Comprehensive Evaluation of the Suitability of Agricultural Land in Myanmar

Myanmar is a country with an economy based on agriculture.It has rich agricultural resources and great potential for development.The development of agriculture in Myanmar is becoming increasingly important to international food security.Assessments of agricultural land resources in Myanmar are the basis for the country's agricultural development and for food security evaluations.In this paper we used the MaxEnt model to analyze the relationship between the suitability of land for agricultural reclamation and the main environmental variables in Myanmar,and then constructed a model to comprehensively evaluate the suitability of land for agriculture in Myanmar.The results show that:1)the overall accuracy of the MaxEnt model is high (AUC>0.8),which means there is a high correlation between the database of selected environmental indicators and the true distribution of cultivated land in Myanmar.2)Soil depth is the most important factor affecting the suitability of land for agriculture in Myanmar When the thickness of soil layer is less than 100 cm,the suitability of land for agriculture is low.With respect to topographic conditions,slope is the main factor affecting suitability.When the slope is greater than 20 degrees,the suitability of land for agriculture is low.With respect to climate conditions,precipitation is the main influencing factor. There is a positive correlation between river network density and land suitability.3)Currently,400000 km^2 of the land resources in Myanmar are suitable for agriculture,and of this amount 290000km^2 are highly suitable,accounting for nearly 40% of the country's land area.The highly suitable land is distributed mainly in Magway,Sagaing,Ayeyarwady and Yangon provinces.The provinces are also important grain production areas in Myanmar,and this serves to validate the effectiveness of the method used in this paper.

Satellite Image-based Monitoring of Urban Land Use Change and Assessing the Driving Factors in Pokhara and Bharatpur Metropolitan Cities, Gandaki Basin, Nepal

Urban growth is a key indicator of economic development.At the same time,haphazard urban growth creates serious socioeconomic,environmental and urban land management problems.In this context,understanding the process of urban landscape change is important for guiding the sustainable growth of urban areas.This study analyzes the urban land changes during 1990–2018 in two metropolitan cities of Gandaki basin:Pokhara and Bharatpur.Landsat satellite images were analyzed using supervised classification methods.The results revealed that the built-up area has increased significantly by 300%in Pokhara and by nearly 500%in the Bharatpur during the past 28 years.Population growth,migration from surrounding areas due to urban facilities and the easy lifestyle in cities were found to be major determinants of urban growth within the study area.In addition,the changing urban definition and expansion of municipal boundaries are key factors for rapid urban growth.Both cities are likely to grow in the future as they are both located in areas that encompass the high levels of commercial activity and modern service facilities.The haphazard urban growth should be minimized through planning and policies for sustainable urban development.

Fundamental Strategic Shift Required by the Expensive Ecological Policy in Chinese Grasslands

Grasslands have critically important ecological and economic values while most of them have been suffering from various degrees of degradation in China due to overgrazing. The “Forage-Livestock Balance”(FLB)policy has been implemented for more than a decade, aims to balance the relationship between forage productivity and grazing consumption of grasslands by livestock. According to the review of statistical data and literatures on policy evaluation, FLB-dominated subsidies for grassland ecological conservation policies are ineffective on grassland restoration, livestock reduction in some overloaded areas and improvement on herdsmen livelihood. To deal with the dilemma, we suggest a fundamental shift of strategy from controlling livestock numbers to maintaining and improving grassland health(MIGH) based on ecological theories, and promote the sustainable development of grassland in China. The results show that, FLB policy failed to obtain expected benefits mainly because it interfered with the herders’ autonomous use of contracted grasslands along with the defects of its underlying theory and methodologies. Implementing reward and punishment based on ecosystem health will not only motivate herders to manage their grassland autonomously, but also be more scientific and feasible than FLB.