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Earth Critical Zone: Influence of Anthropogenic Practices

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 3870

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
UniLaSalle, Beauvais, France
Interests: trace metal speciation; geochemical; toxicological; transport to the ocean; overall environmental impact on water quality

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue focuses on physical, chemical, and biological interactions within the critical zone, which includes aquatic (lake, streams, rivers, wetlands) and terrestrial (above and below ground) environments.

We encourage submissions that integrate processes within and between surface water, soils, hillslopes, vegetation and microbial communities, shallow and deep groundwater, and the vadose zone.

In this Special Issue, particular attention will be given to anthropogenic influence on the critical zone. Indeed, agriculture or mining could modify natural processes and understanding them would enhance our comprehension of the critical zone. It would also help us to preserve the critical zone and better sustain it.

Prof. Dr. Olivier Pourret
Guest Editor

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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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.

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

11 pages, 1280 KiB  
Article
Fertilizer Potential of Struvite as Affected by Nitrogen Form in the Rhizosphere
by Andrea Danaé Gómez-Suárez, Cécile Nobile, Michel-Pierre Faucon, Olivier Pourret and David Houben
Sustainability 2020, 12(6), 2212; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12062212 - 12 Mar 2020
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3176
Abstract
Struvite is increasingly considered a promising alternative to mined phosphorus (P) fertilizer. However, its solubility is very low under neutral to alkaline pH while it increases with acidification. Here, we investigated whether supplying ammonium to stimulate rhizosphere acidification might improve struvite solubility at [...] Read more.
Struvite is increasingly considered a promising alternative to mined phosphorus (P) fertilizer. However, its solubility is very low under neutral to alkaline pH while it increases with acidification. Here, we investigated whether supplying ammonium to stimulate rhizosphere acidification might improve struvite solubility at the vicinity of roots and, ultimately, enhance P uptake by plants. Using a RHIZOtest design, we studied changes in soil pH, P availability and P uptake by ryegrass in the rhizosphere and bulk soil supplied with either ammonium or nitrate under three P treatments: no-P, triple super phosphate and struvite. We found that supplying ammonium decreased rhizosphere pH by more than three units, which in turn increased soluble P concentrations by three times compared with nitrate treatments. However, there was no difference between P treatments, which was attributed to the increase of soluble Al concentration in the rhizosphere, which subsequently controlled P availability by precipitating it under the form of variscite-like minerals (predicted using Visual MINTEQ). Moreover, although ammonium supply increased soluble P concentration, it did not improve P uptake by plants, likely due to the absence of P deficiency. Further studies, especially in low-P soils, are thus needed to elucidate the role of nitrogen form on P uptake in the presence of struvite. More generally, our results highlight the complexity of manipulating rhizosphere processes and stress the need to consider all the components of the soil-plant system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Earth Critical Zone: Influence of Anthropogenic Practices)
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