Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 216-221). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2003. / Title from title page screen (viewed Sept. 23, 2003). Thesis advisor: Randol G. Waters. Document formatted into pages (ix, 93 p.). Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-72).

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This item was digitized as part of the Million Books Project led by Carnegie Mellon University and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cornell University coordinated the participation of land-grant and agricultural libraries in providing historical agricultural information for the digitization project; the University of Arizona Libraries, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Office of Arid Lands Studies collaborated in the selection and provision of material for the digitization project.

This project analyzes satellite images from 1976, 1985 and 2000 of Dutse, Jigawa state, in north-western Nigeria. The analyzed satellite images were used to determine land-use and vegetation changes that have occurred in the land-use from 1976 to 2000 will help recommend possible planning measures in order to protect the vegetation from further deterioration. Studying land-use change in north-western Nigeria is essential for analyzing various ecological and developmental consequences over time. The north-western region of Nigeria is of great environmental and economic importance having land cover rich in agricultural production and livestock grazing. The increase of population over time has affected the land-use and hence agricultural and livestock production. On completion of this project, the possible land use changes that have taken place in Dutse will be analyzed for future recommendation. The use of supervised classification and change detection of satellite images have produced an economic way to quantify different types of landuse and changes that has occurred over time. The percentage difference in land-use between 1976 and 2000 was 37%, which is considered to be high land-use change within the period of study. The result in this project is being used to propose planning strategies that could help in planning sustainable land-use and diversity in Dutse.

The impact of undesirable plant communities (Cymbopogon afronardus and woody species dominated by Acacia species) on livestock carrying capacity and performance was investigated on 15 farms in an Acacia/Cymbopogon dominated pastoral system of south-western Uganda. Species prevalence based on basal cover for grasses, frequency for forbs and effective canopy cover for trees/shrubs were determined on farms. The PHYGROW model was used to predict forage productivity for computation of carrying capacity. The NIRS/NUTBAL nutritional management system was used to determine cattle dietary CP and DOM through fecal scans and to estimate animal performance. Cymbopogon afronardus had a prevalence of 10.29% among the grasses while Acacia gerrardii (34.37%) and Acacia hockii (33.66%) were the most prevalent woody species. Forage productivity differed significantly among the farms with a mean long-term annual forage yield of 4560(SE+41) kg/ha. Farms infested with Cymbopogon and woody species produced the least amount of forage and therefore had the lowest carrying capacities (0.38 -0.39 AU/ha) while improved farms had comparatively higher forage yields with higher carrying capacities (0.49 - 0.52 AU/ha). A mean carrying capacity for the system was estimated at 0.44 AU/ha using a 25% harvest efficiency for ANPP. All the farms were overstocked, on average by 3.2 times. Livestock BCS, diet CP and DOM were significantly different (P<0.0001) among the different farm types. BCS were highest on improved farms and lowest on Cymbopogon infested farms while dietary CP and DOM values were lowest on improved farms and highest on farms with a high woody component. Farms with a relatively high woody component exhibited intermediate BCS despite the high dietary CP values. Cattle on Cymbopogon infested farms had consistently lower body weights over the months although there were no significant differences in daily live weight gains among farms. Recommendations included need for research into appropriate control measures for both Cymbopogon afronardus and woody species, farmer sensitization about overstocking, research to improve forage quality on improved farms and need for feed supplementation for improved breeds on improved farms. Integration of NIRS/NUTBAL and PHYGROW models into the research and management systems was desirable. The observed increase in Sporobolus spp. required investigation.

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In den Mischfutterrationen für Milchrinder wurde ein mittlerer Gehalt von Kupfer, Zink, Mangan und Selen ermittelt, der 2,5-fach über der Versorgungsempfehlung liegt. Neben den umweltrelevanten Konflikten dieser Praxis sind auch Versorgungsprobleme bei den Milchrindern aufgrund unerwünschter Interaktionen der Elemente nicht auszuschließen. In elf sächsischen Milchviehbetrieben wurden die Ursachen der Überversorgung untersucht und Vorschläge zur Optimierung der Spurenelementversorgung von Milchrindern erarbeitet. Dabei konnte die mittlere Kupfer-, Zink- und Selenkonzentration in den TMR um im Mittel 25 %, d. h. auf ein mittleres Versorgungsniveau der Tiere von 150 % der Versorgungsempfehlung reduziert werden. Das Heft fasst die Ergebnisse der Untersuchungen zusammen.

Achieving environmental s¬ustainability in human organization is the defining challenge of the modern era. In light of the inability of the existing economic paradigm to provide for sustainability objectives, novel approaches to understanding and managing economic activities are required. Towards this end, the emergent field of ecological economics provides an alternative paradigm that expressly prioritizes the development of the theory and tools necessary to operationalize environmental sustainability in economic activity, which is viewed as prerequisite to sustainability in any other sphere. Here, I advance an internally consistent framework for understanding and implementing the core ecological economic sustainability criteria: appropriate scale relative to biocapacity; distributive justice; and efficient allocation. This framework includes: (1) an ecological communitarian conception of distributive justice which recognizes environmental sustainability as the first principle of distributive justice; (2) the rationale for biophysically-consistent ecological economic modeling of human activities as a basis for environmentally-enlightened policy and management; and (3) an appeal for scale-oriented environmental governance as could potentially be operationalized by a strong, centralized World Environment Organization. I further apply this framework to evaluating the current and future status of livestock production systems at regional and global scales with respect to efficiency considerations as well as their relationships to sustainability boundary conditions for human activities as a whole. It is suggested that the current and projected scale of the livestock sector is fundamentally unsustainable, and that all leverage points must be exploited to rein in this sector in the interest of preventing irreversible ecological change. This must include, but cannot be limited to, strong eco-efficiency measures and changes in production technologies, species substitutions, and consumption patterns and volumes. Outcomes are interpreted in terms of their implications for environmental policy and governance oriented towards the sustainability objective.