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Landscapes and livelihoods changes in the north-western uplands of Cambodia: Opportunities for building resilient farming systems

Kong R.. 2019. Montpellier : Montpellier SupAgro, 167 p.. Thèse de doctorat -- Ecologie fonctionnelle et sciences agronomiques.

Almost 1 million hectares of forest lands have been reclaimed over the last 15 years for farming. Farmer practices with intensive mono-cropping based on tillage and herbicides use have resulted in significant soil erosion and rapid land degradation. Declining land productivity with increasing frequency of drought and flood have jeopardized the farm's economy of the smallholders. Understanding the impacts of land use changes on livelihoods and ecosystem services, and exploring intervention mechanisms based on Conservation Agriculture (CA) would help sustain smallscale farming systems in the Cambodian uplands. A research study on "Landscapes and livelihood changes in the northwestern uplands of Cambodia: Impacts on ecosystem services and opportunities for building resilient farming systems" is presented aiming to (i) analyze land use changes, their proximate causes, and underlying driving forces, (ii) assess the impacts of land use changes on local livelihoods and ecosystem services at multiple scales, (iii) evaluate the capacity of alternative cropping systems based on agro-ecology principles to preserve/restore soil fertility while improving local livelihoods, and (iv) assess the potential of conservation agriculture to enhance resilience of farming systems to climate change. The study produced (i) a full illustration of land use changes and its impacts provided by the integration of different scales: spatial, temporal, disciplinary, but also methods to describe and simulate changes, (ii) a new participatory approach adapted to the context of Cambodian uplands to develop the land use and landscape plan, and (iii) resilience scenarios of each type of farming system.

Mots-clés : système d'exploitation agricole; diversification des moyens d'existence; changement social; changement dans l'usage des terres; services écosystémiques; cambodge

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