The three transects consisted of typical land use structure from the top to foot of hillslope in the study area: fallow land – cropland – woodland – orchard (T1), fallow land – shrub land – fallow land – cropland – woodland – orchard (T2) and intercropping land – woodland (T3).
Use of soil deterioration index showed that soils deteriorated moderately (−17·05%) under orchard and seriously (ranging from −29·91% to −20·32%) under fallow land, cropland and intercropping land, while soils had no deterioration (−0·74%) under shrubland and (−0·69%) grassland.
The EC stations have been established in October 2012 and January 2013 in the West African Sudanian Savanna along a gradient of changing land use (cover) characteristics (grassland, a mixture of fallow and cropland and nature reserve), close to the border between Ghana and Burkina Faso [17].
Our daily values of photosynthetically driven carbon uptake of -2.93, -3.51 and -6.78 g C m-1 d-1 for the grassland, mixture of fallow and cropland and nature reserve respectively compared well with values of -0.48, -1.8, -2.4 -3.6 and -5.9 g C m-1 d-1 obtained for some former flux measurements (Table 3).
This site represented a mixture of fallow and cropland, occasionally used for cropping.
Carbon uptake decreased in the order of the nature reserve, a mixture of fallow and cropland, and grassland.
Generally, the carbon uptake decreased in the order from nature reserve over mixture of fallow and cropland to grassland.
This study compares diurnal and seasonal estimates of CO2 fluxes from three contrasting ecosystems, a grassland, a mixture of fallow and cropland, and nature reserve in the Sudanian Savanna and relate them to water availability and land use characteristics.
Our daily values of photosynthetically driven carbon uptake of -2.93, -3.51 and -6.78 g C m-1 d-1 for the grassland, mixture of fallow and cropland and nature reserve respectively compared well with values of -0.48, -1.8, -2.4 -3.6 and -5.9 g C m-1 d-1 obtained for some former flux measurements (Table 3).
