W.A. (William) Cardona
Research interests
PhD project: Social-ecological evaluation of ecosystem services, resilience and the carbon footprint in agricultural landscapes facing extreme climatic variability in the department of Meta (Colombia)
This research will focus on estimating the sustainability of a successional agroforestry system in Arabic coffee. To achieve this objective, coffee crops planted by farmers from the municipalities of Mesetas and Uribe (Colombia) will be evaluated with the purpose of characterizing their crops and knowing the state of the different ecosystem services associated with each coffee crop, likewise, experimental coffee plots will be established in association with avocado, plantain, and Abarco, and with varying types of ground cover, such as corn, beans, pigeon pea, and cassava, whose purpose will be to determine the best coffee agroforestry system for this region with relation to the different ecosystem services evaluated in each established treatment. Finally, with the information collected in the selected coffee plots and in the experimental plots, the trade-off dynamics, and synergies of the different provisioning, supporting, and regulating ecosystem services will be evaluated.