A Review of Approach Pattern of Watershed Management in Agroforestry, Climate Change, Social Aspects and Livelihoods

Watershed management as the process of guiding and organizing land use and the use of other resources in a watershed in order sustainably to provide desired goods and services to the people without adversely affecting soil and water resources. Watershed management is generally scientifically management of water in the earth. it has evolved and passed through several developmental stages. In the initial stages, it was a subject of forestry and forestry-related hydrology. The involvement of people was not an issue. It was solely an affair of government forest departments. During the second stage, it became land resources management-related, including activities with an eye on economic benefits. At this stage, the focus was on beneficiaries. It is now participatory and integrated watershed management, with involvement and contribution from local people. Forests are the biggest users of water worldwide and extensive forested areas have been lost or are undergoing conversion to agriculture, creating concerns about loss of hydrological functions and increasing the competition for scarce water between agriculture, urban centers, industries and wildlife. The challenge is to improve the sustainability and productivity of land and water use, especially for the growing populations of many developing countries. In this chapter we review recent findings on the hydrology of forests and agroforestry systems and indicate how modifications in tree based systems might increase water productivity. In forestry, the focus of research has moved from the hydrological functions of upland forest reserves that are close to settlements to a greater recognition of the roles played by upland communities in the management of water resources. The worlds watersheds face a wide variety of stresses that threaten to degrade their biological value and their ability to provide ecosystem services (World Resources Institute, 1998 and Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Prominent among the pressures faced by watershed include high population growth, expansion of irrigated cropland, high deforestation and acute water scarcity. The stresses are particularly severe in watersheds that are already substantially modified or degraded by human activity in India, China, and Southeast Asia. Other major watersheds that are less degraded, such as the Amazon and the Congo, are nonetheless beginning to experience rapid transformations that threatens livelihood. The accelerating pace of climate change is an additional challenge to the sustainability of global watersheds. Climate change has the potential to damage irreversibly the natural resource base, on which agriculture depends, in many watersheds, which aggravate the consequences for food security. There is a consensus among climate change scientists that major watersheds in Africa and other tropical regions will be impacted to varying degrees by changes to the frequency, intensity and timing of rainfall within seasons, shifts in seasons with wet seasons becoming shorter, dry seasons longer and more uncertain timing in the transitions between them and warmer temperatures increasing evapo-transpiration and impacting on soil water balance (Dangerfield, 2010). These climate fluctuations necessitate increased attention to addressing human and climatic stresses on watersheds in order to conserve their ecological and economic functions. One of the improvements introduced in recent years is the global approach. Although evaluations of the constraints encountered in and the potential of rural areas revealed the complexity of the situations, they also highlighted the need to take account of the many aspects of the problems to be dealt with. A systemic analysis showed that all human activity may be considered as an element in a complex system, a system where various elements are interrelated and can be exchanged (goods and information) within and out with the system in accordance with regulatory mechanisms, thereby providing a result while at the same time ensuring that the overall system is sustainable. Under these holistic arrangements, the human factor has a vital role in rural systems. Watershed management, Agroforestry, Climate change, Social aspects, Livelihoods.