Modelling the effects of farming intensification on the productivity, profitability, greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystems services in livestock systems

About Demlie

Demlie Zelelew obtained his bachelor’s degree in Soil and Water Management and Engineering at Haramaya University in Ethiopia and his master’s degree in Water Management and Environmental Engineering at Vienna University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Austria. Demlie has been working in an agricultural research institution in Ethiopia for the past ten years and his interest in research areas are agricultural water management, integrated water resources management, climate change, soil and water conservation, integrated watershed management, crop modeling, water pollution, soil acidity, and salinity management.

Demlie is now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tasmania in Australia, and he is seeking smart irrigation agriculture which has economical profitability and reduced trade-offs on ecosystem services by looking at productivity, greenhouse gas emissions, water use efficiency (water footprint) and selected soil and water quality indicating parameters.

Contact: [email protected]

About the project

The project has the following objectives:

• Assess the land-use change of agroforestry and livestock farms and estimate its impact on GHG emissions and ecosystem services (e.g. N leaching) in Australia during the last three decades.
• Compare the greenhouse gas emissions, profit and productivity for different levels of intensification (stocking rate, fertilizer, irrigation) as the proportion of trees on agroforestry farm increases.
• Quantify the effect to increase the area of trees on ecosystems services such as biodiversity, soil water (leakage) and soil nitrogen (nitrate leaching) for a gradient of intensification in agroforestry and livestock systems.
• Estimate the effects of future climate change on GHG emission, productivity, profitability and trade-offs on ecosystems services of a gradient of intensification in agroforestry and livestock systems.

Location

Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia

Period

Supervised by Dr Ojeda from January 2020 to May 2021.

Supervisors

Dr Jonathan Ojeda, Dr Beth Penrose (primary supervisor), Dr Matt Harrison, Prof Caroline Mohammed (TIA-UTAS).

Grant amount

• UTAS Tuition Fee: AUD$144,900
• Tasmania Graduate Research Scholarship living allowance: AUD$108,328