Restoring Soil Quality to Mitigate Soil Degradation
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TLDR
In this paper, the authors proposed a strategy to minimize soil erosion, create positive organic carbon (SOC) and N budgets, enhance activity and species diversity of soil biota (micro, meso, and macro), and improve structural stability and pore geometry.Abstract:
Feeding the world population, 7.3 billion in 2015 and projected to increase to 9.5 billion by 2050, necessitates an increase in agricultural production of ~70% between 2005 and 2050. Soil degradation, characterized by decline in quality and decrease in ecosystem goods and services, is a major constraint to achieving the required increase in agricultural production. Soil is a non-renewable resource on human time scales with its vulnerability to degradation depending on complex interactions between processes, factors and causes occurring at a range of spatial and temporal scales. Among the major soil degradation processes are accelerated erosion, depletion of the soil organic carbon (SOC) pool and loss in biodiversity, loss of soil fertility and elemental imbalance, acidification and salinization. Soil degradation trends can be reversed by conversion to a restorative land use and adoption of recommended management practices. The strategy is to minimize soil erosion, create positive SOC and N budgets, enhance activity and species diversity of soil biota (micro, meso, and macro), and improve structural stability and pore geometry. Improving soil quality (i.e., increasing SOC pool, improving soil structure, enhancing soil fertility) can reduce risks of soil degradation (physical, chemical, biological and ecological) while improving the environment. Increasing the SOC pool to above the critical level (10 to 15 g/kg) is essential to set-in-motion the restorative trends. Site-specific techniques of restoring soil quality include conservation agriculture, integrated nutrient management, continuous vegetative cover such as residue mulch and cover cropping, and controlled grazing at appropriate stocking rates. The strategy is to produce “more from less” by reducing losses and increasing soil, water, and nutrient use efficiency.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Effects of zeolite and organic fertilizers on soil quality and yield of sugarcane
Pedro Cairo Cairo,Joaquín Machado de Armas,Pedro Torres Artiles,Bladimir Díaz Martín,Rafael Jiménez Carrazana,Oralia Rodríguez López +5 more
TL;DR: Relations between soil properties and principal component analysis confirmed the good response of zeolite application on soil quality and sugarcane yield.
Journal ArticleDOI
Knowledge and management of soil fertility by farmers in western Cameroon
TL;DR: In this article, a study was conducted to assess farmers' perceptions of soil fertility, identify major soil fertility management (SFM) practices and evaluate the effects of dominant SFM practices on soil quality.
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Reframing human excreta management as part of food and farming systems.
TL;DR: This paper argues that framing human excreta management as a resource recovery challenge within waste management obscures important trade-offs and finds that such a reframing would accentuate six aspects of critical importance that are currently largely overlooked.
Journal ArticleDOI
Short‐term Impacts on Soil‐quality Assessment in Alternative Land Uses of Traditional Paddy Fields in Southern Brazil
Amanda Posselt Martins,Luiz Gustavo de Oliveira Denardin,José Bernardo Moraes Borin,Filipe Selau Carlos,Filipe Selau Carlos,Thiago Henrique Bragato Barros,Dânia Vieira Branco Ozorio,Felipe de Campos Carmona,Ibanor Anghinoni,Flávio Anastácio de Oliveira Camargo,Paulo César de Faccio Carvalho +10 more
TL;DR: In this paper, a study aimed to evaluate soil-quality impacts by measuring carbon and nitrogen stocks and microbial activity 18 months after the adoption of different paddy-farming systems in an Albaqualf soil of Southern Brazil.
Journal ArticleDOI
Have farmers had enough of experts
Niki A. Rust,Petra Stankovics,Rebecca M. Jarvis,Zara Morris-Trainor,Jasper R. de Vries,Julie Ingram,Jane Mills,Jenny Anne Glikman,Joy Parkinson,Zoltán Tóth,Regina Hansda,Rob McMorran,Jayne Glass,Mark Reed +13 more
TL;DR: This paper found that farmers in two contrasting European countries (Hungary and the UK) regularly used online sources to access soil information; some were prompted to change their soil management by farmer social media influencers.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security.
TL;DR: In this article, the carbon sink capacity of the world’s agricultural and degraded soils is 50 to 66% of the historic carbon loss of 42 to 78 gigatons of carbon.
Journal ArticleDOI
Organic matter and water-stable aggregates in soils
Judith. Tisdall,J.M. Oades +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the effectiveness of various binding agents at different stages in the structural organization of aggregates is described and forms the basis of a model which illustrates the architecture of an aggregate.
Journal ArticleDOI
Environmental and Economic Costs of Soil Erosion and Conservation Benefits
David Pimentel,Celia A. Harvey,P. Resosudarmo,K. Sinclair,D. Kurz,M. McNair,S. Crist,L. Shpritz,L. Fitton,R. Saffouri,R. Blair +10 more
TL;DR: With the addition of a quarter of a million people each day, the world population's food demand is increasing at a time when per capita food productivity is beginning to decline.
Journal ArticleDOI
Soil Quality: A Concept, Definition, and Framework for Evaluation (A Guest Editorial)
Douglas L. Karlen,Maurice J. Mausbach,John W. Doran,R. G. Cline,R. F. Harris,Gerald E. Schuman +5 more
TL;DR: The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Ad Hoc Committee on Soil Quality (S-581) as mentioned in this paper defined soil quality as "the capacity (of soil) to function".
Journal ArticleDOI
持続可能性(Sustainability)の要件
TL;DR: The Bachelor of Science in Sustainability as discussed by the authors provides the broad fundamental knowledge, skills and competencies needed to drive sustainable outcomes that address today's urgent environmental, economic and social challenges.
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