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
Soil quality indices as affected by long-term burning, irrigation, tillage, and fertility management
Helen C. S. Amorim,Amanda J. Ashworth,Kristofor R. Brye,Brian J. Wienhold,Mary C. Savin,Phillip R. Owens,Sérgio Henrique Godinho Silva +6 more
Journal ArticleDOI
Organic amendments, deficit irrigation, and microbial communities impact extracellular polysaccharide content in agricultural soils
TL;DR: In this paper, the long-term confounding impacts of organic amendments and deficit irrigation on soil extracellular polysaccharides (EPSac) and the underlying microbial communities were examined.
Journal ArticleDOI
Impacts to soil properties still evident 27 years after abandonment in Amazonian log landings
Daniel DeArmond,João Baptista Silva Ferraz,Lenon Henrique Lovera,Cacilda Adélia Sampaio de Souza,Gustavo Spanner,Adriano José Nogueira Lima,Joaquim dos Santos,Niro Higuchi +7 more
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors evaluated the soil properties of log landings in Central Amazonia and found that the soil physical properties, such as soil bulk density, penetration resistance, and fine root biomass, had not returned to a similar state of the adjacent old-growth forest soils.
Journal ArticleDOI
First-year cover crop effects on the physical and hydraulic properties of the surface layer in a loamy soil
Rafael Villarreal,Luis Alberto Lozano,Esteban M. Melani,Nicolás Guillermo Polich,María Paz Salazar,Guido Lautaro Bellora,C. Germán Soracco +6 more
TL;DR: In this article, the first year after the incorporation of cover crop (cover fallow of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and vetch (Vicia sp. L.), as compared with bare fallow (BF) under no-tillage (NT) management in a field experiment located in the Argentinean Depressed Pampas Region.
Journal ArticleDOI
Geospatial distribution of soil organic carbon and soil pH within the cocoa agroecological zones of Ghana
A. K. Quaye,Eric Kofi Doe,E.M. Attua,Gerald A. B. Yiran,Alfred Arthur,J. A. Dogbatse,Sampson Konlan,Yaw Dankwa Nkroma,Divine Addo +8 more
TL;DR: In this article, the spatial distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil pH in Ghanaian cocoa farms was analyzed using classical and geospatial statistical methods, and the spatial pattern (clustering) of SOC and pH and predicted their spatial continuity from observed and unobserved locations.
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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