The Science and Practice of Soil Health for Versatile Sustainability

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2022) | Viewed by 8847

Special Issue Editors

Department of Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi 221005, India
Interests: rhizosphere fertility; resource use efficiency; input quality control; environmental quality; soil remediation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Borlaug Institute for South Asia, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Bihar, Samastipur 848125, India
Interests: agroecosystem sustainability; carbon management; land degradation and restoration; soil ecology; climate change; soil-plant-microbes interactions
Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan, Uttarakhand, Almora 263601, India
Interests: soil health management; soil microbial processes; soil nutrient management; plant- mycorrhizal symbiosis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Soil is an important natural resource that contributes to ecological functions, such as nutrient cycling, carbon storage and transformation, water regulation, chemical buffering and filtering, habitat and food for soil microbes and waste recycling, which are significant for achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition, understanding soil ecosystems is vital in tackling global climate change as soil forms the largest terrestrial C sink and it helps regulate the emission of CO2 and other gasses in the atmosphere. Despite numerous ecosystem services and function offered by soils, ~ 30% of the soils of the world’s lands are moderately to severely degraded due to unsustainable land-use practices and require suitable intervention on an urgent basis.

Soil health is the capacity of soil to function fully as an ecosystem that sustains and promotes plant and animal production and to contribute to enhance air and water quality. It is greatly influenced by soil management and land-use decisions. Land-use management practices that are necessary to optimise soil health must consider all soil functions rather than to focus only on productivity potential.

To achieve sustainable soil health management, various services provided by soils need to be conserved, maintained and promoted without any reduction in function. More specifically, sustainable soil health management includes minimising soil erosion, diversifying production systems, the application of integrated amendments (organic and chemical), the promotion of soil biodiversity and adaptation to climate change.

This Special Issue on "The Science and Practice of Soil Health for Versatile Sustainability" aims to highlight the urgency of maintaining healthy soils with in-depth studies detailing concepts, and in translating science to practice. The Special Issue welcomes research and review papers on the following topics:

Dr. Amitava Rakshit
Dr. Vijay Singh Meena
Dr. Manoj Parihar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Best practices for enhancing soil organic matter
  • Soil microbiomes and nutrient cycling
  • Innovative soil conservation practices
  • Assessment of various soil health indicator
  • GHGs emission and associated land use practices
  • Risk assessment and remediation technology for soil contaminates
  • Novel techniques for problematic or degraded land management
  • Technological options for drought resilient farming
  • Soil management for climate smart agriculture

Published Papers (2 papers)

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18 pages, 2860 KiB  
Article
Applying Analytic Hierarchy Process for Identifying Best Management Practices in Erosion Risk Areas of Northwestern Himalayas
by Nurnabi Meherul Alam, Chayna Jana, Debashis Mandal, Sunita Kumari Meena, Shashi Shekhar Shrimali, Uday Mandal, Sabyasachi Mitra and Gouranga Kar
Land 2022, 11(6), 832; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/land11060832 - 02 Jun 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1829
Abstract
Despite the growing importance of soil and water conservation and watershed development projects as an approach to rural development and natural resource management, there has been relatively little research on devising site-specific best management practice (BMP) to check the soil erosion losses within [...] Read more.
Despite the growing importance of soil and water conservation and watershed development projects as an approach to rural development and natural resource management, there has been relatively little research on devising site-specific best management practice (BMP) to check the soil erosion losses within permissible limits, especially in hilly regions. For a sustainable watershed management programme and implementation, site specific BMPs assume importance and hold the promise of making conservation planning and watershed management simpler and more effective. The study was attempted to develop a methodology to obtain BMPs, aiming to reduce the erosion losses in erosion risk areas of the northwestern Himalayas by employing Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The AHP technique was employed to prioritise the potential technologies and select the BMP suitable for a particular land area. The prioritization of technologies was performed with four criteria viz. soil erosion resistance, cost, benefit, maintenance and environment friendliness of conservation measures. The soil erosion scenario of the study area located in the northwestern Himalayas was generated with each selected measure in a SWAT model using DEM, land use maps, a soil map and climate data of the study area. Then, the resultant erosion scenario of the conservation measures was compared and used for the AHP analysis. However, other criteria were assessed based on the judgement of a group of experts as well as farmers. In this study, four conservation measures, viz. Bench Terraces (BT), Vegetative Barrier (VB), Contour Farming (CF) and Zero Tillage + Live Mulch (ZL), were considered for BMP selection. Three scenarios, viz. experts’ judgement, farmers’ opinions and combined expert and farmer opinion, were analyzed to uncover the BMP for the different zones. The result revealed that experts and farmers unanimously preferred ZL as a BMP because of its low-cost implementation value and lower maintenance requirement while significantly controlling the erosion level as well as being environment friendly. The BT was the second most preferred technology for the study area. However, BMP was recommended for different zones having high to very severe erosion (soil loss > 10 t/ha/yr). Therefore, ZL was recommended for the areas with low altitude, whereas BT was recommended for the areas having high slopes because of its high capability for erosion control in the high slopping area. The methodology will act as a useful strategy for decision makers to prioritize the technology and recommend the best management for any region after considering suitable criteria. Future work may consider more criteria for inclusion to thus recommend the technology for a region in a more realistic way. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Science and Practice of Soil Health for Versatile Sustainability)
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14 pages, 3871 KiB  
Technical Note
Direct Seeded Rice: Strategies to Improve Crop Resilience and Food Security under Adverse Climatic Conditions
by Raj K. Jat, Vijay S. Meena, Manish Kumar, Vijay S. Jakkula, Illathur R. Reddy and Avinash C. Pandey
Land 2022, 11(3), 382; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/land11030382 - 04 Mar 2022
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5437
Abstract
Direct seeded rice (DSR) systems have been considered a sustainable strategy for sustainable rice (Oryza sativa L.) production and resilience under adverse climatic conditions. Providing essential nutrition for more than 50% of the global population, there has been a significant decline in [...] Read more.
Direct seeded rice (DSR) systems have been considered a sustainable strategy for sustainable rice (Oryza sativa L.) production and resilience under adverse climatic conditions. Providing essential nutrition for more than 50% of the global population, there has been a significant decline in rice productivity due to climate change. The results suggest that an adoption of DSR options, without raising rice nursery, improved rice productivity and time saving. A rice field experiment in the kharif season of 2021 was examined to identify the best crop establishment method. A comparison study of the direct seeded rice crop establishment method and the mechanical transplanting of rice crop establishment method was investigated to improve rice productivity. The results show that significantly higher (+10%) rice productivity was registered in the DSR option compared with mechanically transplanted rice. In this case, growth attributes, effective tillers (+37%), panicle length (+8%), the number of grains per panicle (+21%), and 1000-grain weight (+2%) were significantly higher in the DSR option compared with mechanically transplanted rice. It was observed that, after the third extreme rainfall, 100% of the mechanically transplanted rice crop was lodged, compared with only 25% of the DSR option. Overall, the results suggest that an adoption of DSR options significantly improved rice productivity and rice resilience, while offering the additional benefit of advancing the seeding of succeeding crops by 15 days compared with the mechanically transplanted rice system. Our study suggests that the adoption of the DSR option would sustain food security and crop resilience under adverse climatic conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Science and Practice of Soil Health for Versatile Sustainability)
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