A multi-criteria index for ecological evaluation of tropical agriculture in southeastern Mexico
Tipo de material:
Artículo
en línea Idioma: Inglés Tema(s): - Agricultura convencional
- Conventional farming
- Evaluación de tierras
- Land evaluation Evaluación de tierras
- Indicadores ambientales
- Environmental indicators
- Agricultura sostenible
- Sustainable agriculture
- Balancán (Tabasco, México)
- Tenosique (Tabasco, México)
- Balancan (Tabasco, Mexico)
- Tenosique (Tabasco, Mexico)
- Ciencias agropecuarias y biotecnología Ciencias agrarias Agronomía -- Agricultura, silvicultura, pesca
- Disponible en línea
Acceso en línea sin restricciones
The aim of this study was to generate an easy to use index to evaluate the ecological state of agricultural land from a sustainability perspective. We selected environmental indicators, such as the use of organic soil amendments (green manure) versus chemical fertilizers, plant biodiversity (including crop associations), variables which characterize soil conservation of conventional agricultural systems, pesticide use, method and frequency of tillage. We monitored the ecological state of 52 agricultural plots to test the performance of the index. The variables were hierarchically aggregated with simple mathematical algorithms, if-then rules, and rule-based fuzzy models, yielding the final multi-criteria index with values from 0 (worst) to 1 (best conditions). We validated the model through independent evaluation by experts, and we obtained a linear regression with an r2 = 0.61 (p = 2.4e-06, d.f. = 49) between index output and the experts' evaluation. Español
Disponible en línea
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