Vegetative buffer strips benefit the environment; Hualien station hopes to prove their effectiveness
In recent years, the Council of Agriculture has promoted "green environmental payments for farmland," hoping to encourage farmers through subsidies to plant incentive crops and maintain the production environment. On the 15th, the Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station held the "Landscape Management Measures and Environmental Resilience Workshop." Hualien station assistant researcher Xu Zhongyu mentioned his work on the "Study on Using Vegetative Buffer Strips to Reduce Nitrogen and Phosphorus in Paddy Field Runoff," hoping this research will prove that "vegetative buffer strips" are beneficial for environmental maintenance, and further include vegetative buffer strips in green farmland payments to encourage farmers to establish them.
Vegetative buffer strips refer to vegetated areas located on both sides of rivers and streams, in the transition zone between land and water of lakes or reservoirs. They have functions such as slowing surface runoff and intercepting sediment. However, the plants chosen for vegetative buffer strips must take into account factors including site conditions. There is still relatively little related research on which plant species to grow. Therefore, under the Council of Agriculture's current "Green Environmental Payment Program for Farmland," vegetative buffer strips have not yet been included.
Hualien station assistant researcher Xu Zhongyu stated that during rice cultivation, if fertilizer applied is not absorbed, part of it will be adsorbed by the soil, while another part will remain in runoff. When discharged into streams or the sea, it will affect the ecology. Currently, an experiment is being conducted at a vegetative buffer strip established near the coast at the Xinshe Tribe in Hualien County, combined with a variety of aquatic plants.
As for the selection of plant species for vegetative buffers, He Zhongyu explained that the plants should have characteristics such as being suitable for dense cultivation, having a high demand for fertilizer, and being easy to manage. After discussion with local farmers, water spinach (ong choy) has temporarily been selected for the experiment, combined with aquatic plants such as water fern, watercress, Taiwan spatterdock, and lotus. It is hoped that through the experiment it can be proven that vegetative buffer strips help reduce residual fertilizer in runoff and also provide habitats for organisms, so that in the future they can be included in green environmental payments for farmland to encourage farmers to establish vegetative buffer strips.