KERSHANSKAYA, OLGA1* and HAMLYN JONES2. 1Institute of Plant Physiology, Genetics and Bioengineering, 45 Timiryazev Str., Almaty, 480090, Kazakhstan; 2University of Dundee, Department of Biological Sciences, DD1 4HN, Dundee, UK. - Natural and agro-ecosystems management and global climate change in Central Asia.
About 300 million hectares of Central Asia cropped and rangelands are
situated in arid zones under challenges of global climate change and
increasing of desertification. Breeding strategy and rational land
using extremely need environmental background and recommen-dations on
response to increase drought. Overall aim: to determine
C-sequestration/loss in important Central Asian rangelands natural and
wheat agro-ecosystems. Environmental challenges of global climate
change have been estimated from the next points. A major driver of
climate change is the changing atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Atmospheric CO2 depends on the balance between photosynthesis and
release. The degree that the large areas of Central Asia are sinks or
sources for CO2 needs clarifying. Management strategies nec-essary to
enhance sustainability of Central Asia wheat ecosystems mean to combat
deserti-fication, rational land using and breeding. Scientific results
included integration of soil and plant components in ecosystem
studies, new 'low-cost' approaches to estimation of ecosys-tem carbon
fluxes, new modelling approaches to scaling up from single plants to
ecosys-tems. Regional impacts are consisted of new data on C-stores
and CO2 fluxes for Central Asia crop- and rangeland ecosystems,
forecasting and operational ecosystem management database across
Central Asia, establishment a Regional Research Network
Key words: ((I)Central Asia(/I), (I) mangement(/I), (I)ecosystems(/I), (I)global climate change(/I)