The Short-Term Effect of Soil Conservation Measures on Yield Variation of Upland Food Crops onSloping Agricultural Lands of Sri Lanka

摘要

The degradation of land masses, particularly in the hilly up-country area of Sri Lanka, mainly in the form of water induced soil erosion, has been one of the widely discussed environmental problems. Special emphasis has been drawn on agricultural lands as farming activities, specially vegetable and cash crops such as potato cultivation, are considered as the main cause of erosion in the region. Introduction and promotion of soil conservation measures (SCMs) among farmers has been the key initiative of soil conservation programs though the applicability and the adoptability and effects on overall production of the farmland of such measures have not been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, the research team has been engaged in a multi perspective approach to address the core issues associated with soil erosion problem through evaluating the efficiency of SCMs, validating the WEPP (Water Erosion Prediction Project) to the local conditions and assessing the socio-economic factors that influence farmers' decisionmaking on adoption and continuance of SCMs. In this paper we present the results of a part of the study that designed to evaluate the efficiency of different SCMs with special reference to the sediment reduction and crop yield.