Restoring Soil Quality to Mitigate Soil Degradation
Reads0
Chats0
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
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Which practices co‐deliver food security, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and combat land degradation and desertification?
Pete Smith,Katherine Calvin,Johnson Nkem,Donovan Campbell,Francesco Cherubini,Giacomo Grassi,Vladimir Korotkov,Anh Le Hoang,Shuaib Lwasa,Pamela McElwee,Ephraim Nkonya,Nobuko Saigusa,Jean-François Soussana,Miguel Angel Taboada,Frances Manning,Dorothy Kalule Nampanzira,Cristina Arias-Navarro,Matteo Vizzarri,Jo House,Stephanie Roe,Annette Cowie,Mark Rounsevell,Mark Rounsevell,Almut Arneth +23 more
TL;DR: A number of practices, such as increased food productivity, dietary change and reduced food loss and waste, can reduce demand for land conversion, thereby potentially freeing‐up land and creating opportunities for enhanced implementation of other practices, making them important components of portfolios of practices to address the combined land challenges.
Journal ArticleDOI
Urban soil and human health: a review
TL;DR: In this article, a systematic review of the relations between urban soil and human health is provided, which summarizes the organic and inorganic pollutants in urban soil, and their potential risks to human health.
Journal ArticleDOI
The role of constructed wetlands in a new circular economy, resource oriented, and ecosystem services paradigm.
TL;DR: The paper gives an overview on how the conventional wastewater treatment scheme should move towards more sustainable water and biogeochemical cycles following the new resource-oriented, circular economy and ecosystem service views.
Journal ArticleDOI
Legislation for the Reuse of Biosolids on Agricultural Land in Europe: Overview
Maria Cristina Collivignarelli,Alessandro Abbà,Andrea Frattarola,Marco Carnevale Miino,Sergio Padovani,Ioannis A. Katsoyiannis,Vincenzo Torretta +6 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the different approaches provided by European Member States for the reuse of biosolids in agricultural soils, focusing on the regulation of countries that reuse a significant amount of bio-solids for land application.
Journal ArticleDOI
Changes in soil nutrient availability explain biochar’s impact on wheat root development
TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluated the impact of biochar and fertilizer addition on root development and morphology, and found that biochar addition at high rates increased the specific root length and decreased both root diameter and root mass density, indicating a fine root proliferation, regardless of the fertilization level.
References
More filters
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.
Related Papers (5)
An Examination of the Degtjareff Method for Determining Soil Organic Matter, and a Proposed Modification of the Chromic Acid Titration Method
A Walkley,I A Black +1 more
Solutions for a cultivated planet
Jonathan A. Foley,Navin Ramankutty,Kate A. Brauman,E. S. Cassidy,James S. Gerber,M. Johnston,Nathaniel D. Mueller,Christine S. O’Connell,Deepak K. Ray,Paul C. West,Christian Balzer,Elena M. Bennett,Stephen R. Carpenter,Jason Hill,Chad Monfreda,Stephen Polasky,Johan Rockström,John Sheehan,Stefan Siebert,David Tilman,David P. M. Zaks +20 more