TY  - JOUR
A1  - Koch, Jennifer
A1  - Schaldach, Rüdiger
A1  - Koechy, Martin
T1  - Modeling the impacts of grazing land management on land-use change for the Jordan River region
N2  - In this article, we describe a simulation method for investigating the impacts of different grazing land management strategies on the productivity of (semi-)natural vegetation and the resulting feedback on land-use change. In a first application, we analyze the effects of sustainable and intensive grazing land management in the Jordan River region. For this purpose, we adapt and use the regional version of the spatially explicit modeling framework LandSHIFT. Our simulation experiments indicate that the modeled feedback mechanism has a strong effect on the spatial extent of grazing land. Consequently, the results of our study underline that the inclusion of such feedback mechanisms in land- use models can help to represent and analyze the complex interactions between humans and the environment in a more differentiated and realistic way, but they also identify the demand for more detailed empirical data on grazing land degradation in order to further improve the explanatory power of the model.
Y1  - 2008
UR  - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VF0-4TPX0NJ-5/2/ 34ae74c07f60d91307937896c0378ddf
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2008.09.005
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Koechy, Martin
A1  - Brakenhielm, Sven
T1  - Separation of effects of moderate N deposition from natural change in ground vegetation of forests and bogs
N2  - The effect of moderate rates of nitrogen deposition on ground floor vegetation is poorly predicted by uncontrolled surveys or fertilization experiments using high rates of nitrogen (N) addition. We compared the temporal trends of ground floor vegetation in permanent plots with moderate (7-13 kg/ha/yr) and lower bulk N deposition (4-6 kg/ha/yr) in southern Sweden during 1982-1998. We examined whether trends differed between growth forms (vascular plants and bryophytes) and vegetation types (three types of coniferous forest, deciduous forest, and bog). Trends of site-standardized cover and richness varied among growth forms, vegetation types, and deposition regions. Cover in spruce forests decreased at the same rate with both moderate and low deposition. In pine forests cover decreased faster with moderate deposition and in bogs cover decreased faster with low deposition. Cover of bryophytes in spruce forests increased at the same rate with both moderate and low deposition. In pine forests cover decreased faster with moderate deposition and in bogs and deciduous forests there was a strong non-linear increase with moderate deposition. The trend of number of vascular plants was constant with moderate and decreased with low deposition. We found no trend in the number of bryophyte species. We propose that the decrease of cover and number with low deposition was related to normal ecosystem development (increased shading), suggesting that N deposition maintained or increased the competitiveness of some species in the moderate-deposition region. Deposition had no consistent negative effect on vegetation suggesting that it is less important than normal successional processes.
Y1  - 2008
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2007.11.039
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2007.11.039
ER  -