatively old age of agroforests (at the ending part of
the time line), sediment loss from the landscape could be reduced close
to the forested condition (the beginning part of the time line). Check
other output parameters provided in this sheet.
·
In term of landscape filter for maintaining watershed functions, you could
convince people that deforestation into agroforests could still be accepted.
But, some people will think of biodiversity loss due to deforestation.
Go back to the sheet “Output Menu” by clicking the Output
button
and select “Biodiversity” from the diagram. Click the red-square
button
on the left of the row “Total landscape biodiversity”. You
should get about 100 species loss from the landscape due to deforestation.
Regarding this matter, agroforestry could not help (some of) you much
to maintain biodiversity from the landscape.
·
Now, check the consequences on carbon stocks. Go back to the sheet “Output
Menu” by clicking the Output button
and select “Carbon Stocks” from the diagram. Click the red-square
button
on the left of the row “Plot-average carbon stocks”. You should
find the plot-average carbon stocks from the landscape would recover at
the ending part of the time line, next to what you found when the landscape
was still totally forested.
·
Others might also like to see on how the landscape with such land-use/cover
change scenario in term of economical values. Go back to the sheet “Output
Menu” by clicking the Output button
and select “Food Security” from the diagram. Click the red-square
button
on the left of the row “Food sufficiency and its cumulative”.
You should find that the carrying capacity of the landscape in providing
food for people in this scenario was relatively stable.
· In this scenario, you included NTFP as alternative livelihood option of people on the landscape. For your own exercise, compare the recent results with another scenario if NTFP is not recognised on the landscape. Before doing it, please retain your current results first. You can then compare the two results from the tabular data of the retained results from the spreadsheet (see: How to extract and retain the current results). What did you find about deforestation on the landscape if NTFP was not practiced by people?
Episode 2. Tenure recognition through agroforestry and plantation development
INTRODUCTION: Sequel of the previous story was that the adoption of agroforestry
would lead to tenure recognition of the plots. Logical consequence of
such tenure recognition was that people would have power to sell their
agroforested plots through land exchange. It might then lead to land occupation
by some people with land holding size that was profitable enough to start
adopting more intensive (more profitable) type of agricultural systems
in form of monoculture plantations. In this exercise, you will simulate
if such logical process was happened on the landscape, so that its land-use/cover
would evolve into rubber plantations.
·
Go to the sheet “Input Menu” by clicking the Input button
.
·
First, activate the land tenure recognition process led by agroforestry
development by selecting “Tenure” from the diagram and change
the value of “Does rubber agroforestry lead tenure recognition?”
into 1. Do not forget to update your change by clicking the Updating button
provided
under the table and always confirm to do rewrite saving to the existing
file by clicking Yes-Save-Yes respectively. And what’s next?
·
You are right! You should initialise people’s knowledge on rubber
plantation. It would be fair if you adjust initial values of people’s
knowledge on all of activities they did equally. Go back to the sheet
“Input Menu” by clicking the Input button
again and select “Local Knowledge” from the diagram. Put 1
for the value of “Initial knowledge on returns to labor of rubber
plantation” and update your change by clicking the Updating button
provided
under the table and always confirm to do rewrite saving to the existing
file by clicking Yes-Save-Yes respectively.
·
Now, run the simulation and check the results on land-use/cover dynamics
and its consequences. Compare with the results from the previous scenario.
What did you find? Did the landscape transform into better one?
Episode 3. When one plantation is replaced by another
INTRODUCTION: It was indeed happened that huge land conversion into monoculture
plantation would affect its product price at the market due to overproduction.
People would then look at more profitable products for their next plan.
In this part, you will exercise to run more advanced scenario if latex
price was dropped and people started converting their old rubber plantations
into more promising one, which was oil palm.
·
Go to the sheet “Input Menu” by clicking the Input button
.
·
Select the sheet “Input Menu” by clicking the Input button
and select
“Monoculture Plantation” from the diagram.
·
Do not forget to initialise people’s knowledge on oil palm plantation.
Go back to the sheet “Input Menu” by clicking the Input button
again
and select “Local Knowledge” from the diagram. Put 1 for the
value of “Initial knowledge on returns to labor of oil palm plantation”
and update your change by clicking the Updating button
provided under the table and always confirm to do rewrite saving to the
existing file by clicking Yes-Save-Yes respectively.
·
Make sure that crude palm oil in your scenario gives higher price than
latex. Go to the sheet “Input Menu” by clicking the Input
button
and select “Market” from the diagram. Make the value of “Average
of cpo price” into 6000. Update your change by clicking the Updating
button
provided under the table and always confirm to do rewrite saving to the
existing file by clicking Yes-Save-Yes respectively.
· Run the simulation and look at the results on land-use/cover dynamics and its consequences. Compare with the previous scenarios. See also the consequences on soil fertility.
· Try to lower down the cpo price from 6000 into 4000 or lower. Did you find that market price really controlled such plantation’s cannibalism?