A healthy soil acts as a dynamic living system that delivers multiple ecosystem services, such as sustaining water quality and plant productivity, controlling soil nutrient recycling decomposition, and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Soil health is closely associated with sustainable agriculture, because soil microorganism diversity and activity are the main components of soil health. Agricultural sustainability is defined as the ability of a crop production system to continuously produce food without environmental degradation. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), cyanobacteria, and beneficial nematodes enhance water use efficiency and nutrient availability to plants, phytohormones production, soil nutrient cycling, and plant resistance to environmental stresses. Farming practices have shown that organic farming and tillage improve soil health by increasing the abundance, diversity, and activity of microorganisms. Conservation tillage can potentially increase grower’s profitability by reducing inputs and labor costs as compared to conventional tillage while organic farming might add extra management costs due to high labor demands for weeding and pest control, and for fertilizer inputs (particularly N-based), which typically have less consistent uniformity and stability than synthetic fertilizers. This review will discuss the external factors controlling the abundance of rhizosphere microbiota and the impact of crop management practices on soil health and their role in sustainable crop production.

Soil Health and Sustainable Agriculture

On the development and use of farm models for policy impact assessment in the European Union – A review

There is a growing need to assess the effects of policies and global changes on both water resources and agriculture. Agricultural programming models are adequate to study this topic as their functional forms and calibration capacities make them suitable to represent real agricultural production systems and explicit the link between water and production. We present a review of the research on agricultural economic programming models that represent water demand and allocation among farming activities for different problem settings. The different types of models are discussed and particularly the integration of water into the production function so as to reflect the agronomic response of yields to varying levels of water. Uncertainty and risk integration as well as spatial and temporal scale issues are reviewed as they are determining to model results in a science support to policy perspective. A research agenda for future research in this field is provided. We review the literature on economic water programming models.They enable to assess impacts of policies and changes in constraints or costs.Flexibility in their set up makes them operational tools to support policy making.

Economic calibrated models for water allocation in agricultural production

Fertilizer standards for controlling groundwater nitrate pollution from agriculture: El Salobral-Los Llanos case study, Spain

This article attempts to shed new light on prevailing puzzles of spatial scales in multi-level, participatory governance as regards the democratic legitimacy and environmental effectiveness of governance systems. We focus on the governance re-scaling by the European Water Framework Directive, which introduced new governance scales (mandated river basin management) and demands consultation of citizens and encourages ‘active involvement’ of stakeholders. This allows to examine whether and how re-scaling through deliberate governance interventions impacts on democratic legitimacy and effective environmental policy delivery. To guide the enquiry, this article organizes existing—partly contradictory—claims on the relation of scale, democratic legitimacy, and environmental effectiveness into three clusters of mechanisms, integrating insights from multi-level governance, social-ecological systems, and public participation. We empirically examine Water Framework Directive implementation in a comparative case study of multi-level systems in the light of the suggested mechanisms. We compare two planning areas in Germany: North Rhine Westphalia and Lower Saxony. Findings suggest that the Water Framework Directive did have some impact on institutionalizing hydrological scales and participation. Local participation appears generally both more effective and legitimate than on higher levels, pointing to the need for yet more tailored multi-level governance approaches, depending on whether environmental knowledge or advocacy is sought. We find mixed results regarding the potential of participation to bridge spatial ‘misfits’ between ecological and administrative scales of governance, depending on the historical institutionalization of governance on ecological scales. Polycentricity, finally, appeared somewhat favorable in effectiveness terms with some distinct differences regarding polycentricity in planning vs. polycentricity in implementation.

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Disentangling Puzzles of Spatial Scales and Participation in Environmental Governance—The Case of Governance Re-scaling Through the European Water Framework Directive

Impact of farming on water resources: Assessing uncertainty with Monte Carlo simulations in a global change context

Assessing the cost of groundwater pollution : the case of diffuse agricultural pollution in the Upper Rhine valley aquifer

Preparing public participation at the catchment level: comparison of three methodologies applied to the Hérault river basin

Cet article s’interesse aux politiques et dispositifs de gestion du manque d’eau et des secheresses en France. La premiere partie decrit les politiques et dispositifs existants, en distinguant la gestion quantitative des volumes d'eau et la gestion par les prix ainsi que les politiques structurelles et les politiques conjoncturelles. La seconde partie discute des politiques et dispositifs envisageables en France. Cela inclut des politiques incitant aux adaptations au niveau des exploitations, une reforme de la gestion de crise et des dispositifs de tarification et d’echange de droits qui pourraient etre differencies selon les utilisateurs, l’etat de la ressource et la situation meteorologique. Ces nouveaux dispositifs sont par ailleurs compatibles avec la reforme en cours et la mise en place des organismes uniques de gestion collective (OUGC) a l’echelle locale. / This article deals with policies and management measures addressing water scarcity and droughts in France. The first part describes existing practices, differentiating between quota and pricing instruments and between structural and temporary measures. The second part discusses policies and measures that could be applied in France. It includes policies providing incitation to support farm-level adaptations, a reform of current crisis management and pricing and market measures that could be differentiated depending on the end-user, the state of the resource and the weather conditions. Moreover, these measures fit in the current policy reform and the introduction of local institutions for collective water management, called OUGC.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00827394/document

La gestion du manque d'eau structurel et des sécheresses en France

Le recensement agricole constitue un outil essentiel a la connaissance du monde agricole et au pilotage de l’action publique A partir d'une analyse des donnees et des resultats concernant l'irrigation, les auteurs nous presentent la situation actuelle en France et les principales evolutions depuis dix ans

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00826266/document

Sébastien Loubier

Papers

Impact of farming on water resources: Assessing uncertainty with Monte Carlo simulations in a global change context

Assessing the cost of groundwater pollution : the case of diffuse agricultural pollution in the Upper Rhine valley aquifer

Preparing public participation at the catchment level: comparison of three methodologies applied to the Hérault river basin

La gestion du manque d'eau structurel et des sécheresses en France

L'irrigation diminue-t-elle en France ? Premiers enseignements du recensement agricole de 2010