Toposequential agroforestry based land use system for soil and water conservation in sloping lands

Abstract

Combination of suitable agroforestry systems can achieve the goal of resource conservation. In an experiment, a sloping land with 12-14 per cent slope was put under silvihortipasture and hedge-row intercropping along with water harvesting structures. Event wise runoff and soil loss was measured for the whole system. On an average agroforestry system reduced soil loss from 1.22 to 0.17 t/ha in six year period. The system was also able to increase runoff from 6.8 to 18% resulting in positive water balance in water harvesting structure created at bottom of the system which could be used as irrigation source for sustaining plantation and agricultural crops.