Page 162 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 3

Ecosystem Based Adaptation Activities to
Climate Change for Sustainable Agriculture

Table 4: Prepared by the author by using the Benefits and Challenges of Riparian
Forests (FAO, 2018e) report.

BENEFITS CHALLENGES
• Providing shade, shelter and
fodder for fish and other aquatic
organisms
• Reduction of water-borne ero-
sion
• Providing a wildlife habitat and
corridors for terrestrial organ-
isms
• Filtering the agricultural-derived
nutrients, pesticides and animal
wastes that mix into the waters • Installation and maintenance
with the surface flow costs are required.

2.2. Conservative Agriculture

Conservative Agriculture is one of the most effective ecosystem-based
management practices applied globally. According to the book Conservative
Agriculture in Turkey: The Situation, Opportunities and Strategic Framework
in Terms of Incentives, protective agricultural activities aims to enhance the
agricultural profitability in the long term by means of profitable and sustainable
agricultural production - in other words, by protecting the inputs (workforce,
fuel, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.), minimizing or reducing any impacts
on the natural sources (soil, water and air) and optimizing the agricultural
production. Conservative agriculture consists of three main principles:
1. Minimum mechanical soil disturbance (less tillage, through stubble
cultivation, through direct seed and/or fertilizer placement)
2. Mulching- Creation of temporary organic soil cover using at least 30%
of cover crops and green meadows
3. Species diversification (crop alteration) through varied crop sequences
and associations involving at least three different crops, legumes in
general.
This type of management strengthens biological diversity and biological
processes above and below the soil and thus contributes to increased water
and food use efficiency and sustainable production. Therefore, conservative
agriculture is proposed as a base for intensifying sustainable agricultural
production, because it both reduces the loss of arable land through soil
erosion and contributes to the re-productivity of degraded lands.

Year 2 / Issue 3 / January 2023 147