Systems Research For Optimizing Future Land Use In South And Southeast Asia

The volume concludes with a brief outline of the most important challenges ahead.

This book focuses on the challenges people face in managing agricultural crops, aquaculture, fisheries and related ecosystems in inland areas of coastal zones in the tropics of Asia, Africa, Australia and South America. These challenges can create conflicts in the use of natural resources between different stakeholders. Through many case studies, the book discusses the nature of the conflicts and identifies what is known and not known about how to manage them. For example, some case studies relate to the trade-offs between enhancing agricultural production by constructing embankments to keep out saline water and maintaining not only the variety of rural livelihoods but also brackish aquatic biodiversity. Other case studies provide the lessons learnt from the conversion of mangrove forests to shrimp farms.

Foodandwatersecurityissuesareregardedassinequanonif asocietywants to p- mote health, peace and prosperity. People who are well fed are also people with the means to changetheir situation. However,this is still an immense challengefor Asia especiallyintheglobalenvironmentalperspectiveinthe21stcentury. Peoplearound the globe will be facing a combination of problems concerning both environmental as well as social changes; therefore, the policy for future food and water security has to be upgraded in an integrated and holistic way. The need to put into persp- tive the ever-mounting body of new information on environmental security of food and water issues in Asia beyond the boundaries of separate disciplines provided the impetus for the development of this book. It is a compilation of selected ar- cles from two international symposiums entitled “Food and Water Sustainability in China 2007” and “Food and Water Sustainability in Asia 2008” which were held in Macau, China. Eminent scientists/researchers from different parts of Asia spoke at the symposium on topics such as the challenges in sustainable water resource m- agement, future projection of development strategies for sheries, increased yield of food grains by rainwater management in arid lands, multi-functional role of rice paddy area for food and water sustainability, the impact of biofuel production on food security, reclaimed wastewater for sustainable urban water use, heavy metal removal from contaminated soil and water, and adaptation strategies to cope with the climate change issues for food and water.

Sustainable agriculture is a rapidly growing field aiming at producing food and energy in a sustainable way for humans and their children. Sustainable agriculture is a discipline that addresses current issues such as climate change, increasing food and fuel prices, poor-nation starvation, rich-nation obesity, water pollution, soil erosion, fertility loss, pest control, and biodiversity depletion. Novel, environmentally-friendly solutions are proposed based on integrated knowledge from sciences as diverse as agronomy, soil science, molecular biology, chemistry, toxicology, ecology, economy, and social sciences. Indeed, sustainable agriculture decipher mechanisms of processes that occur from the molecular level to the farming system to the global level at time scales ranging from seconds to centuries. For that, scientists use the system approach that involves studying components and interactions of a whole system to address scientific, economic and social issues. In that respect, sustainable agriculture is not a classical, narrow science. Instead of solving problems using the classical painkiller approach that treats only negative impacts, sustainable agriculture treats problem sources. Because most actual society issues are now intertwined, global, and fast-developing, sustainable agriculture will bring solutions to build a safer world. This book series gathers review articles that analyze current agricultural issues and knowledge, then propose alternative solutions. It will therefore help all scientists, decision-makers, professors, farmers and politicians who wish to build a safe agriculture, energy and food system for future generations.