Evaluating Impact of Land Use Changes and Climate Variability on Economic Efficiency of Farming in Transboundary Watershed of Timor Island

Abstract

Indonesia and Timor-Leste development of border regions in Timor Island has brought land use changes, and when combined with climate variability it may cause flooding, drought, and impact of economic efficiency of farm crop. The research aimed to analyze: (i) the effect of land use changes and climate variability on the floods and drought on the Tono Watershed, (ii) the impact of flood, drought and production factors in yield and the economic efficiency of food crop farming. The analysis applied logit method for flood and drought. Frontier analysis to evaluate economic efficiency of farming. Logit analysis showed that the increase in the monthly rainfall and mix dryland farming, along with the decrease of forestry and paddy fields increase the flooding on Tono Watershed. The result further suggested by this analysis showed drought has caused by the increase of mix dryland farming and monthly temperature, and decrease of monthly rainfall. This led to a reduction in yield and economic efficiency of farm crops. Frontier analysis confirms the low economic efficiency of farming, whereas monoculture farming was 0.36 (affected by floods and drought) and multicrop farming was 0.30 (affected by drought) which is far from the efficiency standard ≥ 0.8.

Keywords

• land use change
• climate variability
• flood and drought
• economic efficiency of farming
• Indonesia and Timor-Leste transboundary watershed