We ihe ns te pha ne r K ollo quium z ur A nge wa ndte n Ök olo gie

Weihenstephaner Kolloquium zur
Angewandten Ökologie und Planung
Impacts and Trade-offs of Tropical Land-Use
Change from Forest to Oil
Palm and Rubber Plantations in Indonesia
Prof. Dr. Alexander Knohl, Professor of Bioclimatology
Georg-August University of Göttingen
Indonesia currently experiences rapid and large-scale landuse changes resulting in forest loss and the expansion of
cash crop plantations such as oil palm and rubber. The
lowlands of Sumatra, Indonesia, were one of the hot spots of
oil palm and rubber expansion over the last decades. In a
large multi-disciplinary project, we explore trade-offs between
ecological and socio-economic ecosystem functions.
In the presentation, I will briefly show some overall results on
ecological and socio-economic functions. On the one hand,
oil palm and rubber monocultures undermine biodiversity and
carbon storage. Additionally, oil palm threatens freshwater
quality through high fertilizer inputs and nutrient leaching. On
the other hand, the monocultures provide increased income
and access to education, especially for migrant smallholders.
Rubber plantations generate higher gross margins per area
than oil palm but lower gross margins per labour unit, forming
a trade-off, which influences crop choice decisions by
smallholders.
In the second part of the presentation, I will focus on
biogeochemical and biophysical impacts of land-use changes
on the atmosphere. By combining micrometeorological
measurements with land surface and regional climate
modelling and remote sensing, we show that the land-use
changes lead to increased surface temperatures, particularly
in young oil palm plantations with up to 5°C increase.
Transpiration (T) and evapotranspiration (ET) as well as the
contribution of T to ET of oil palm showed a strong agedependent increase. A young oil palm plantation acted as a
strong CO2 source, while a mature oil palm plantation was a
strong CO2 sink. About 50% of net primary production is,
however, exported via harvest indicating that little carbon
remains within the ecosystem.
Wintersemester 2016/17
Montag, den 14.11.2016, 16.15 Uhr, U1,
Studienfakultät Landschaftsarchitektur u. Landschaftsplanung,
(Emil-Ramann-Straße. 6, 85350 Freising)
Prof. J. Kollmann (Tel. 08161-713498, [email protected]), PD H.
Albrecht, Prof. J. Ewald, Prof. J. Geist, Prof. T. Grams, Dr. K.H. Häberle,
Dr. T. Heger, Prof. C. Moning, Prof. S. Pauleit, Prof. A. Rammig, Prof. H.
Schäfer, Prof. B. Stöcklein und Dr. S. Zytynska in Kooperation mit der
Fachschaft Landschaft der TUM
Das Kolloquium ist eine gemeinsame Veranstaltung von TUM und
Hochschule Weihenstephan-Triesdorf

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