Changing woody plant density across agricultural landscapes of the Sudano-Sahelian region is a debated issue. This paper reports the results of an investigation on the contribution of field hedges to overall woody plant density. Hedges separating individual cropped parcels were studied within village agropastoral territories in the Dantiandou district in western Niger. In 1992, field hedges were mapped over the study area using aerial photography and in 2016, using high resolution Google Earth imagery. In 1992, field hedge length was equal to 1006 km within 435 km2 of croplands, equivalent to 2.3 km km−2. In 2016, 17.5% of these hedges had disappeared, but 1591 km of new hedges were observed resulting in an increased density of hedges to 5.6 km km−2. In 24 years, hedges had increased at a mean annual rate of 3.7% likely associated with the splitting of crop fields by inheritance. The composition and productivity of hedges were also monitored in 1996, 2010 and 2015. All trees (maximum height ≥ 4 m), shrubs (
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2019.03.016Altmetric score:
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Publication year
2020
Authors
Hiernaux, P.; Adamou, K.; Moumouni, O.; Turner, M.D.; Tong, X.; Savadogo, P.; Mougin, E.; Issa, O.M.
Language
English
Keywords
agroforestry, hedgerow, land tenure, deforestation, tropical forest
Geographic
Niger
