As Central Asia is a region with wide spread water scarcity as a result of excessive irrigation of agriculture, land use changes deserve research about potential impacts on the already strained water resources. Poplar...As Central Asia is a region with wide spread water scarcity as a result of excessive irrigation of agriculture, land use changes deserve research about potential impacts on the already strained water resources. Poplars have a long tradition as agroforestry tree across Central Asia, while paulownia is new to the region, but has been gaining extreme attention as a potential plantation and/or agroforestry tree. Therefore, the water productivity of those two tree species is investigated here on 3-year-old trees, in order to provide insights in how far the newly introduced Paulownia could put additional strain on water resources compared to paulownia. Poplar (<em>P. deltoides</em> × <em>nigra</em>) increased the stem biomass by 5.4 kg at an average water consumption of 4.18 l/d (water productivity 6.79 g/l). Paulownia’s (<em>Paulownia tomentosa</em> × <em>fortunei</em>) stem biomass grew by 4.81 kg at 2.36 l/d in average (water productivity 11.9 g/l). Expanding paulownia would not exert more pressure on Central Asia’s water resources than an expansion of poplar.展开更多
文摘As Central Asia is a region with wide spread water scarcity as a result of excessive irrigation of agriculture, land use changes deserve research about potential impacts on the already strained water resources. Poplars have a long tradition as agroforestry tree across Central Asia, while paulownia is new to the region, but has been gaining extreme attention as a potential plantation and/or agroforestry tree. Therefore, the water productivity of those two tree species is investigated here on 3-year-old trees, in order to provide insights in how far the newly introduced Paulownia could put additional strain on water resources compared to paulownia. Poplar (<em>P. deltoides</em> × <em>nigra</em>) increased the stem biomass by 5.4 kg at an average water consumption of 4.18 l/d (water productivity 6.79 g/l). Paulownia’s (<em>Paulownia tomentosa</em> × <em>fortunei</em>) stem biomass grew by 4.81 kg at 2.36 l/d in average (water productivity 11.9 g/l). Expanding paulownia would not exert more pressure on Central Asia’s water resources than an expansion of poplar.
