The Natural Environment of The Tropics

Chapter 1
The Natural Environment of the Tropics
Fig. 1.1 The western hemisphere tropics. Heavy lines show

the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 N) and the Tropic of Capricorn
(23.5 S). Source: NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab
(NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information 2016)
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a framework of the for the better. Soil science in the tropics has broadened to
biophysical environment of the tropics. There have been encompass tropical ecology as well as tropical agronomy.
major changes in emphasis since the first edition was pub-
lished 40 years ago. At that time, I looked at the tropical
environment almost exclusively in terms of increasing food 1.1 The Tropics Defined
production to feed a rapidly growing population. While
doing my doctoral research in the Philippines in the late The geographic definition of the tropics includes that part of
1960s I never heard the terms climate change, biodiversity, the world located between 23 280 north and south of the
or ecosystem services while working at the University of the equator, that is between the tropic of Cancer and the tropic
Philippines at Los Baños, the International Rice Research of Capricorn (Fig. 1.1). Because the tilt of the Earth’s axis has
Institute (IRRI) and Cornell University. Things have changed the same angle, these latitudes are the limit of the Sun’s
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4 THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE TROPICS
apparent migration to the north or south of the zenith. The

Table 1.1 Mean monthly air temperatures at sea level
tropics are the only part of the world where the Sun passes
in January and July at different latitudes (C).
directly overhead, receiving more energy than the temper-
ate and boreal regions. Latitude January July Mean annual
The tropics comprise 38 percent of the Earth’s land sur-
face (approximately 5 billion hectares) and half of the 20 N 22 28 26

world’s population, about 3.6 billion people in 2013 15 N 24 28 26
(according to the FAOSTAT statistics database [fao.org/fao- 10 N 26 27 26
stat]). A total of 124 countries and territories lie wholly or
mostly in the tropics. They include most of the “developing”
5 N 26 24 26
countries except those in the Middle East, North Africa, the 0 26 25 26
former Soviet Union, China, Mongolia, North Korea, Paki- 5 S 26 25 26
stan, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal.
10 S 26 24 25
The literature is full of attempts to quantify precisely the

tropical versus extra-tropical parts of the world. The concept 15 S 26 23 24
used in this book is the strictly geographical one, which 20 S 25 20 23
includes the cold tropical highlands as well as the hot low-
lands. Like any quantitative geographical definition, it loses
meaning at the boundaries because changes are gradual. Travelling in Kenya from hot and humid Mombasa at sea
The tabular data presented in this book follow the latitu- level, through the eternal spring climate of Nairobi (1550 m),
dinal definition but are based on entire countries. Thus, and to the top of Mount Kenya with glaciers (5200 m) illus-
parts of northern India, northern Bangladesh, northern trates this point, as these locations all lie within 3 from the
Mexico, southern Brazil, southern Australia and southern equator. The main point to remember about temperatures
South Africa outside of the tropics are included, whereas in the tropics is their relative constancy rather than any
parts of southern China and the Arabian Peninsula within absolute value.
the tropics are excluded. The low but constant temperatures of the tropical high-
lands constitute one reason why certain temperate crops that
require winter chilling for high yields and quality, such as
1.2 Temperature and Solar pears, perform poorly in these areas. In addition, it takes
longer to grow crops. For example, it takes 5 months to grow
Radiation a crop of maize in temperate North Carolina and about the
same time in the lowlands of Colombia, but in Bogotá, at an
1.2.1 Temperature altitude of 2800 m, maize requires 11 months to mature.
The reason for choosing the latitudinal definition is its ease During the growing season in the temperate region, tempera-
of quantification in terms of temperature. The tropics can be tures are higher than in the tropical highlands.
defined as that part of the world where the mean monthly Tropical climates are also different from Mediterranean
surface air temperature variation is 6 C or less between the climates, which are characterized by hot, dry summers and
average of the three warmest and the three coldest months cool, wet winters, with temperature variations higher than
(Table 1.1). The daily variation is generally within this range. in the tropics. Typical Mediterranean crops like red-wine
This definition includes the tropical highlands, the dif- grapes and olives do not do well in the tropics. I have yet
ference being their lower overall temperatures. Mean air to find an excellent red wine produced in the tropics. The
temperatures generally decrease by 0.6 C for every 100 m best are from the Mediterranean climates of California,
increase in elevation in the tropics. Local variation in topog- Italy, southern France, the Cape region of South Africa,
raphy, rainfall, wind direction, and other factors alters this Chile and Argentina.
relationship. The least temperature variation occurs within 6 of the
People unfamiliar with tropical regions generally con- equator. As latitude increases, diurnal and seasonal air
sider them to be oppressively hot and humid. Although this temperature variations also increase, reaching maximum
condition certainly exists, it is as broad a generalization as values in the desert areas near the tropic of Cancer. The
considering the temperate region to be oppressively cold and widest temperature variation is found in inland areas with
dry. I have experienced more intense hot and humid condi- the least rainfall, close to the tropic of Cancer, such as
tions in Washington, DC during the summer than in the Tomboctou, Mali.
heart of the Amazon Basin, where one can almost always Soil temperatures in the tropics, as defined in the Soil
count on cool night breezes. Taxonomy system, fall in the “iso” temperature regimes,
Near the equator, tropical climates are hot; averaging that is, those with “less than 6 C difference between the
26 C at low elevations, pleasantly cool at 1000–2000 meters, average soil temperature of June, July and August and the
and positively frigid at elevations above 3000 meters. average soil temperature of December, January and
1.2 TEMPERATURE AND SOLAR RADIATION 5
Table 1.2 Soil temperature regimes as defined by the Soil Taxonomy system and their corresponding equivalents in terms of
mean annual air temperature and elevation at the equator.
Regime Soil temperature (C)a Mean annual air temperature (C) Elevation (m)
Isohyperthermic > 22 > 20 0–900
Isothermic 15–22 13–20 900–2000
Isomesic 8–15 6–13 2000–3200
Isofrigid <8 <6 > 3200
a
In all cases the difference between mean soil temperature is < 6 ºC between the three warmest and the three coldest months.
Table 1.3 Mean monthly soil temperature and daily water. Any excess heat is reradiated to the atmosphere. This
variation in Jakarta, Indonesia (Mohr et al. is the reason why one cannot fry an egg even on the hottest
1972). soil, whereas it is possible to do so on asphalt because it has
higher heat capacity.
Soil Highest Lowest Daily
depth month month variation
(cm) (C) (C) (C) 1.2.2 Solar Radiation
The tropics receive more solar energy that is available for
Air 26.6 22.5 6.9 photosynthesis than the temperate and boreal regions.
3 29.9 28.3 5.2 Because of the spherical shape of the Earth’s atmosphere
the Sun’s rays strike almost at right angles near the equator
5 29.9 28.7 5.0
but at increasingly acute angles towards the poles. This
10 29.9 28.9 3.1 concentrates heat in the tropics. Also, as latitude increases,
15 30.0 28.7 1.5 the Sun’s rays have to pass through a thicker atmosphere
and lose more energy through absorption, reflection and
30 30.0 28.5 0.3
scattering (Osborne 2000). From 56 to 59 percent of the
60 30.8 28.5 0.05 Sun’s radiation at the rim of the atmosphere reaches the
90 29.8 28.7 0.05 Earth’s surface in the tropics; about 46 percent at 40 lati-
tude (New York City); and only 33 percent at 60 latitude
110 29.7 28.8 0.04
(Stockholm) (Landsberg 1961).
The average annual solar radiation in the tropics
February at 50 cm depth or to a dense, lithic or paralithic (20.3 MJ/m2 per day) is twice that of the temperate region,
contact” (Soil Survey Staff 1999, 2014). Soil temperatures and about 2.5 times that of the boreal region (Landsberg
can be estimated from air-temperature records by adding 2 1961, Reading et al. 1995). The annual solar radiation is

C to mean annual air temperatures in the lowland tropics lowest in the humid tropics (about 15 MJ/m2 per day) due
(Murtha and Williams 1986). Table 1.2 presents the soil to high cloud cover, and highest (25 MJ/m2 per day) in
temperature regimes as defined by the Soil Taxonomy tropical deserts (Reading et al. 1995). In areas with even
system along with their corresponding approximate equiva- rainfall distribution, such as rainforests or deserts, there is
lents of mean annual air temperature at the soil surface and little seasonality in solar radiation.
elevation at the equator, using a change of 6 C for each In areas with distinct rainy and dry seasons, cloudiness
1000 m increase in elevation. causes considerable seasonality. Table 1.4 shows some
The above definition excludes soil temperature variation examples, with the tropical ones related to irrigated rice-
in the topsoil. This is illustrated in Table 1.3, where the growing areas. In Los Baños, the Philippines, the higher
monthly air and soil temperature variations are shown for solar radiation during the dry season has a positive impact
a soil in Indonesia. Very high soil temperatures have been on irrigated rice yields and nitrogen fertilizer response.
registered on the surface of bare soils during dry periods. Rainy-season irrigated rice yields are almost identical in
Mohr et al. (1972) reported a record of 86 C at the surface of Yurimaguas, Peru and Los Baños, when solar radiation is
a bare soil in Congo. At a depth of 10 cm, the same bare soil relatively low, due primarily to cloudiness.
had a nearly normal temperature of 30 C. At the same site, The highest crop yields in the tropics are in arid, irri-
the surface soil temperature was 34 C under grassland and gated valleys where solar radiation is very high. This is
25 C under forest. Unless exposed, soil temperatures even shown for Lambayeque, Peru, where some of the highest
at the surface do not seriously exceed air temperatures. experimental rice yields have been recorded. The situation is
This buffering is due partly to the relatively low heat similar in other arid, irrigated areas in Mexico, India, Mali
capacity of soils, about one-fifth of the heat capacity of and elsewhere.
Table 1.4 Average daily solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface during a 4-month growing season at different latitudes,
all at low elevations.
Location Months Latitude Solar radiation

(MJ/m2 per day)
Yurimaguas, Peru (humid tropics, Amazon Basin) September–December 6 S 14.2

Lambayeque, Peru (tropical desert, irrigated) September–December 6 S 20.2
Los Baños, Philippines (rainy season, subhumid tropics, irrigated) September–December 14 N 14.3

Los Baños, Philippines (dry season, subhumid tropics, irrigated) February–May 14 N 17.5

Ithaca, New York (summer, humid temperate) June–September 42 N 18.5
In the temperate region, the annual solar radiation

reaches high levels during the summer months because of
longer days, as shown for Ithaca, New York in Table 1.4. The
breadbaskets of the temperate region therefore receive more
solar radiation during their cropping season than most trop-
ical rainy seasons, giving these temperate regions the advan-
tage on a per-crop basis. But most humid and many subhumid
tropical areas can produce more than one crop per year.
1.2.3 Photoperiod
Days in the tropics are shorter throughout the year than days
during the growing season in temperate regions. Day length
changes during the year, ranging from almost zero at the
equator to 2 hours and 50 minutes at 23.5 latitude. The
variation in day length in the temperate region is much
wider. Tropical plants are considered “short-day” plants, Fig. 1.2 Rainfall distribution is the most critical biophysical
but many are very sensitive to changes in photoperiod. Some parameter in the tropics. Localized wet-season rains in
cultivars, for example, are so photoperiod sensitive that a 10- Planaltina, Brazil.
minute change in day length prevents flowering. This is why
it is not feasible to transport “long-day” crop cultivars from
the temperate region to the tropics where the days are short. cools, and since cold air holds less water, rain falls. The
Such plants would produce low yields. resulting drier air spreads poleward and falls again at about
30 N and S, creating high atmospheric pressures, where
many of the deserts are. The Coriolis force caused by the
1.3 Rainfall Earth’s rotation deflects the winds, becoming northeasterly
in the northern hemisphere and southeasterly in the south-
Rainfall distribution – not annual rainfall – is the most ern hemisphere in the tropics. These two “trade winds” mix
important climatic parameter for plant growth in the in an equatorial low-pressure trough known as the Intertro-
tropics (Fig. 1.2), and it is the main criterion used to classify pical Convergence Zone. The march of this low-pressure
tropical climates. The seasons in the tropics are rainy or dry, trough causes the rainy seasons. The periods of heaviest rain
not cold or hot. As a carryover of temperate influence, the follow the apparent north–south migration of the Sun in the
term “summer” is often synonymous to dry season and tropics (Figs. 1.3 and 1.4). Over much of the globe the Inter-
“winter” to rainy season in many tropical countries. tropical Convergence Zone position is influenced by the
Rainfall in the tropics is driven by complex circulation ocean, so there is a lag from the time when the Sun is directly
patterns and weather disturbances. The main pattern is the overhead (Mark Cane, personal communication, 2016).
movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and the The Intertropical Convergence Zone moves northwards
main disturbances are the El Niño Southern Oscillation and from the equator during the northern-hemisphere summer
tropical cyclones. (June–August) and southwards from the equator during
the southern-hemisphere summer (November–January)
1.3.1 Intertropical Convergence Zone following the apparent migration of the Sun. It is approxi-
The concentration of radiant heat above the equator warms mately over the Equator during the summer and winter
the air, which rises as it expands. When the warm air rises, it solstices (21 June and 21 December) and at the tropics during
1.3 RAINFALL 7
Fig. 1.3 The Intertropical Convergence Zone over the Pacific Ocean and Latin America as it moves north towards the equator. Images
were taken May 19, 2013, about 1 month before the northern-hemisphere summer solstice (21 June), the longest day of the year in the
northern hemisphere. Source: NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab (NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information 2016)
Fig. 1.4 The Intertropical Convergence Zone at the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. Left image shows the zone on November 24,
2010, having crossed the equator and approaching the tropic of Capricorn, which it will reach 3 weeks after, on the summer solstice (21
December), the longest day in the southern hemisphere. Right image, taken May 17, 2016, shows the return northwards of the
Intertropical Convergence Zone, approaching the tropic of Cancer on 21 June. Source: NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab (NOAA
National Centers for Environmental Information 2016)
N
J F M A M J J A S O N D 1.3.3 El Niño Southern Oscillation
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (sometimes abbreviated to
15° ENSO) is an irregular low-frequency oscillation between a
warm (El Niño) and a cold (La Niña) stage in the tropical
10° Pacific Ocean (Cane 2005). The normal tropical eastern
E Pacific high pressure is associated with southerly winds.
SUN
URS
5° The winds create strong coastal upwelling and drive the cold
ZEN
L CO
Humboldt Current northwards, resulting in coastal deserts

Latitude
ITH
in Peru and Chile. Starting at about 6 S the southeasterly
ITHA
0°
AL
trade winds normally move the cold waters westwards. Sur-
Z EN
CO
face water is gradually warmed under the tropical Sun as it
URS
SUN
5°
crosses the equatorial Pacific Ocean, creating a pool of very
E
10° warm water in the western equatorial Pacific that produces
low atmospheric pressures and high rainfall as it reaches
15° equatorial Southeast Asia. The western equatorial Pacific
S Ocean around Indonesia becomes 30 cm higher than the
J F M A M J J A S O N D
eastern Pacific Ocean.
Month
Rainy Dry When the trade winds collapse this mountain of water
season season
spreads east, bringing warmer sea surface temperatures and
rains to the coastal desert around Christmas time. Peruvian
Fig. 1.5 The march of rainy and dry seasons in the tropics (De fishermen of the nineteenth century called these events “El
Martonne 1957). Niño” (for baby Jesus).
El Niño affects the entire tropics and beyond (Fig. 1.6).
The main disturbances are droughts in Southeast Asia and
the equinoxes (21 March and 21 September). Although such Australia, the weakening of the monsoon rain-bearing
global generalizations are of limited local value, they correlate winds on the Indian subcontinent, droughts in southern
well with the timing and length of dry seasons, including the Africa (south of and including Malawi), and droughts in
bimodal pattern of two dry seasons and two rainy seasons the Sahel and in parts of Central America, the Caribbean,
within 5 of the equator (Fig. 1.5). These equatorial regions and the northern Amazon. Wetter and warmer than normal
receive periods of maximum rainfall when the Intertropical weather takes place in East Africa, parts of Central Asia,
Convergence Zone crosses the equator. across the southern half of the United States from California
to Georgia, and in parts of the US Midwest and the La Plata
basin of South America. Forest fires in Alberta, Canada are
1.3.2 Monsoons affected by El Niño, and two recent winter Olympics were
Monsoon is the Arabic word for season and it’s used in the too warm for snow to fall during El Niño years (Mark Cane,
context of change in the direction of winds. Monsoons are personal communication, 2016). There seems to be less hur-
an actual manifestation of the movement of the Intertropi- ricane activity in the Atlantic during El Niño years.
cal Convergence Zone northward in India (Gadgil 2003). The larger the increase in seawater temperature under
Their consequences extend beyond the tropics, to 35 N on the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the more intense the El
the Indian subcontinent. Here land masses heat more rap- Niño events are, but the global impacts also depend on the
idly than the Indian Ocean during the hotter months, draw- timing of the El Niño with respect to the seasonal pattern of
ing humid air from it. A similar situation takes place in sea-surface-temperature changes in the tropical Pacific and
West Africa and in northern Australia (Osborne 2000). The whatever opposing or reinforcing effects the rest of the
variability of monsoon rains under the Intertropical Conver- climate system imposes. Nevertheless, there will be more
gence Zone is a critical feature of the Indian subcontinent, intense rainfall during El Niño events because there will be
affecting hundreds of millions of people. The East African more available moisture (Mark Cane, personal
coast is also affected by the Indian monsoon. The kazkazi communication, 2016).
north to northeasterly winds provide rains during the hot La Niña events produce colder sea surface temperatures
season from October to May, while the kusai, the cooler and and less rainfall. The effects are also felt widely as the
stronger winds from the southern Indian Ocean, take opposite of El Niños.
place during the dry season. It is important to remember I experienced my first El Niño in 1971 when living in
that monsoon wind and rainfall changes are produced by Chiclayo, a coastal desert city of Peru, while working on
the Intertropical Convergence Zone, not by a separate irrigated rice. What a terrible thing rain is in a desert that
phenomenon. normally gets none! Adobe houses melted and irrigation and
An idealized diagram of the march of the seasons in sewage systems were disrupted, spreading mud and filth
tropical regions appears in Fig. 1.5. all over.
1.3 RAINFALL 9
Wet Dry
Dry
Nov. to following March
Wet Dry
Jan. to April Dec. to March
July to following April Jan. to April
Wet Nov. to
June to Sept. following April
Dry Dry June to
following March April to
July to Sept. Jan. to
July to Dec. June
April
Wet Wet Wet Jan. to May

Oct. to following Jan. Oct. to Dec.
June to following Jan. June to following April
Dry
Dry
July to following March
Sept. to following March
Wet
Dry June to Sept. Wet
July to Nov. Sept. to
Nov. to following March
following Jan.
July to following Jan.
Fig. 1.6 The main consequences of El Niño events across the world. Source: International Research Institute for Climate and Society,
Columbia University
My second El Niño was in 1992, this time in Africa, when Reliance on average values has led to disastrous results.
many agroforestry experiments were wiped out by drought One of most notorious examples of such was the British
in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, while floods disrupted Groundnut Scheme in Tanzania during the late 1940s (Wood
crops and infrastructure in Kenya. Similar “oscillations” are 1950). The area had an average rainfall of about 700 mm
now beginning to be recognized in other oceans, but not to during the rainy season, which is sufficient in quantity and
the magnitude of El Niño. In effect, most of the world is length to grow peanuts. On this basis, several thousand
affected by El Niño. Because of this global effect, climatolo- hectares were planted to peanuts. They received 250 mm
gists assert that “the tropics rule the world’s climate” (Cane of rain during the first year and 300 mm the second,
and Evans 2000). resulting in massive crop failures costing about 100 million
dollars (in 1950 dollars).
Given the high variability, it is better to use a probability
1.3.4 Moisture Availability Index statement in rainfall data. An example of weekly rainfall
As indicated before, rainfall distribution, rather than the probabilities is presented in Fig. 1.7 for Muguga, Kenya.
total amount, is the most important climatic parameter for Rainfall probabilities have been used to develop the Mois-
tropical plant growth. The number of consecutive months ture Availability Index (MAI) concept (Hargreaves 1977). MAI
when soil moisture is limiting plant growth is used to dif- is the ratio of the monthly dependable precipitation (75%
ferentiate tropical climates for agriculture as well as delin- probability level) divided by the potential evapotranspira-
eate natural systems. A dry month is traditionally and tion, in effect predicting the intensity of drought stress.
arbitrarily defined as one with less than 100 mm of rainfall. MAI values > 1.00 predict no stress; from 0.67 to 1.00, slight
A more detailed definition used by the Food and Agricul- probability; from 0.67 to 0.33, moderate; and < 0.33, highly
ture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Agroecologi- probable drought stress.
cal Zones project is that of the growing period, defined as The dry season is then defined as consecutive months
the number of days during the year where the average with MAI values lower than 0.33, which reflects a high
precipitation exceeds half the potential evapotranspiration probability of serious drought stress to crops. Whenever
plus the days required to evaporate 100 mm of stored soil more than 20 years of rainfall records are available this
moisture (FAO 1981). procedure, or a similar one, should be used in favor of
average rainfall values. The MAI concept has been used 1999). Roughly, this corresponds to depths of 10–30 cm for
effectively in Latin America (Cochrane et al. 1985). fine loamy, silty and clayey soils, 20–60 cm for coarse loamy
soils, and 30–90 cm for sandy soils. The term “dry” refers to
1.3.5 Rainfall Intensity soil moisture tensions of at least –1.5 MPa (megapascals, or
Rainfall intensity (mm H2O/hour) is also variable, largely 15 atmospheres), that is, at or above the wilting point of
depending on whether the rains are advective or convective.
Advective rains are caused by air masses moving inland
from the ocean or up a mountain range, causing drizzle, Table 1.5 Simplified definitions of soil moisture
fog, high humidity and low-intensity rains for several days. regimes in the Soil Taxonomy system as
I have endured this several times in the Amazon as well as in applied to the tropics (“iso” temperature
New York State. Most tropical rainfall, however, is convect- regimes), with subdivisions by Armand van
ive (Kellman and Tackaberry 1997). Convective rains, caused Wambeke. Adapted from Soil Survey Staff
by localized warming and rising air, develop into localized (1999), van Wambeke (1981, 1982, 1987),
thunderstorms, which cause high-intensity rainfall for short van Wambeke and Newhall (1985) and
periods. Such intense rains may result in direct crop damage personal observations.
and runoff, even in flat areas. It has been estimated in
Surinam that 80 percent of a 10 mm/hour rain is retained Soil Consecutive months per year
by the soil, whereas only 32 percent is retained during a 50 moisture when control section is dry
mm/hour rain (Mohr et al. 1972). regime
Udic <3
1.3.6 Soil Moisture
Many attempts have been made to classify rainfall quantita-
tively in tropical climates. Since all of these are based on Ustic: 3–9
rather arbitrary assumptions and since our interest in rain-
Typic tropustic 3–6
fall lies in its role as a source of soil moisture to plants, the
soil moisture terminology of the Soil Taxonomy system (Soil Aridic 6–9
Survey Staff 1999, 2014) is used in this text. tropustic
The soil moisture regime is defined according to
Table 1.5, based on the moisture control section. The mois- Aridic >9
ture control section is defined as that part of the soil
between the following two depths: (1) the upper boundary
is the depth to which a dry soil will be moistened by 2.5 cm Aquic Evidence of chemical reduction due to
of water in 24 hours and (2) the lower boundary is that waterlogging
reached by 7.5 cm of water in 48 hours (Soil Survey Staff
Fig. 1.7 Confidence limits of expected rainfall in Muguga, Kenya. Source: Lawes (1969)
1.4 TROPICAL CLIMATES 11
Table 1.6 Example locations where different soil moisture regimes predominate in the tropics. Adapted from van
Wambeke (1981, 1982, 1987) and van Wambeke and Newhall (1985) .
Soil moisture regime Tropical Africa Tropical America Tropical Asia

Udic Nairobi, Kenya Yurimaguas, Peru Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Ustic:
Typic tropustic Tamale, Ghana Brasília, Brazil Hyderabad, India
Aridic tropustic Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Santiago de Cuba Mysore, India
Aridic Khartoum, Sudan Lambayeque, Peru Dadiangas, Philippines
Aquic Maun, Botswana Pantanal of Brazil Banjarmasin, Indonesia
most plants. A normal year or a normal month is one within all are based on the original classification of Wladimir Kö-
plus or minus one standard deviation from the long-term ppen and Rudolf Geiger in 1936, updated by Rodenwaldt and
mean (at least 30 years of data). Additional caveats are Jusatz (1963) and Kotteck et al. (2006). I have chosen four
described in the latest editions of Soil Taxonomy, such as main tropical climates that are most relevant to this book,
the 12th edition (Soil Survey Staff 2014). the rainy climates (Af, Am), the seasonal climates (Aw), the
The intent of this definition is to facilitate the estimation of dry climates (Bsh) and the deserts (BW). They are based on
soil moisture regimes from climatic data. The udic soil mois- the length of the rainy seasons. Their associated natural
ture regime is defined as when the control section is dry for vegetation and main soil moisture regimes are indicated in
less than 3 consecutive months, implying that water stress will Table 1.7. The geographical distribution of such climates is
be absent during most of the year. It is roughly equivalent to shown in Fig. 1.8. About 24 percent of the tropics are humid,
the humid climate for most tropical soils. The ustic soil mois- 49 percent subhumid, 16 percent semiarid and 11 percent
ture regime indicates one rainy season of three months or arid. Such climates occur at all elevations in the tropics and
more, which encompasses both subhumid and semiarid trop- are interspersed with natural wetlands and irrigated agri-
ical climates. The aridic soil moisture regime implies a very culture. Three examples of each tropical climate type are
short rainy season, insufficient for most crops to grow, and it is shown in Fig. 1.9.
well correlated with desert climates. The aquic regime is
typical of poorly drained sites and occurs even in deserts. Four 1.4.1 Subhumid Tropics
soil moisture regimes are recognized in the tropics (Table 1.5) The subhumid climate covers about half of the tropics. It is
with sample locations listed in Table 1.6. characterized by distinct seasonality of rainfall, with 4.5 to
The proposed subdivision of the ustic by van Wambeke 9.5 humid months per year. Close to the equator the sub-
(1982) helps soil moisture regimes fit better with tropical humid tropics have a bimodal distribution, with two short
ecosystems. Although not officially part of the Soil Tax- rainy seasons and two short dry seasons, making it possible
onomy system (Soil Survey Staff 2014) I use two subdivisions to grow two crops per year. At latitudes higher than 5 the
because they make eminent sense. The typic tropustic is subhumid tropics have one long dry season and one long
roughly correlated with the subhumid tropics and savanna rainy season, permitting one crop a year without irrigation.
vegetation. The aridic tropustic is roughly correlated with The subhumid tropics include the Cerrado of Brazil, the
the semiarid tropics and semiarid vegetation. Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela, eastern Amazonia, the
Variation in soil properties and topography permit the Pacific coast of Central America and Mexico, and most of
existence of different soil moisture regimes under the same Cuba in Tropical America. In Africa, they include most of
rainfall regime. A deep sandy soil may be ustic in a humid the continent south of the Sahel and north of the Kalahari
tropical climate because of rapid drainage. Desert (except the humid Congo Basin), and are flanked by
semiarid areas in East and southern Africa. In Asia, the
seasonal, subhumid climates cover most of India, mainland
1.4 Tropical Climates Southeast Asia and a belt in northern Australia. These are
the most agriculturally productive tropical climates where
Many approaches have also been used to classify tropical the breadbaskets of Asia, Latin America and West Africa are
climates, basically how to distinguish a rainfall/natural vege- located. One of its main assets is that the dry season breaks
tation continuum between rainforests and deserts. Basically, many biological cycles of pests, acting in a similar way to the
Table 1.7 Distribution of major tropical climates, relationships with tropical vegetation and main soil moisture regime.
Source: Adapted from Köppen and Geiger (1936), Rodenwaldt and Jusatz (1963) and my interpretations.
Tropical Köppen– Humid Natural vegetation Million Percent Main soil

climate Geiger months ha of tropics moisture
termino-logy (> 100 mm) regime
Subhumid Seasonal climates 4.5–9.5 Savannas, deciduous 2430 49 Typic tropustic
tropics (Aw) forests or woodlands
Humid Rainy climates (Af, 9.5–12 Humid tropical forests 1191 24 Udic
tropics Am)
Semiarid Dry climates (Bsh) 3–4.5 Shrubs and trees with 771 16 Aridic tropustic
tropics discontinuous grass cover
Arid Desert (BW) 0–2 Deserts 558 11 Aridic
tropics
Total 4950 100
TROPIC OF CANCER
Bsh Aw
20∞ Am BW 8W 20∞
Aw
Am
Af Bsh
10∞ Aw 10∞
Aw
Aw Am
Af
Am
0∞ 0∞
Af
10∞ Aw
Aw
10∞
BW Af
Aw
20∞ 20∞
TROPIC OF CAPRICORN
100∞ 40∞ BW 40∞ 80∞

80∞ 10∞
TROPIC OF CANCER
Aw 20∞
Aw
Am
- RAINY CLIMATES (Af, Am).
10∞
- SEASONAL CLIMATES (Aw).
- DRY CLIMATES (Bsh).

Af 0∞
- DESERT (BW). Af
- HUMID SUBTROPICAL (Ca). Approximate scale along equator Aw

47 000 000
1000
10∞
0 500 1500 km
- UNDIFFERENTIATED HIGHLANDS. Aw
Bsh
20∞
TROPIC OF CAPRICORN
80∞ 100∞ 8w
Fig. 1.8 Geographical distribution of tropical climates. Adapted from Rodenwaldt and Jusatz 1963
1.4 TROPICAL CLIMATES 13
HUMID TROPICS
mm
IQUITOS, PERU YANGAMBI, DR CONGO SANDAKAN, MALAYSIA
500 3° 40’ S 0° 49’ N 5° 50’ N
PPT: 2956 PPT: 1856 PPT: 3048
PET: 1310 PET: 1112 PET: 1110
400
300
200
100
0
SUBHUMID TROPICS
mm
BRASILIA, BRAZIL BRAZZAVILLE, CONGO BANGKOK, THAILAND
400 15° 35’ S 4° 17’ S 13° 43’ N
PPT: 1626 PPT: 1250
PET: 1840 PET: 1360
300 PPT: 1330
PET: 1330
200
100
0
SEMIARID TROPICS
mm
MARACAIBO, VENEZUELA DAKAR, SENEGAL HYDERABAD, INDIA
400 10° 38’ N 14° 40’ N 17° 20’ N
PPT: 531 PPT: 490 PPT: 788
PET: 1530 PET: 1510 PET: 2050
300
200
100
ARID TROPICS
mm
LAMBAYEQUE, PERU KHARTOUM, SUDAN KARACHI, PAKISTAN
400 6° 42’ S 15° 37’ N 24° 53’ N
PPT: 23 PPT: 306
PET: 980 PET: 1330
300
200 PPT: 130

PET: 3570
100
0
J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D
Fig. 1.9 Monthly rainfall–evapotranspiration balances at selected tropical locations. PPT = precipitation, PET = potential
evapotranspiration.
winter in temperate regions. Examples of three locations of Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea, many Pacific islands,
with this rainfall regime appear in Fig. 1.9. the Atlantic coast of Central America, the Atlantic coast of
Brazil, the Pacific coast of Colombia and parts of coastal
1.4.2 Humid Tropics West Africa, eastern Madagascar and the Philippines. At
The humid tropics have a short dry season or none at all, low elevations (isohyperthermic soil temperatures), the low-
with 9.5 or more rainy months per year, where rainfall land humid tropics are the stereotypical tropical climate –
exceeds potential evapotranspiration. They occupy roughly hot and humid. Three examples of humid tropical climates
one-fourth of the tropics, mostly near the equator. The are shown in Fig. 1.9, one for each major tropical region.
largest areas are the Amazon Basin, the Congo forest, most Rice and root crops are the predominant food crops. This is
where cacao, oil palm, rubber, coconuts, and many other the rainy season when raindrops hit partially bare and often
tree crops are grown. Often, two or more short-term crops surface-sealed soils (Fig. 1.10).
can be grown annually, without irrigation.
There are considerable highland humid tropical climates 1.4.4 Arid Tropics
with isothermic soil temperature regimes. Irish potatoes, The tropical deserts, defined as those areas having two rainy
wheat, bananas and coffee are abundant. Many montane humid months or less, cover about 11 percent of the tropics. Parts
tropical forests are cloud forests with unique biodiversity. of the Sahara Desert and the Arabian Peninsula located
geographically in the tropics, the Kalahari Desert, the Horn
1.4.3 Semiarid Tropics of Africa and the Australian Desert compose the greatest
The semiarid tropics, also known as drylands, are characterized parts of this area. Narrow coastal deserts are found in Peru
by one short, intense rainy season of 3 to 4.5 months and a and Namibia because of cold currents from the south. Usu-
protracted dry season. They cover about 16 percent of the ally, only pastoralism is possible without irrigation. When
tropics, including much of Mexico, northeast Brazil, the Sahel, irrigated, many of the loamy or clayey soils are extremely
parts of East and southern Africa, India and Northern Australia. productive. High cotton yields are obtained in the Sudan
Shrubs and trees with a discontinuous grass cover comprise the Gezira, and very high rice and sugar cane yields in the coast
most widespread native vegetation, where only short-duration, of Peru. Three examples of this climate appear in Fig. 1.9.
drought-tolerant crops such as sorghum and millet can be
grown with reasonable assurance without irrigation. The preva-
lence of grazing livestock increases as the length of the dry 1.5 Vegetation
season increases, often replacing crops as the main form of
agriculture. Examples of three locations with this rainfall Natural vegetation in the tropics is closely related to climate.
regime appear in Fig. 1.9. Only one crop is grown annually. As mentioned earlier, the main classification systems of
Semiarid tropics are notorious because of flash floods, tropical climates presently in use are modifications of Köp-
normally happening during heavy rains at the beginning of pen and Geiger’s (1936) employing vegetation names for the
Fig. 1.10 A flash flood developed rapidly west of Townsville, Australia, forcing the group I was with to sleep in our cars, reach a
telephone in the morning (before cellphones), crossing the flood over railroad ties, and being picked up at the other end by CSIRO
colleagues.
1.5 VEGETATION 15
TROPIC OF CANCER
20∞ 20∞
10∞ 10∞
0∞ 0∞
10∞ 10∞
20∞ 20∞
TROPIC OF CAPRICORN
100∞ 80∞ 40∞ 10∞ 40∞ 80∞
TROPIC OF CANCER
20∞
- SAVANNAS AND GRASSLANDS (43%)

10∞
- BROADLEAF, EVERGREEN FORESTS (30%)
- SEMIDECIDUOUS FORESTS & SHRUBS (22%)

0∞
- DECIDUOUS FORESTS & SHRUBS (11%)
Approximate scale along equator
- DESERT SHRUBS & SCATTERED GRASS (7%) 47 000 000
10∞
0 500 1000 1500 km
- BARREN (5%)
20∞
TROPIC OF CAPRICORN
80∞ 100∞
Fig. 1.11 Geographical distribution of natural tropical vegetation. Source: Adapted from Köppen and Geiger (1936)
different climatic regions. Natural tropical vegetation can be nearly continuous grass canopy overlain by a tree canopy of
grouped into the five general categories shown in Fig. 1.11: varying density (Eyre 1963). The main soil moisture regime
Savannas, which cover 43 percent of the area; moist tropical is typic tropustic. Savannas range from treeless grasslands to
forests, which cover 30 percent; deciduous and thorn open forests with a grass understorey (Kellman and Tack-
forests, which cover 22 percent; desert shrubs and scattered aberry 1997). Grasslands have few trees (campo limpo in the
grasses, which cover 7 percent; and no vegetation, which is Cerrado of Brazil, the Altillanura in the Llanos of Colombia,
found in 5 percent of the tropics. A glance at Fig. 1.11 shows the Maasai Mara in Kenya), and are often flanked by riparian
that most of the tropics are not covered by rainforests, as forests in a dendritic pattern. Also, there are huge areas in
commonly conceived. Savannas are the most extensive type the southern half of the Democratic Republic of Congo and
of tropical vegetation. surrounding countries that have the same dendritic pattern
Natural vegetation zones do not end abruptly; there is usu- as the Colombian Altillanura (Fig. 1.12). I have only seen
ally a transition, a melding and, in many instances, they form them from the air, crisscrossing southwestward from Nai-
complex mosaics in the landscape (Scholes and Walker 1993). robi to Luanda, and southeastward from Libreville to
Lilongwe.
1.5.1 Savannas Savannas comprise approximately 28 percent of tropical
The term “savanna” probably originated in Central America, America. The largest expanse is the Cerrado of Brazil, with
where the Caribs used it to refer to any area not covered by over 200 million hectares, followed by the Llanos of
forests. Savannas are natural systems, occurring primarily Colombia and Venezuela, parts of Cuba, and the Pacific coast
in subhumid and semiarid tropical climates, defined by a of Mexico and Central America.
adventitious sprouting episodes (Kellman and Tackaberry

1997). Fire suppression promotes the tree component.
Many grasslands and savannas have been converted into
improved pastures, particularly in tropical Latin America
and Australia. Anthropogenic savannas occur as an end
product of slash-and-burn agriculture in the humid tropics,
even in the absence of a strong dry season. There are over
40 million hectares of such derived savannas in Southeast
Asia, dominated by Imperata cylindrica (Garrity 1997). The
unfortunate aspect of this widespread practice is that
coarse, unpalatable grasses of the genus Imperata dominate
the grasslands, rendering them practically worthless for
grazing (see Chapter 18). There are also over 40 million
hectares of pasture cleared from forest in the Amazon,
Fig. 1.12 Grassland savanna and riparian forests along rivers many of which could be considered to be derived savannas
forming a dendritic pattern in the Altillanura of the Llanos (Serrão and Toledo 1990, Nepstad et al. 2014).
Orientales of Colombia. The same protection that grasses have from fire helps
them persist under grazing by ruminant animals. The larg-
est concentration of wild ruminants and their carnivorous
predators are in the East and southern African savannas.
Extensive cattle grazing is the most widespread land use of
the Latin American, African and Australian savannas. Ter-
mites and leaf-cutting ants excavate and deposit large quan-
tities of soil on mounds several meters high in many
savannas, adding microclimates and soil heterogeneity.
Although many ecologists believe that low soil fertility is
part and parcel of the savanna environment, the evidence
points otherwise. Savannas occur in fertile soils – mainly Ver-
tisols and Alfisols in the Maasai Mara–Serengeti in Africa, the
Guanacaste Peninsula of Costa Rica and the moist savanna belt
in West Africa. Savannas most definitely also occur on acid,
nutrient-poor Oxisols and Ultisols such as the Llanos and Cer-
rado of South America, and the Miombo in southern Africa.
The large concentration of wild mammals in Africa takes
Fig. 1.13 The twisted appearance of trees in many savannas is place mainly in savannas with non-acid soils, rich in calcium
due to fires killing meristems; then, ones surviving the fire and phosphorus. In 1975, Sanchez and Buol proposed that
produce new growth in different directions. Photo taken in the the absence of such large animals in the acid savannas of
Brazilian Cerrado South America is due to the deficiency of these two elem-
ents, and indeed cattle often break their bones (made of
calcium phosphate) when grazing native savanna in these
About 57 percent of tropical Africa consists of savanna areas. Many studies now confirm this hypothesis (Kellman
vegetation. This includes most of sub-Saharan Africa outside and Tackaberry 1997).
the humid tropics of the Congo Basin, and fringed by the Small but significant changes in soil fertility parameters
Sahel in West Africa and semiarid areas in East and south- have been related to the different structural savanna types in
ern Africa. Savannas cover about 34 percent of tropical Asia the Cerrado of Brazil, which range from campo limpo (treeless
and the Pacific, the largest one in northern Australia, with savanna) to campo cerrado (trees spaced widely enough so one
significant areas of anthropogenic savannas in can drive a Jeep through), to cerrado proper, where the trees
Southeast Asia. are closer, and to cerradão, with a denser and taller canopy of
Natural savannas are mostly a fire climax, caused by the same tree species (Fig. 1.14). Lopes and Cox (1977) showed
lightning-rich thunderstorms at the end of the dry season. that subtle increases in topsoil pH, exchangeable calcium (Ca)
People cause additional fires, often intentionally. Savanna (measured in centimoles of charge (cmolc) per kilogram of
vegetation is well adapted to fires, because the basal meri- soil), available phosphorus (P), effective cation exchange cap-
stems of the grasses are protected by sheaves of dead leaves, acity (ECEC) and decreases in aluminum (Al) saturation are
and many of the trees have the ability to sprout new growth related to these structural types, including a valley-bottom
from lateral meristems or cambium layers, often giving them true forest (Table 1.8). The fact that clay content does not
a twisted, gnarled appearance (Fig. 1.13) due to multiple change is an indication that soils are physically similar.
1.5 VEGETATION 17
Table 1.8 Savanna types in the Cerrado of Brazil are related to topsoil properties. Adapted from Lopes and Cox (1977). The
number of sites sampled are given in parenthesis. The means in each row followed by a different letter are
significantly different at probability (p) = 0.05.
Topsoil property Campo limpo Campo cerrado Cerrado Cerradão Forest

(64) (148) (148) (45) (16)
pH (H2O) 4.87a 4.94ab 5.00b 5.14b 5.28c
2+
Exchangeable Ca (cmolc/kg) 0.20a 0.33ab 0.45b 0.69c 1.50d
ECEC (cmolc mol/kg) 1.08a 1.19a 1.43b 1.81c 3.00d
3+
Exchangeable Al (cmolc /kg) 0.74a 0.63a 0.66a 0.61a 0.78a
Aluminum saturation (%) 66a 58b 54b 44c 40c
Available phosphorus (ppm) 0.5a 0.5a 0.9b 2.1b 1.4c
Clay (%) 33a 36a 34a 32a 37a
Fig. 1.14 Types of cerrado savannas. Campo limpo (top left), campo cerrado (top right), cerrado (bottom left) and cerradão (bottom right).
A possible explanation is increased nutrient cycling with the these growth spurts is controlled by rainfall, while the
increasing tree component. growth rates are controlled by soil fertility levels.
In the African context, Scholes and Walker (1993) Given the current importance of savannas from a bio-
explain that wherein savannas have short pulses of rapid diversity point of view as well as a source of pasture germ-
growth following rainfall, the duration and frequency of plasm, the main types are described in more detail.
South American Savannas. Extreme soil acidity and aluminum-toxic but they are often extremely deficient in
infertility characterize the tropical South American phosphorus, sulfur and molybdenum. Some savannas also
savannas, comprising the Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela occur in semiarid climates. They all have isohyperthermic
and the Cerrado of Brazil, all dominated by aluminum-toxic, soil temperatures although frost does occur at latitudes of
naturally infertile Oxisols and Ultisols in subhumid climates 17 S (Sanchez and Isbell 1979).
with typic tropustic soil moisture regimes, isohyperthermic The subhumid zone comprises about 95 million hectares
or isothermic soil temperature regimes and a 4–6-month-long in a wide arc from the coast of the Northern Territories to
dry season. Large areas of seasonally flooded savannas occur the Cape York Peninsula, and extending south along parts of
in the Llanos and the Pantanal of Brazil. Annual burning is a the Queensland coast. It consists of a continuous grass layer
common practice in the native savannas. They cover about overlain by species of Eucalyptus and native Australian Acacia
300 million hectares (see Figs. 1.2, 1.13, 1.14). tree species (those with broad leaves) – see Fig. 1.15. Tothill
Australian Savannas. Tropical Australian savannas et al. (1985) assert these areas are the closest structural
occupy 270 million hectares but are quite different. The equivalents to the Cerrado, but the soils are totally different.
predominant soils are not acid, none of them are African Savannas. Savannas are the dominant vegeta-
tion of most of tropical Africa. Savannas encircle the
Congo forest, but are readily divided into West and East/
southern African savannas, mainly because of elevation –
isohyperthermic in the West and isothermic in East/south-
ern savannas. The main soils are low-fertility Alfisols of
different texture and mineralogy, followed by sandy
Entisols. Treeless savannas are usually on fertile Vertisols,
with different species, just like in Australia. Wetlands (aquic
soils) occupy valley bottoms, locally called fadamas, dambos
or dimbas.
The West African savannas occupy specific rainfall gra-
dients, increasing from north to south pretty much in par-
allel bands as the topography is flat and there are no major
mountain ranges. All occur at low elevations and are there-
fore isohyperthermic. The main ecotypes, based on their
annual rainfall ranges and soil moisture regime, are: the
Northern Guinea savanna, 900–1200 mm, typic tropustic
Fig. 1.15 Subhumid Australian savanna with Eucalyptus and
(Fig. 1.16), also known as Sudan savanna; the Moist or South-
Acacia trees overlying a continuous grass canopy of Heteropogon ern Guinea savanna, 1200–1500 mm, typic tropustic with
and Themeda grasses, North Queensland. Hyparrhenia rufa as the dominant grass species (Fig. 1.17);
and the derived savanna, with a similar rainfall range
(Fig. 1.18). Panicum maximum (Guinea grass), an important
Fig. 1.16 Northern Guinea savanna in Kaduna State, Nigeria.

Most of this savanna is cultivated in northern Nigeria. In back,
valuable karité (Vitellaria paradoxa) trees. Fig. 1.17 Moist or Guinea savanna in Tamale, Ghana.
1.5 VEGETATION 19
pantropical grass species probably originated in derived toxic, with low levels of available phosphorus, potassium,
savannas along the Gulf of Guinea. calcium and magnesium, and granite commonly being the
On the eastern side of Africa the savannas occupy a large parent material. The tree vegetation is dominated by broad-
upland plateau, averaging 1000 m of elevation and therefore leaved species of the genera Brachystegia and Julbernardia
with an isothermic temperature regime. This plateau ranges (generally known as “Miombo”). The trees are thornless,
from Axum, Ethiopia to northern South Africa, extending to with leaves several centimeters wide, belonging mainly to
about 4 south of the tropic of Capricorn. Soil moisture the Caesalpinaceae and Combretaceae families (Scholes and
regimes are typic tropustic. Hot, isohyperthermic aridic tro- Walker 1993).
pustic savannas occur east of the plateau in semiarid areas, The main grass species of the Miombo is Hyparrhenia rufa,
and along the shores of Lake Malawi and parts of the now pantropical. Panicum maximum, an exotic, surprisingly
Zambezi river shore in southern Africa. grows well beneath the tree canopies, which are richer in
While rainfall is the functional factor dividing the West organic carbon and nitrogen and microbial activity (Scholes
African savannas, the East/southern African savannas are and Walker 1993). These nutrient-poor savannas cover large
divided in terms of inherent soil fertility, the dystrophic areas of southern and western Tanzania, northern Mozam-
(nutrient-poor) savannas and the eutrophic (nutrient-rich) bique, much of Zambia, the Kasai province of the Demo-
savannas, convenient for soil scientists. cratic Republic of Congo and much of Angola. Parts of the
The nutrient-poor savannas (Fig. 1.19) are located mainly dystrophic savannas in northern Zambia strikingly resemble
on sandy Alfisols and Inceptisols, acidic but not aluminum- the Brazilian Cerrado, with similar latitude, topography,
climate and acid Oxisols. In southern Africa, they are known
as sour veldt.
The nutrient-rich savannas are located mainly in lower-
rainfall areas, and in areas cleared from forests in East
Africa (Fig. 1.20). They are found primarily on soils derived
from basalt, including medium-textured and clayey Alfisols,
Oxisols, Inceptisols and, at lower topographic locations, Ver-
tisols, and are usually treeless. The main trees are thorny
and thin-leaved acacias. Nutrient-rich savannas are located
in Kenya, northern Tanzania, the Zambesi river basin, cen-
tral and southern Mozambique and non-desert areas of
Botswana and Namibia. These trees are more nutritious to
browsing animals than those in the nutrient-poor Miombo.
Dystrophic (acidic) and eutrophic (non-acidic) savannas
often support different species. Grasses of the genera
Andropogon, Paspalum, Trachypogon and Brachiaria tend to
Fig. 1.18 Derived savanna just north of Ibadan, Nigeria.
Fig. 1.20 Eutrophic savannas dominated by the thin-leaved

African species of Acacia in southern Zimbabwe. The underlying
Fig. 1.19 Miombo savanna near Tabora, Tanzania. Broad- grasses are mainly Cenchrus ciliaris, known as buffel grass in
leaved trees are Brachystegia and Julbernardia and the main grass Australia. Tree leaves and grasses are more nutritious to animals
is Hyparrhenia rufa, known as Yaragua grass in Latin America. than those of the dystrophic miombo.
dominate the dystrophic miombo savannas, while more minority of deciduous trees, an understorey of shade-
nutritive grasses of the genera Panicum, Cenchrus, Themeda, tolerant tree saplings, the absence of grasses and the
Chloris and Cynodon are more common in the eutrophic presence of a forest litter layer. These forests have several
savannas. The tree component is also often different, structures adapted to the humid environment. Many leaves
broad-leaved trees versus thin-leaved African acacias. have “drip tips” that accelerate drying and reduce mold
Further information on tropical savannas can be infestations. Lianas and strangler vines climb the trees and
obtained from Eyre (1963), Bouliére and Hardy (1970), Bou- bind many together. Epiphytes develop in upper branches,
liére (1983), Huntley and Walker (1982), Sarmiento (1984), catch leaves in their aerial roots, and produce a “soil” from
Cochrane et al. (1985), Tothill and Mott (1985), Goedert which they draw nutrients.
(1986), Pieri (1992), Scholes and Walker (1993), Campbell But the most significant biological feature is their
(1996), Kellman and Tackaberry (1997) and Osborne (2000). extreme species richness. They contain two-thirds of the
In addition, there is a noteworthy long-term series of Cer- estimated 250 000 of the world’s vascular plant species,
rado symposia, dealing with the ecology and agronomy of 90 percent of the world’s insects and many bird species
tropical savannas (Ferri 1963, Correa 1972, Marchetti and (Osborne 2000). About 2500 tree species are found in
Machado 1980, Embrapa 1988, Pereira and Nasser 1996, Malaysia and the Amazon, as compared with about 12 tree
Embrapa 1997, Sano and de Almeida 1998). species in temperate forests. In many tropical forest areas,
there are fewer than five marketable trees per hectare,
making logging difficult.
1.5.2 Humid Tropical Forests
Although tropical rainforests may appear impenetrable,
Humid (or moist) tropical forests occur in areas character-
they are easy to walk through with the aid of a machete
ized by udic environments with high annual rainfall,
because of the almost total absence of tangled vegetation at
covering about 30 percent of the tropics. The term includes
ground level. About 15 percent of the solar radiation reaches
rainforests (also known as lowland evergreen and equatorial
the soil surface. Air temperatures are substantially lower,
forests), cloud forests near mountaintops, semi-evergreen
but the humidity is higher than in surrounding
forests and monsoon forests, at the wetter end of the typic
cleared areas.
tropustic soil moisture regime.
The nutrient cycle between the forest and the soil is
Humid tropical forests cover 52 percent of tropical
essentially closed. Constant litter fall, decomposition
America, primarily the Amazon Basin, as well as the Pacific
throughout the year and the virtual absence of leaching
coast of Colombia, the Atlantic coast of Brazil and parts of
permit the development of luxuriant forest with no nutrient
Central America. Only 12 percent of tropical Africa consists
deficiency symptoms in acid soils of low native fertility
of rainforests, mainly in the lower Congo Basin and small
(more in Chapter 16). The only marked vegetation differ-
areas of the West African coast, East Africa and eastern
ences outside of wetlands and mountain tops that can be
Madagascar. About 38 percent of tropical Asia and the
correlated with soils is the reduced size of rainforests grow-
Pacific consists of humid tropical forests, mainly in
ing on sandy Spodosols or Entisols, locally known as campi-
Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, and there is
naremas in central Amazonia with similar occurrences in
little of it in Australia.
Southeast Asia.
The structure of humid tropical forests is similar
Detailed studies of moist tropical forests and their use
throughout the tropics even though the dominant tree
are abundant, particularly about issues of conservation
species differ (Fig. 1.21). They are characterized by a con-
versus development in the Amazon and Indonesia. Some
tinuous, layered tree canopy with emergent individuals, a
noteworthy ones are Nye and Greenland (1960), Richards
(1966), Sombroek (1966), Odum (1972), Myers (1980), Moran
(1981), Lanly (1982), NRC (1982, 1993), Hecht et al. (1982),
Golley (1983), Nascimento and Homma (1984), Salati and
Vose (1984), Cochrane et al. (1985), Dickinson (1987), Vieira
and dos Santos (1987), Jordan (1989), Anderson (1990),
Bruijnzeel (1990), Dourojeanni (1990), Hecht and Cockburn
(1990), Gómez-Pompa et al. (1991), Toledo (1994), Clusener-
Godt and Sachs (1995), Reading et al. (1995), Kellman and
Tackaberry (1997), Osborne (2000) and Nepstad et al. (2014).
1.5.3 Semiarid Vegetation

This general term comprises the different types of vegeta-
tion located in the drier aridic tropustic soil moisture
regime where the dry season is sufficiently strong to exclude
Fig. 1.21 Lowland humid tropical rainforest in Jambi Province,
forests and savannas. Scattered trees and shrubs are nor-
Indonesia.
mally interspersed with a discontinuous grass canopy,
1.5 VEGETATION 21
Fig. 1.23 The Sertão, the drier part of Pernambuco state in

Fig. 1.22 The Sahel near Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Note northeast Brazil, with succulents as an important component.
partial soil cover with grasses, interspersed with bare surfaces. Bare soil surfaces are characteristic of semiarid vegetation.
Haze is due to suspended fine soil particles in Harmattan winds.
which distinguishes them from the continuous grass canopy

of savannas. Many semiarid areas are heavily populated.
A striking one is the Sahel (desert fringe in Arabic), which
lies just south of the Sahara and north of the Northern
Guinea savanna in West Africa (Fig. 1.22). Large areas of
semiarid tropical Africa are dotted with unique trees such
as gigantic baobab (Adansonia digitata) and Faidherbia albida,
with its unique reverse phenology (see Chapter 19). Other
areas have a large proportion of succulents and cacti such as
northeast Brazil and much of semiarid Mexico (Fig. 1.23).
Crop production is largely limited to short growth duration,
drought-tolerant species like sorghum, millet and cowpeas.
Irrigated agriculture, where possible, is very high-yielding.
Livestock grazing is often the dominant activity, with cattle
and sheep in the wetter areas and goats and camels in the
drier ones. Biodiversity is lower than tropical forests and
savannas.
Fig. 1.24 Southern end of the Sahara Desert just north of
Knowledge about semiarid tropical ecology is less exten-
Tomboctou, Mali, with scattered trees.
sive than that of rainforests and savannas, although many
works about savannas often include semiarid tropics.
Important reference works are strongly related to agricul-
ture. These include Russell and Greacen (1977), Hall et al. 1.5.5 Net Primary Productivity
(1979), ICRISAT (1989), Sivakumar et al. (1991), Pieri (1992), The net primary productivity of various tropical vegetation
Vandenbelt (1992), Bonkoungou et al. (1993), Breman and types (measured in tons of dry mass/hectare per year)1 is a
Kessler (1995) and Breman and Sissoko (1998). good comparative parameter to characterize them. Golley
and Leith (1972) developed a net primary productivity map
1.5.4 Deserts of the world, which gives estimates of annual biomass
Tropical deserts by definition have little vegetation. But even
the most absolute desert I have seen, north of Tomboctou,
supports some trees in low spots (Fig. 1.24). Other deserts 1
The unit of weight, ton, in this book refers to the metric ton (tonne) and
commonly have more vegetation, usually trees. “Gobi” equals 1000 kg; I use the most common term mentioned by scientists in
deserts can be classified as those that have stony surfaces their interactions. The term megagram is used in SI units, but is seldom
and no dunes, as compared to those dominated by sand used in informal communications among scientists and may be
dunes, such as in Fig. 1.24. Local wetlands (wadis) support unfamiliar to non-scientists and policymakers. To reiterate, in this
their own unique ecology. book, 1 ton = 1000 kg = 1 tonne.
Table 1.9 Net primary productivity (NPP) in tons dry mass/ha per year. Adapted from Leith and Whittaker (1975).
Ecosystem NPP mean NPP range Area (1000 hectares) Total production
(109 t/ha per year)
Tropical rainforest 22 10–35 1700 37.4
Tropical seasonal forest 16 10–25 750 12.0
Temperate forest 13 6–25 1200 14.9
Boreal forest 8 4–20 1200 9.6
Tropical savanna 9 2–20 1500 13.5
Temperate grassland 6 2–15 900 5.4
Cultivated land 7 1–40 1400 9.1
Swamps and marsh 30 8–60 200 6.0
Open ocean 1 0.2–4 33 200 41.5
Algal beds and coral reefs 25 5–40 60 1.6
Total terrestrial 8 14 900 117.5
Total marine 2 36 100 55.0
World total 3 51 000 172.5
increase plus litter production (Table 1.9). Tropical forests are regions on climatic basis alone, but they do not. Kellman
more productive than temperate and boreal counterparts, and Tackaberry suggest this is due to two main limiting
and so are tropical savannas over temperate grasslands. But processes in the tropics: the complexity of biological inter-
tropical rainforests are generally less productive than actions, and nutrient deficiency in the soils, to which I add
swamps and marshes and algal beds and coral reefs, the latter the often-occurring lack of enabling government policies.
being perhaps the most threatened tropical ecosystem.
Cultivated lands (worldwide) have a very broad range in
net primary productivity, their average reflecting the natural 1.6 Physiography
ecosystems they were derived from. On the basis of solar
radiation and growing-season length, De Wit (1967) esti- About half of the tropics are in Africa, 35 percent in Latin
mated the potential food crop yields by latitudinal belts. America and 16 percent in Asia and the Pacific. Tropical
Calculations from his data indicate that tropical areas have lands are complex geologically and geomorphologically.
approximately twice the crop production potential per hec- Approximately 77 percent can be classified as “lowlands,”
tare per year of temperate areas, assuming no additional with elevations below 900 m; in 20 percent of the tropics,
limiting factors. De Wit calculated an average annual yield altitudes range from 900 to 1800 m; and they exceed 1800 m
potential for the tropical latitudes of 60 tons of dry mass per in about 3 percent of the tropics. These regions are the
hectare. Approximately half of that amount is considered the Andes of Central and South America, the East African High-
economic yield. Such yield levels have already been obtained lands, and parts of Southeast Asia. The Himalayas are
or approximated in the tropics. Abruña et al. (1964) have located outside the tropics.
reported an annual production of 60 t/ha per year of dry The 20 percent of the tropics located between 900 and
forage in Puerto Rico. At the IRRI in the Philippines, 25.7 1800 m has one of the most pleasant climates on earth, with
t/ha per year of rice grain (about 52 t/ha per year of dry matter) mild temperatures throughout the year. Persons in the tem-
have been produced in one field with four crops during 1 year perate region seldom recognize this fact. A Kenyan, visiting
(Evans 1997). These figures by far surpass annual production England in July, used to amaze his British friends when he
records of the temperate region. They underline the import- told them that he wanted to go back to Africa to get cool.
ance of year-round high solar radiation, allowing multiple The following is a brief summary of the geology and
crops per year, as a chief asset of tropical agriculture. geomorphology of the three tropical regions. The reader is
However, crops yields are generally lower in the tropics referred to Thomas (1974) for detailed information on trop-
for crops that grow well in both tropical and temperate ical geomorphology, to Kellman and Tackaberry (1997) for
regions. Kellman and Tackaberry (1997) expected natural an excellent description of past geologic history and tropical
or agricultural systems in humid tropical environments to paleoecology and, finally, to two excellent soil atlases, Africa
support three to four times the productivity of temperate (Jones et al. 2013) and Latin America (Gardi et al. 2013).
1.6 PHYSIOGRAPHY 23
1.6.1 Tropical America weathering, most of the continent appears as worn-down

The main surface features of tropical America are the plateaus. These plateaus are at low elevations in West
Andean Cordillera and its continuation into Central America Africa, but in East and southern Africa they average 1000
and Mexico; the Guyana and Brazilian shields; the Orinoco, meters, extending from Ethiopia to South Africa. Inter-
Amazon and Paraná basins; and the Antilles Islands. spersed in the plateau are volcanoes in Cameroon, Central
The Andes extend throughout the western edge of trop- and East Africa, which have produced extensive basalt
ical America. They rose from the seas during the Tertiary deposits. The Rift Valley splits the eastern part of the plateau
epoch, a period of great volcanic activity, reversing the flow from the Dead Sea in the north to the Zambezi River in the
of the Amazon River, which at that time emptied in Guaya- south. Parts are now occupied by the African Great Lakes
quil, Ecuador. There are active or recently active volcanoes (Turkana, Victoria, Tanganyika, Malawi and others).
in Mexico, throughout Central America, and in Colombia, The oldest rocks can be found in the east and west,
Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Some extensive portions of the parallel to the coast. This material dates from the Precam-
Andes, such as central Peru, however, have not been affected brian era. Some of these were folded before or during the
by recent volcanic activity. Although relatively narrow, the Mesozoic period. The granites, gneisses and schists of the
Andes have important and relatively flat intermountain continental plateau are mostly of Archean age. During
valleys where human population density is high. Examples the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian periods, much of
of these are the Mexico City Valley, the Guatemalan the continent was covered by sea, and some of the sand-
Altiplano, the Meseta Central of Costa Rica, the “Sabana” stones and dolomites in South Africa are considered to be
of Bogotá, the Cauca Valley of Colombia, the Mantaro and from this period. After the elevation of the continent during
Cajamarca valleys in Peru and the Cochabamba Valley in the late Carboniferous times, during which Africa and India
Bolivia. High-altitude plateaus dominate southern Peru and were united as Gondwanaland, the interior of Africa was
northern Bolivia. Glaciers occur at the highest elevations, occupied by large lakes, resulting in the formation of enor-
with the snow line at about 4800 m (probably higher now mous layers of sandstone and marl. This is referred to as the
because of global warming). “Karoo system” of South Africa, but the same situation is
The Guyana and Brazilian shields are much older land found in the Congo Basin and areas in East Africa. During
surfaces but with lower elevations. They originated during the following Jurassic period, great volcanic activity caused
the Archean and Paleozoic eras and consist mainly of granite the basalt flows of West Africa. It was during this time that
and gneiss, partially covered by sedimentary rocks, mainly Gondwanaland broke up and the continents drifted apart.
sandstone. Large areas of the central plateau of Brazil have a Afterwards, seas covered certain areas again, such as the
gently undulating topography where two or three erosion Sahara and the west coast. Continental sediments, on the
surfaces can be seen. These shields are the oldest land sur- other hand, are very extensive and range from Cambrian to
faces in tropical America. Pleistocene age, accumulated in basins of the Middle Niger
The Andes and the two shields delimit the Amazon River, as well as in Chad, Congo, Sudan and the Kalahari
Basin. The upper portion west of Manaus is quite wide; the Desert.
basin narrows considerably, east of the city. Many of the One unfortunate consequence of tropical African
present sediments originate from erosion of the Andean geomorphology is the lack of broad river basins in spite of
uplifts, but some are derived from the shield areas. The the long rivers it contains. The narrow basins of the Nile,
Orinoco Basin is separated from the Amazon by the Guyana Niger, Congo and Zambezi prevent large-scale irrigation and
highlands. Tertiary period deposits producing old soils with thus the presence of large, irrigated valleys, such the bread-
bands of recent alluvium cover both areas. The Paraná Basin baskets of tropical Asia.
to the south is rich in basalt deposits. D’Hoore (1956) provides an interesting comparison
The Antilles are formed primarily from uplifted lime- between the geology of tropical America and that of Africa.
stone or volcanic deposits. The present volcanic activity is He points out that most of tropical Africa is a giant crystalline
limited to the Lesser Antilles. plateau, two-thirds of which is covered by sediments. Contin-
ental sediments filled in the big depressions or basins. In
tropical America, however, the equivalent crystalline plat-
1.6.2 Tropical Africa eaus are limited to the Guyana and Brazilian shields. They
Compared with other continents, Africa is geologically and are also partially covered by sediments of more recent origin,
topographically the most uniform. There are only two caused by the Andean uplift. Mountain uplifts and volcanic
intensely folded areas, the Atlas Mountains in the north activity are less extensive in Africa than in America, however,
and the ranges of the Western Cape Province in the extreme important in East Africa for agriculture supporting dense
south, both outside the tropics. The rest of the continent is human populations. The basaltic deposits in Paraná are con-
largely one vast, rigid block of ancient rock, two-thirds of temporary to those in South Africa and the Deccan Plateau in
which is covered by sediments. The old crystalline rocks are India. In conclusion, D’Hoore considers the geologic history
mainly granite but also contain much metamorphic schist of tropical America to be more favorable than that of tropical
and gneiss. Because of the lack of folding and the continuous Africa because the Andes provide a constant source of new
materials. This situation is similar to that of the Indo- carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) (Ellis 2015), as
Gangetic plains in northern India, which receive the sedi- well as in land degradation, human migration and new
ments from the Himalayas. However, as a whole, tropical kinds of conflicts. Paul Crutzen suggested that the world
America has a larger proportion of acid soils than tropical has entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene,
Africa. This is apparently due to the aeolian deposits from the where humans are the main drivers of biophysical change
Sahara, which affect a large part of tropical Africa. (Crutzen and Stroemer 2000). Many of the natural systems
(biomes) – shown in Fig. 1.11 – have been replaced by
anthropogenic biomes, which Ellis calls “anthromes.” They
1.6.3 Tropical Asia and the Pacific
are shown in Table 1.10 at Ellis’ highest categorical level.
The Indian subcontinent, which collided with the Asian
Some of these are called “novel” systems.
mainland during the Eocene period, is a very old land mass
The evidence is staggering. About 78 percent of the
and has not been under water since the Carboniferous
Earth’s ice-free land surface has been modified by people.
period. The Deccan Plateau, with elevations lower than
Only about one-fifth of the natural systems without humans
1800 m, remains in the highest area of the subcontinent.
remain at the beginning of the twenty-first century, largely
During the Cretaceous period, volcanoes were very active
in remote locations in the humid tropics, deserts, high
and covered central India, with basalt producing fertile soils.
mountains, the Arctic and Antarctica.
Mainland Southeast Asia is a combination of mountain
Seminatural populated forests now cover 19 percent of
ranges and large rice-growing valleys such as the Ganges,
the land with less than 1 percent of the people, including
Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya and Mekong. These
much of the Amazon and rural eastern United States. These
are the “rice bowls” of tropical Asia and are subject to
“novel” forests account for almost half of the world’s
periodic flooding. Most of the present volcanic activity is
tree cover.
limited to the island regions, particularly Indonesia and
The rangelands, including savannas and semiarid areas,
the Philippines, as well as many Pacific islands, including
occupy 31 percent of the land surface with 300 million people,
Hawaii.
while the world’s croplands occupy an additional 21 percent
of the land hosting 900 million people. Therefore, agricultural
systems (cropland and rangeland) cover 52 percent of the land
1.7 The Anthropocene with 1.2 billion people. The fact that croplands hold 25 percent
of the world’s tree cover indicates the importance of agrofor-
A relatively stable climate has characterized the time during estry, which will be discussed in Chapter 19.
which the great human inventions of agriculture and indus- Finally, the urban settlements, from villages to cities,
trialization took place (Amundson et al. 2015) – the Holocene cover 1 billion hectares or 7 percent of the land, hosting
epoch of the last 10 000–12 000 years. But this is now over 80 percent of the world’s population, denoting the
history. Rapid human population growth has caused importance of urbanization. We are facing a different world.
changes at the planetary scale in atmospheric composition, Ariel Lugo (2015) observed that human activities are now
climate, hydrology, widespread species extinctions, species accelerating the speed of evolution of organisms beyond the
invasions, changes in the local and global patterns of net notion that “ecology governs evolution by tailoring organ-
primary production and the global biogeochemical cycles of isms to fill niches.” He also observed that forests are now
Table 1.10 Anthromes (anthropogenic biomes) that are replacing natural biomes. Global data, ice-free land. Judging from
the global population of 6.4 billion, data must be from about 2004. Adapted from Ellis (2015).
Anthrome Area (billion Land cover Number of people People Global tree
hectares) (%) (millions) (%) cover (%)
Wildlands 2.9 22 0 0 19
Seminatural populated 2.5 19 40 <1 45
forests
Rangelands 4.0 31 300 4 6
Croplands 2.7 21 900 14 25
Villages 0.8 6 2600 41 4
Cities and towns 0.2 1 2600 41 1
Total 13.1 100 6400 100 100
1.8 BIODIVERSITY IN THE TROPICS 25
valued more for the ecosystem services they provide than occupied a huge area as far north as the northern United
for their wood production, and that novel forests as well as States and Europe during the Tertiary period, which
other anthromes need to be better understood, particularly suffered few disruptions during the Quaternary as it shrank
with regard to the interactions between conservation and to the present area (during the Tertiary, New York and
sustainable development. London were tropical forests). Coupled with the year-long
Two critical issues that are part of the Anthropocene, growing conditions, this may be why tropical forests are the
biodiversity and climate change, are discussed below to most diverse.
provide background to the properties and management of Tropical deforestation is the primary cause of global
soils in the tropics. biodiversity loss (Heywood 1995). Tropical agriculture is
the chief cause of the destruction of terrestrial habitats,
which is pushing species toward extinction because the
1.8 Biodiversity in the Tropics most threatened ecosystems are also home to large numbers
of rural people, many of them desperately poor (McNeely
Biodiversity – the genetic diversity of plants, animals and and Scherr 2001). Furthermore, most protected areas are in
microorganisms, the genes they contain and the ecosystems close contact with agricultural areas in tropical biodiversity
they support – is now well recognized as a major global hotspots, thereby enhancing their vulnerability (Wood et al.
public good, because of its products and services. Biodiver- 2000). Biodiversity hotspots are those threatened areas with
sity produces germplasm for agriculture, medicines, raw a large number of endemic species – those found nowhere
materials for industry and has the potential to produce else (Myers et al. 2000). Sixteen of the 25 biodiversity hot-
many new products for humankind. Biodiversity also pro- spots are in the tropics, precisely in areas with high rural
vides key ecosystem services like pollination, biological con- poverty and malnutrition (McNeely and Scherr 2001).
trol of pests and diseases and increased ecosystem resilience. Protected areas alone are not sufficient to preserve bio-
The higher the trophic level (level of nourishment) in a food diversity. Not only are the millions of deforested hectares
web, the better the system can withstand shocks. Removing important but also the spatial distribution of the forested/
species at the top of the food chain often results in excessive deforested margins. Fragmentation of natural forests
populations at a lower level, which can in effect become threatens migrating species and predator species such as
pests. Having many species performing a similar service, the Amazonian panthers that require large habitats to sur-
nitrogen fixation for example, provides redundancy that vive. New highways and logging roads add to forest frag-
can be crucial when one species is destroyed (Heywood mentation, effectively increasing the forest margins. It is
1995). Soil biodiversity is described in detail in Chapter 10. now necessary to distinguish these fragmented forests that
About 80 percent of the world’s terrestrial species occur are extremely prone to deforestation from the “frontier
in the tropics (Reading et al. 1995). But the high biodiversity forests,” those that are large, ecologically intact, relatively
of the tropics is largely confined to the humid tropics. Low- undisturbed and capable of supporting wide-ranging animal
land tropical rainforests are the world’s most species-rich species (Bryant et al. 1997). Bryant and colleagues estimate
terrestrial ecosystems, with 66 percent of the estimated that only 37 percent of the tropical forests in the late 1990s
250 000 of the world’s plant species and 90 percent of the qualify as frontier forests.
world’s insect species (Osborne 2000). The subhumid tropics Land-use change from natural systems into agroecosys-
probably come in as a distant second, with the East and tems, as well as the intensification of those agroecosystems,
southern African savannas having spectacularly large generally diminishes their biodiversity, commonly known
mammal and bird biodiversity, while others like the South as agrobiodiversity. This is particularly acute in the most
American savannas are much less biodiverse. intensively managed monocultures, which involve a narrow
The number of vascular plant species ranges from crop genetic base. Farm management practices often involve
30 000 to 90 000 in tropical forest regions of Africa, Asia the excessive use of pesticides and other inputs, ending up
and Latin America, while the subhumid Cerrado savanna of with fewer niches in field boundaries and wildlife corridors
Brazil has less than 1000 vascular plant species (Kellman and that harbor diverse species, including beneficial insects.
Tackaberry 1997). Other natural tropical ecosystems such as Fortunately, this is not necessarily the norm in the
deserts, mangroves and semiarid ones, have much less bio- tropics. When farming is done with a more agroecological
diversity than tropical forests and savannas. According to approach – particularly with agroforestry, crop rotations
Kellman and Tackaberry (1997), plant species richness (the and keeping the soil covered by some sort of vegetation
number of species/unit area) increases with annual rainfall throughout the year – it can minimize the loss of biodiver-
and decreasing latitude. sity (Pretty et al. 1992, Sanchez 1995, Altieri 2002). There are,
Why is biodiversity so high in the humid tropics? Kell- however, few hard quantitative data on agrobiodiversity and
man and Tackaberry speculate that tropical forests have its benefits in the tropics.
endured because of large-scale and long-term processes; for As mentioned before, biodiversity hotspots are often in
instance, they have never undergone glaciations. Angio- the same place as poverty hotspots in the tropics (Barrett
sperm plants started to diversify when tropical forests et al. 2011), a set-up for lose–lose scenarios. When travelling
though Tanzania’s southern corridor in 2010, I asked Dr. 1.9 Climate Change
Gerson Nyadzi, who grew up in the region, why we saw no
birds there. His answer: “we ate them all as kids because we
Climate change is clearly with us in the early twenty-first
were hungry.”
century, pretty much ending decades of skepticism in view
In their pilot analysis of agroecosystems Wood et al.
of the increasingly solid scientific evidence. It is also clear
(2000) suggested tree cover in agricultural lands as an indi-
that the majority of changes are anthropogenic – caused by
cator of natural habitat quality. They report that a majority
humans – beyond those caused by natural fluctuations (Han-
of agroecosystems have significant tree cover in sub-
sen 2004). Given the overwhelming data, extreme events
Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast
like “tropical” Hurricane Sandy devastating the coasts of
Asia, except in irrigated drylands and parts of semiarid
temperate New York and New Jersey in the United States
South Asia. Wood and co-workers contrast this situation
and extreme heat waves in France have made the skeptics
with that of North America, Europe, the former Soviet
think twice.
Union and East Asia where over half the agricultural extent
Global warming is the direct outcome of trapping infra-
has little or no tree cover, despite the high original extent of
red radiation in our atmosphere by trace concentrations of
forests. The tropics, therefore, are not doing as badly as the
heat-trapping gases. Higher air temperature is the “green-
temperate region in this respect, although this is no reason
house effect,” triggered by increasing trace concentrations
for complacency.
of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O)
Wood et al. (2000) also proposed two indicators of agro-
and other gases that trap outgoing radiation in the atmos-
biodiversity: species-level diversity and varietal diversity
phere. Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, is released
(within species). Others believe that functional biodiversity,
by respiration of plants, animals and aerobic microorgan-
that is, the number of organisms that perform a specific
isms, and the mineralization of soil organic carbon, as well
function (decomposition, for example) is more important
as the burning of tropical forests (Chapters 11, 16). Methane
than the number of species per se. In effect, “it is not who
is principally produced by the anaerobic decomposition of
you are, but what you do.” There is controversy between the
carbon under flooded soil conditions and by enteric fermen-
purist (structural) and this functional approach. From my
tation by ruminants (Chapters 17, 18). Oxides of nitrogen
viewpoint, the functional approach is more relevant and
(mainly N2O, but also nitric oxide [NO]) are emitted from
pragmatic, also for soil science (Chapter 10).
soils and manures, as intermediate products of both nitrifi-
But the high biodiversity of the humid tropics has some
cation and denitrification (Chapter 13). The global warming
negative effects on agriculture and people as well. Kellman
potential of CH4 is 20 times more than that of CO2; N2O is
and Tackaberry (1997) indicate that there is a much higher
298 times more. Calculated together they are referred to as
number of pest organisms attacking the same crop in the
CO2-equivalents (CO2-eq). These gases are mixed in the
tropics than in the temperate regions where they also grow
atmosphere, regardless of where they originated from.
(Table 1.11). Also, they indicate that more abundant human
Estimations from Antarctic ice cores and direct measure-
pathogens and infectious diseases of the tropics are related
ments at Mauna Loa, Hawaii indicate a level of 280 ppm CO2
both to high biodiversity and high vulnerability as a result
in pre-industrial times (about 1750), which slowly rose to
of poverty and less research.
about 330 ppm in the 1950s, 200 years later. Concentrations
Diversity in agricultural systems (agrobiodiversity) as
then started to rise sharply, reaching 400 ppm CO2 in Janu-
well as soil biodiversity will be discussed throughout
ary 2015 and 405 ppm CO2 in March 2016 (Pro Oxygen
the text.
2016).
The world mean annual temperature near the Earth’s
surface had increased by 0.8 C at the end of the twentieth
Table 1.11 Higher biodiversity: more pest organisms.
century, relative to pre-industrial times. Temperatures are
Number of diseases recorded (caused by
now increasing by an average of 0.2 C per decade (Hansen
fungi, bacteria, viruses, nematodes and
et al. 2006) so, by about the end of 2010, the world mean
others). Adapted from Kellman and
annual temperature had increased by 1 C. Projections for
Tackaberry (1997).
the remainder of the twenty-first century vary between a
2 C and 5 C increase over pre-industrial levels. Sea level
Crop Temperate zone Tropics rose by 6–9 m when the Earth was less than 1 C warmer
than today, 120 000 years ago (Hansen et al. 2016), so we are
Rice 54 550–600
in trouble. The decrease of the snow and glaciers in tropical
Maize 85 125 Mount Kilimanjaro, 5895 m high and 3 south of the equator
Common beans 52 253–280 (Fig. 1.25), is painful evidence for people in the tropics
(Thompson et al. 2009, Thompson 2010).
Potato 91 175
The United Nations Paris Agreement of December
Sweet potato 15 187 2015 represents the first substantial accord among countries
1.9 CLIMATE CHANGE 27
above what we have now or above pre-industrial levels? The

text of the Paris agreement says “above pre-industrial levels”
(UNFCCC 2015). That means the plan is to limit additional
temperature increases to 1 C. The text also asks for
“efforts” to limit the increase to 1.5 C; that really means
only an additional 0.5 C – extremely difficult. The 2 C
increase of global warming will occur when the atmospheric
CO2 level reaches 450 ppm – not far from the 405 ppm level
at the time of this writing. The United Nations declarations
are not known for their accuracy, but in this case ambiguity
is not going to help. The Paris agreement also calls to
achieve net-zero emissions – a balance between sources
and sinks – in the second half of this century. These are
magnificent targets but they would require extraordinary
efforts in climate mitigation. Without such interventions,
CO2 levels will rise to 550–700 ppm CO2-eq by 2050, increas-
ing world temperatures anywhere from 3 to 5 C, a cata-
strophic scenario (Stern 2007).
Climate-change research is broadly divided into three
categories: impacts, adaptation and mitigation. Impacts are
the consequences of predicted climate change on humans
and ecosystems. Adaptation is the ability of people and
ecosystems to cope, usually described in terms of vulnerabil-
ity. Mitigation includes the actions people can take to
decrease global warming. Avoided deforestation is con-
sidered mitigation.
The following subsections detail the results of innumer-
able references relevant to the tropics. Only the most import-
ant of these will be referred to. Many more may be found in
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth
Assessment Report (Stocker et al. 2014) as well as in the
previous assessment reports. Our current knowledge will
be obsolete as the new assessment reports are published.
1.9.1 Impacts
Climate change has played a major role in the tropics in the
past, and will keep presenting us with major challenges in
the next decades. Land use, mostly tropical, is the second
most important source of greenhouse gas emissions after
fossil fuels, emitting 4.1 Pg CO2-eq per year, while fossil
fuels and cement plants emit the lion’s share, 28.1 Pg CO2-
eq per year (86 percent of the total) (Chapter 11).2 Most of
the research on impacts is based on climate models, many of
which have been criticized. They are getting better but
much remains to be done to link climate models to more
complex agricultural systems (Campbell et al. 2016) such as
Fig. 1.25 The decrease of snowcap and glaciers in Mount those described in Chapters 16–19. These models are the
Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Reprinted with permission from best we have to work with and, like the FAO data on which
Thompson (2010) we base much of our agricultural and soils data, they are far
from perfect, but thank goodness they exist.
The main impacts in the tropics are: increasing air tem-
since climate negotiations began. It calls to limit further peratures, particularly night temperatures; increasing
global temperature increase to “well below 2 C” over pre-
industrial levels and to make “efforts” to limit it to 1.5 C. 2
1 Pg (petagram is 1015 grams) = 1 Gt (gigaton 109 tons – a billion tons).
There is some confusion about this 2 C target – is it 2 C Conversion of C to CO2: CO2 = 3.7 C.
rainfall variability; increasing frequency of extreme weather 1.9.2 Adaptation to Climate Change
events (droughts, floods, hurricanes); more freshwater The negative consequences of climate change will be borne
shortages; sea-level rise affecting low-lying coastal cities, more by the vulnerable and they are located mainly in the
where much of the population is concentrated; bleaching tropics. This is understandable because of the lower resili-
of coral reefs, giving rise to unsustainable fishing; and sev- ence of tropical societies – nothing biophysical. Research
eral others. Higher CO2 concentrations may result in a posi- also has a huge new role to play in adapting to the inevit-
tive carbon fertilization effect on natural and agricultural able. Some examples are given below. Many options will be
systems, provided they are not limited by nutrients. Further- discussed in the chapters of this book.
more, tropical glaciers are thinning and a northward geo- Genetic manipulation offers several approaches, including
graphic spread of malaria and other tropical diseases is breeding for resistance to higher day or night temperatures,
taking place as well as increased crop pest and disease pres- gene transfers from crops that tolerate higher temperatures,
sure where wetter climates are beginning to happen. Climate decreasing night respiration by manipulating stomata-closing,
change affects all the dimensions of agriculture – crops, to name a few. Increased grain sterility due to thermal
livestock, forestry, fisheries and land resources. Most of these damage could be avoided by finding genes that make crops
impacts are already measurable (Campbell et al. 2016). flower early in the morning. Can this trait be combined with
Developing countries are more adversely affected by cli- high yields, tolerance to pests and diseases, and high grain
mate change than industrialized economies. The IPCC pro- quality? I hope so. Another approach is to decrease peak tem-
jects annual reductions of gross domestic product (GDP) of peratures by manipulating microclimate, as done when sor-
2–9 percent in developing countries versus 1–2 percent for ghum and millet are grown under Faidherbia albida trees
industrialized countries due to climate change (Houghton (Chapter 19).
et al. 1996). The economic costs, “if we don’t act would be Moving late-maturing cultivars that have proved useful
equivalent of losing 5% of the global GDP each year, now in other climates is another option. They may have longer
and forever while the costs of avoiding the worst impacts vegetative and grain filling growth phases at the new
can be about 1% of the global GDP each year” (Stern 2007). warmer location than the current ones being grown there,
One consistently overly pessimistic impact present in all permitting more dry-matter accumulation.
IPCC assessment reports is the predicted decreases in crop Increasing nitrogen fertilizer application, believe it or
yield in the tropics to catastrophic levels of 30 percent or not, is a way to adapt to rainfall extremes. Figure 1.26 shows
more in the next decades, particularly in tropical Africa, as simulated maize yields in Masvingo, Zimbabwe (596 mm
the region to be most affected. These reports fail to take annual rainfall), a semiarid area marginal for maize. With-
account of the positive impact of agricultural research and out nitrogen applications, the yields varied over the 47-year
farmer innovation in their predictions. Now that crop yields period from zero (crop failures during El Niño years), to a
are beginning to increase in Africa (Sanchez 2015), and have maximum of 1.6 t/ha in the best years, giving an overall
done so in Asia and Latin America for decades, I hope the mean of 0.8 t/ha; about the same as the current average
next assessment reports will be more balanced. maize yield in tropical Africa at the beginning of this
Fig. 1.26 Simulated maize yields using rainfall data from 47 years in Masvingo, Zimbabwe, using APSIM modeling for three nitrogen
application rates, 0 (blue line), 17 (red line) and 52 (green line) kg N/ha; Y axis is grain yield (kg/ha). Source: (Cooper et al. 2008)
1.9 CLIMATE CHANGE 29
century. With the recommended rate 52 kg N/ha per crop

Table 1.12 Cultivated area saved by the Green
the average yields tripled, but increasing nitrogen fertiliza-
Revolution in developing countries,
tion did not prevent crop failures during the three drought
1965–1995. Adapted from Grace et al.
years. Farmers actually preferred a smaller rate (17 kg N/ha),
(2000).
which, over the long run, about doubled maize yields and
gave them a higher economic return from the fertilizer Cropland Area (million
investment (Cooper et al. 2008). Regardless of the rate, hectares)
N fertilization helped Masvingo farmers adapt to the varying
seasonal rainfall, but did not help during the three major Actual area 1965 384
drought events encountered in this 47-year period. Better Actual area 1995 (with the Green 466
forecasts, a few seasons ahead, can help to refine practices Revolution)
such as nitrogen usage. Estimated area 1995 without Green 892
Revolution
1.9.3 Mitigating Climate Change
The main mitigation strategies are reducing greenhouse gas Area saved by the Green 426
emissions to the atmosphere, sequestering carbon in soils Revolution 1965–1995
and plants (Smith et al. 2008) and avoiding further carbon
emissions by deforestation. Smith et al., after a comprehen-
sive review of the existing knowledge, estimate that the was based on the assumption that 1995 cereal yields and
global technical mitigation potential from agriculture fertilizer use per hectare remained at 1965 levels, but with
would be 5.5–6.0 Pg CO2-eq/year by 2030. This is higher than cereal production at actual 1995 levels.
the most recent estimation of carbon fluxes from land use With the Green Revolution, the total cropping area in
and land-use change (largely tropical) of 4.1 Pg CO2-eq per developing countries increased by 82 million hectares from
year (Chapter 11), showing enormous potential. But this has 1965 to 1995 (Table 1.12). This increase is close to the 85 mil-
to be tempered by social and policy realities and somewhat lion hectares increase for the tropics indicated in Table 2.12,
optimistic scientific projections. Nevertheless, of the total so we can assume that most of the land-use change took
mitigation potential, approximately 89 percent is from place in the tropical developing countries.
reduced soil emissions of CO2, 9 percent from mitigation Without the Green Revolution, an additional 426 million
of CH4 from wetland soils, livestock and manures, and 2 per- hectares would have been required to meet the 1995 levels
cent from mitigation of N2O emissions, mostly from soils of crop production, assuming similar land quality. This
(Smith et al. 2008). almost doubling of cropland in developing countries would
The main mitigation options outlined by Smith et al. have come primarily from the conversion of natural
(2008) are improved cropland and grazing-land manage- systems, primarily tropical forests and subhumid savannas.
ment; restoration of degraded lands; avoiding drainage of The assumption that higher yields automatically dis-
cultivated organic soils; and, to a lesser extent, rice manage- courages further deforestation has been subjected to scru-
ment, agroforestry, livestock management and manure tiny by Angelsen and Kaimowitz (2001). But they concluded
management. Most of these are discussed in different chap- that improved agricultural technologies do actually benefit
ters of this book. forest cover when they lead to major declines in agricultural
prices and/or are more labor intensive. Angelsen and Kaimo-
1.9.4 An Unwitting Case of Mitigation witz cited the Green Revolution as one such example. This
There is one case of mitigation that has not received much also indicates that technologies that do not require much
attention in the climate-change literature: the avoided labor, such as cattle ranching or mechanized soybean pro-
deforestation by the Asian Green Revolution of the 1960s duction in the Amazon, actually encourage deforestation. As
to 1990s. will be shown in Chapter 16, this effect can be stopped and
Although the agronomic and socioeconomic conse- even reversed when farmers recognize the ecological losses
quences of the Green Revolution have been amply due to deforestation, leading to the establishment of new
researched (Chapter 2), the question arose as to its effects policies that result in higher food yields while decreasing
on the drivers of climate change. A study by the Consultative deforestation.
Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Inter- The Green Revolution in effect decreased greenhouse gas
center Working Group on Climate Change (Grace et al. 2000) emissions due to deforestation to one-third of what they
estimated the differences in land-use change and land-use would have been in its absence, saving 2.1 Pg of CO2-eq per
intensification on greenhouse gas emissions between the year (Table 1.13).
actual Green Revolution and a hypothetical extensification The overall effect of the Green Revolution due to land-
(no Green Revolution) scenario in developing countries for use intensification is nearly a zero-sum game (Table 1.14).
the period 1965–1995. This included both tropical and non- The additional emissions due to nitrogen fertilizer use
tropical developing countries. The extensification scenario (N2O emissions and the CO2 cost of manufacture) were
Table 1.13 Effects of the Green Revolution on Table 1.14 Effects of the Green Revolution on
greenhouse gas emissions to the greenhouse gas emissions to the
atmosphere due to land-use change, atmosphere due to land-use
1965–1995. All emissions converted into intensification, 1965–1995. All emissions
CO2-eq units using net radiative forcing converted into CO2-eq units using net
values. Adapted from Grace et al. (2000). radiative forcing values. Adapted from
Grace et al. (2000).
Land-use change Emissions (million tons
(mainly CO2-eq per year) Land-use Emissions (million tons
deforestation) intensification CO2-eq per year)
With the Without the
Green Green With the Without the
Revolution Revolution Green Green
Revolution Revolution
CO2 from soil 422 2146
CO2 from 326 558 Rice cultivation: 459 648
vegetation CH4
CH4 from 26 48 Nitrogen fertilizer 169 56

vegetation application: N2O
N2O from 4 4 Nitrogen fertilizer 100 33

vegetation production: CO2
Total from land- 777 2886 Residue 59 4

use change decomposition:
N2O
Saved from land- 2109
use change Burning crop 41 41
residues: CH4 +
N2O
practically offset by savings in CH4 emissions from wetland Biological nitrogen 15 15
rice cultivation. Since no change in total cereal production fixation: N2O
by 1995 was assumed, emissions due to burning crop resi-
Total from 836 841
dues in situ, biological nitrogen fixation, and crop residue
land-use
decomposition were assumed to be the same in the two
intensification
scenarios.
Overall, the Green Revolution has averted emissions Saved from 15
equivalent to 2124 Pg CO2-eq per year from 1965 to 1995. land-use
The bulk of this saving is in carbon from the avoidance of land intensification
conversion. If the Green Revolution had not taken place, the
CO2 concentration of the atmosphere would have increased
from 361 to 369 ppm in 1995. As it is, atmospheric concen-
trations reached 369 ppm CO2 in the year 2000, thus the Green zenith. As latitudes increase, the Sun’s rays have to pass
Revolution delayed the atmospheric build-up of CO2 by 5 years, through a thicker atmosphere.
a major contribution to mitigating global warming. • Consequently, the tropics are the only part of the world
The scientific community knows well enough about the where the Sun passes directly overhead, receiving twice
negative impacts of climate change. Emphasis should shift the annual solar radiation of the temperate region. Vari-
more toward implementing solutions to food security ation within the tropics is related to cloudiness, especially
(Campbell et al. 2016). during rainy seasons, but also the presence of suspended
soil particles during the Harmattan season in West Africa.
• The tropics can be defined as that part of the world where
the mean monthly near-surface air temperature variation
1.10 Summary and Conclusions is 6 C or less between the average of the three warmest
and the three coldest months. The only unifying property

• The tropics is that part of the Earth between 23.5 north of tropical climates is their relatively uniform tempera-
and south of the equator. Because the tilt of the Earth’s ture throughout a given year.
axis has the same angle, these latitudes are the limit of • Soil temperatures in the tropics, as defined in the Soil Tax-
the Sun’s apparent migration to the north or south of the onomy system, fall in the “iso” temperature regimes that is,
1.10 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 31
“less than 6 C difference between the average soil tempera- 5 percent of the tropics. Therefore, most of the tropics
ture of June, July and August and the average soil temperature are not covered by rainforests, as frequently believed.
of December, January and February at 50 cm depth.” Savannas are often related to soil fertility, particularly in
• Soil temperatures can be estimated from air temperature South America and East/southern Africa.
records by adding 2 C to mean annual air temperatures • Tropical forests are more productive than temperate and
in the lowland tropics. The isohyperthermic soil tempera- boreal forests in terms of net primary productivity, and so
ture regime has > 20 C mean annual temperatures and are tropical savannas over temperate grasslands.
occurs in the lowlands; the isothermic (13–20 C), in the • Land surfaces in the tropics range from the oldest on
tropical highlands; the isomesic (6–13 C), in highlands Earth (ancient crystalline rocks in South America and
above 2000 m; and the isofrigid temperature regime Africa) to the most recent volcanic deposits.
(< 6 C), in the high plateaus and mountain tops above
The Anthropocene
the snow line.
• There has been a relatively stable climate during the last
• Rainfall distribution is the principal parameter used to 10 000–12 000 years, during which time the human
differentiate tropical climates for agricultural purposes.
inventions of agriculture and industrialization have taken
Approximately half of the tropics has pronounced wet
place. But this is now history. Rapid human population
and dry seasons (typic tropustic soil moisture regime),
growth has produced many changes, at the planetary
one-fourth has high rainfall distributed throughout the
scale, in atmospheric composition, climate, hydrology,
year (udic soil moisture regime), and one-fourth has semi-
geomorphology, widespread species extinctions, species
arid or desert climates (aridic tropustic and aridic soil
invasions, changes in the local and global patterns of net
moisture regimes).
primary productivity, global biogeochemical cycles of
Intertropical Convergence Zone and El Niño carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as in land deg-
• The Intertropical Convergence Zone is a low-pressure radation, human migrations and new kinds of conflicts.
trough that determines the march of the rainy seasons Paul Crutzen suggested that the world has entered a new
within the tropics. The periods of heaviest rainfall occur geological epoch, the Anthropocene, where humans are
when the Sun is directly overhead. The Intertropical Con- the main drivers of biophysical change.
vergence Zone is not a continuous band of clouds, but • About 78 percent of the Earth’s ice-free land surface has
clusters of clouds, as we see in television weather reports. been modified by people. Only about one-fifth of the nat-
• The wet and dry seasons exert on plant growth an influ- ural systems remain untouched by humans at the begin-
ence similar to that of the winter and summer seasons in ning of the twenty-first century, largely at remote
the temperate region. Much plant growth and animal locations of the humid tropics, deserts, high mountains,
production stops during intense dry seasons in ustic soil the Arctic and Antarctica.
moisture regimes. The beginning of the rains produces an • Seminatural populated forests now cover 19 percent of
outburst of activity not unlike the arrival of spring in the the land with less than 1 percent of the people. These
temperate region. “novel” forests account for almost half of the world’s
• El Niño Southern Oscillation is an irregular low-frequency tree cover.
oscillation between a warm (El Niño) and a cold stage (La • Agricultural systems cover 52 percent of the land with 1.2
Niña) in the tropical Pacific Ocean. At about 6 south, billion people. The fact that croplands hold 25 percent of
during the months of January to May, the easterly trade the world’s tree cover indicates the importance of
winds move the cold waters of the Humboldt Current agroforestry.
westwards, gradually warming sea surfaces across the • Urban settlements from villages to cities cover 1 billion
equatorial Pacific Ocean, creating low atmospheric pres- hectares or 7 percent of the land, hosting over 80 percent
sures and high rainfall as it reaches equatorial Southeast of the world’s population. We are facing a different world
Asia. The western equatorial Pacific Ocean around Indo- from just a few decades ago. Two key issues are biodiver-
nesia becomes 30 cm higher than the eastern Pacific. sity and climate change.
• When the trade winds weaken this mountain of water Biodiversity
collapses and spreads east, bringing warmer sea surface
temperatures and rains to Peru’s coastal desert during • Biodiversity is now well recognized as a major global
public good. About 80 percent of the world’s terrestrial
Christmas. The effects are felt all over the world, to the
species occur in the tropics, mostly in the humid tropics.
point that climatologists consider that the tropics rule the
Tropical rainforests are the world’s most species-rich ter-
world climate.
restrial ecosystem, with 66 percent of the estimated
Tropical Vegetation 250 000 of the world’s plant species and 90 percent of
• Natural vegetation in the tropics is closely related to cli- the world’s insect species. The subhumid tropics probably
mate. Savannas cover 43 percent of the tropics; tropical come in as a distant second, with the East and southern
rain forests, 30 percent; deciduous and thorn forests, 22 African savannas having spectacularly large mammal and
percent; desert shrubs, 7 percent; and no vegetation, bird biodiversity.
• The number of vascular plant species ranges from • Adaptation is the ability of people and ecosystems to cope,
30 000 to 90 000 in humid tropical forests, while the usually described in terms of vulnerability. Unfortu-
subhumid savannas harbor less than 1000 vascular plant nately, the tropics is the most vulnerable region, because
species. Other natural tropical ecosystems, such as deserts, poor societies are less resilient to changes. Genetic
mangroves and semiarid ones, have much less biodiversity manipulation offers several approaches, including breed-
than tropical forests and savannas. Plant species richness ing for resistance to higher day or night temperatures.
(the number of species/unit area) increases with annual Increasing nitrogen fertilizer applications are a practical
rainfall, and also increases with decreasing latitude. Bio- way to adapt to rainfall variability.
diversity is drastically reduced when people transform • Mitigation includes the actions people can take to
these natural systems. It is now necessary to distinguish decrease global warming. The main mitigation strategies
these fragmented forests that are extremely prone to are reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere
deforestation from the “frontier forests,” those that are from soils, sequestering carbon in soils and plants, and
large, ecologically intact, relatively undisturbed and avoiding further emissions by deforestation. The theoret-
capable of supporting wide-ranging animal species, like ical annual mitigations from agriculture are actually
the South American panther. Only about 37 percent of higher than the current annual greenhouse gas emissions
tropical forests may qualify as frontier forests. from agriculture, showing a huge potential. Approxi-
• Unfortunately, biodiversity hotspots are often at the same mately 89 percent of the potential mitigations are from
location as poverty hotspots in the tropics, a set-up for reduced soil emissions of CO2; 9 percent from mitigation
major lose–lose scenarios. of CH4 emissions from wetland soils, livestock and
manures; and 2 percent from mitigation of nitrous oxide
Climate Change (N2O) emissions, mostly from soils.
• Climate change is clearly with us in the early twenty-first • Without the Green Revolution, about an additional half a
century, pretty much ending decades of skepticism by billion hectares would have to be converted from tropical
many in view of the increasingly solid scientific evidence. forests and savannas into agriculture to meet the 1995
It is also clear that the majority of changes are anthropo- levels.
genic – caused by humans – beyond natural fluctuations. • Emphasis should shift from modeling the impacts of cli-
• Global warming is the direct outcome of trapping infrared mate change toward implementing solutions to food
radiation in our atmosphere by trace concentrations of security.
heat-trapping gases. Higher air temperatures are caused
by the “greenhouse effect,” triggered by increasing trace
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The Natural Environment of The Tropics

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The Natural Environment of The Tropics

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Chapter 1

The Natural Environment of the Tropics

Fig. 1.1 The western hemisphere tropics. Heavy lines show

apparent migration to the north or south of the zenith. The

Location Months Latitude Solar radiation

In the temperate region, the annual solar radiation

Humboldt Current northwards, resulting in coastal deserts

Wet Wet Wet Jan. to May

Soil moisture regime Tropical Africa Tropical America Tropical Asia

Aridic Khartoum, Sudan Lambayeque, Peru Dadiangas, Philippines

Aquic Maun, Botswana Pantanal of Brazil Banjarmasin, Indonesia

Tropical Köppen– Humid Natural vegetation Million Percent Main soil

100∞ 40∞ BW 40∞ 80∞

- DRY CLIMATES (Bsh).

- HUMID SUBTROPICAL (Ca). Approximate scale along equator Aw

200 PPT: 130

100∞ 80∞ 40∞ 10∞ 40∞ 80∞

- SAVANNAS AND GRASSLANDS (43%)

- SEMIDECIDUOUS FORESTS & SHRUBS (22%)

adventitious sprouting episodes (Kellman and Tackaberry

Topsoil property Campo limpo Campo cerrado Cerrado Cerradão Forest

Fig. 1.16 Northern Guinea savanna in Kaduna State, Nigeria.

Fig. 1.20 Eutrophic savannas dominated by the thin-leaved

1.5.3 Semiarid Vegetation

Fig. 1.23 The Sertão, the drier part of Pernambuco state in

which distinguishes them from the continuous grass canopy

1.6.1 Tropical America weathering, most of the continent appears as worn-down

above what we have now or above pre-industrial levels? The

century. With the recommended rate 52 kg N/ha per crop

CH4 from 26 48 Nitrogen fertilizer 169 56

N2O from 4 4 Nitrogen fertilizer 100 33

Total from land- 777 2886 Residue 59 4

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