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Student capstone and applied projects from ASU's School of Sustainability.

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Adding a Soil Fertility Dimension to Locust and Grasshopper Management, a Case Study in West Africa

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In Senegal, West Africa, soils are a vital resource for livelihoods and food security in smallholder farming communities. Low nitrogen (N) soils pose obvious challenges for crop production but may also, counterintuitively, promote the abundance of agricultural pests like the Senegalese locust, Oedaleus senegalensis. In this study I investigated how…

In Senegal, West Africa, soils are a vital resource for livelihoods and food security in smallholder farming communities. Low nitrogen (N) soils pose obvious challenges for crop production but may also, counterintuitively, promote the abundance of agricultural pests like the Senegalese locust, Oedaleus senegalensis. In this study I investigated how the abundance of locusts and grasshoppers are impacted by soil fertility through plant nutrients and how these variables change across land use types. We worked in two rural farming villages in the Kaffrine region of Senegal. Overall, there was little variation in soil properties and an agricultural landscape low in soil organic matter (SOM) and inorganic soil nitrogen. I corroborated that SOM is a significant driver of soil inorganic N, which had a positive relationship to plant N content. Of the management practices we surveyed, fallowing fields was important for soil nutrient restoration and years spent fallow was significantly correlated to inorganic soil N and SOM. O. senegalensis was least abundant in groundnut areas where plant N was highest. Additionally, I found a significant negative correlation between O. senegalensis abundance and plant N, suggesting that plant nutrients are an important driver of their populations. Grasshoppers, excluding O. senegalensis, were more numerous in grazing areas and fallow areas, perhaps due to a higher diversity of ecological niches and host plants. These results connect land use, soil, and vegetation to herbivores and suggest that improving soil fertility could be used as an alternative to pesticides to keep locusts at bay and improve crop yields.
ContributorsWord, Mira (Author) / Hall, Sharon (Contributor) / Robinson, Brian (Contributor) / Manneh, Balanding (Contributor) / Beye, Alioune (Contributor) / Cease, Arianne (Contributor)
Created2018-04-10
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Campus Farm Green: A Paradigm for Regeneratively Sustainable Communities

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By 2050 more than a third of Tucson Arizona's days will have a heat index of 104 degrees or greater if current excessive energy use behavior continues (Climate Central 2016). During the 20th century, the water table of Tucson's aquifer dropped 200' because of excessive water use. (Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum,…

By 2050 more than a third of Tucson Arizona's days will have a heat index of 104 degrees or greater if current excessive energy use behavior continues (Climate Central 2016). During the 20th century, the water table of Tucson's aquifer dropped 200' because of excessive water use. (Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, 2013)
Our communities and buildings so far have not incorporated regenerative sustainability, the sustainable design and construction practices that could help avoid these problems.
Campus Farm Green, a new-home community in Tucson, is working to change that. "The Green" explores a new paradigm for developing regeneratively sustainable homes and neighborhoods that goes beyond reducing harm to the environment to helping to heal the environment. The Green has been designed to generate and return to the grid more electricity than it uses, and capture and return to the ground more water than it buys from the water utility. It does this while providing homes that can be sold for a profit at market prices.
This paper describes the challenges and solutions of the sustainably regenerative design and construction that is at the heart of The Green.
ContributorsArchangeli, Dante (Contributor)
Created2019-12-03