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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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Poverty and Soil Management - Relationships From Three Honduran Watersheds
TL;DR: The relationship between the overall level of poverty and soil degradation often is a statistical artifact, resulting from a failure to disaggregate the soil management of the poor and the nonpoor, rather than a casual relationship.
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Impact des techniques culturales sans labour (TCSL) sur le bilan énergétique et le bilan des gazà effet de serre des systèmes de culture
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Book
Agrobiodiversity and Potential Use for Enhancing Soil Health in Tropical Soils of Africa
Peter Wachira,Fredrick O. Ayuke,Julius J. Okello,G.K. Mutua,D.K. Lelei,Charles K. K. Gachene,Nancy Karanja +6 more
TL;DR: In this article, Ayeuke et al. proposed a curriculum for land resource management and agricultural technology at the University of Nairobi (UNA) in Kenya, which is based on the World Agroforestry Centre (WAC).
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