Assessment of sustainability criteria and carbon stocks for selected land use options for Philippine uplands

SEAMEO-SEARCA and ICRAF-SEA reached an agreement to implement a collaborative research project entitled, “Assessment of Sustainability Criteria and Carbon Stocks for Selected Land Use Options for Philippine Uplands”. The objectives of this research project are: (1)To assess the longer term implications for soil properties, nutrient, water and organic matter balance of a range of land use alternatives for upland agriculture and agroforestry, to estimate the possible trade-offs between profitability, sustainability and carbon sequestration; and (2)To test a generic method for deriving sustainability, profitability and carbon stock indicators form a comprehensive tree-soil-crop interaction model. (Refer to Appendix A and B for details ) The pre-implementation stage of the WaNuLCAS Project involved a series of project team meetings, analysis of the model, and project workplan finalization. Most of the project time was spent on model parameterization and/or calibration using existing as well as secondary data from differenr sources like past research project results in the study site. Parameterization included activities such as sensitivity analysis and curve-fitting. Two agroforestry-based farming systems or landuse options were considered, namely the Corn Monocropping System (CMS) and the Corn-Gliricidia Cropping System (CGCS). These two systems which are dominant in the sloping uplands of Northern Mindanao were modelled and their long -term sustainability performance was assessed using the selected sets of indicators and criteria. Simulation results show that CMS appears to be less unprofitable or more profitable compared to CGCS. But from sustainability standpoint, the latter is still better than the former. Analysis of the model performance indicated that, WaNuLCAS provides the best well-rounded simulation at the plot level. The very detailed simulation output it provides can easily be generalized or transformed and inputted to other simulation models focus at higher hierarchical level of agroecosystems. Moreover, during the course of model parameterizations, observations on the model input data requirements and simulation outputs were noted and documented. These are deemed important in assessing the model input data necessary considering the data availability, reliability, and importance at a particular level in the hierarchy of systems.

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