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Food Security and Ecosystem Services

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2021) | Viewed by 2716

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
CENSUI, IEMA, IET, Basingstoke, UK
Interests: data science; ecosystem services; environmental standards; food security
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. In agriculture, ES are poorly exploited for food security. Innovation should aim for use efficiency, a safe environment, and local adaptation, while tackling the major food security challenges in the world which remain underinvestigated. It is necessary to properly identify and address the linkages between ES and food security without overlooking co-production, trade-offs, gender, and cultural services, which are often disregarded in research.

Furthermore, local food security both affects and is affected by global food security. Developed countries must provide the means to address the negative external effects triggered by the production of its massive feed imports, as long as much of its environmental protection continues to depend on the externalization of agricultural activities.

Finally, the multi-dimensional nature of food security demands that research gives equal importance to its socio-economic and environmental aspects.

This Special Issue seeks to contribute to the ES and food security agenda through enhanced scientific and multi-disciplinary knowledge, in order to examine interactions between themes such as crop resource use efficiencies and to include all production and non-production aspects of food security and ES in future roles for integrated assessment models. To that end, we invite papers on innovative technical developments, reviews, and case studies which are relevant to these two central, critical, and impending issues which the world must currently address.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in World.

Dr. Elena Perez-Minana
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.

Keywords

  • ecosystem services
  • food security
  • food insecurity
  • smart agriculture
  • climate-smart agriculture

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 2563 KiB  
Article
Mid-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy for Estimation of Soil Properties of Alfisols from Eastern India
by Kuntal M. Hati, Nishant K. Sinha, Monoranjan Mohanty, Pramod Jha, Sunil Londhe, Andrew Sila, Erick Towett, Ranjeet S. Chaudhary, Somasundaram Jayaraman, Mounisamy Vassanda Coumar, Jyoti K. Thakur, Pradip Dey, Keith Shepherd, Pankaj Muchhala, Elvis Weullow, Muneshwar Singh, Shiv K. Dhyani, Chandrashekhar Biradar, Javed Rizvi, Ashok K. Patra and Suresh K. Chaudhariadd Show full author list remove Hide full author list
Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 4883; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14094883 - 19 Apr 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2242
Abstract
Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy is emerging as one of the most promising technologies, as it is a rapid and cost-effective alternative to routine laboratory analysis for many soil properties. This study was conducted to evaluate the potential of mid-infrared spectroscopy for the rapid and [...] Read more.
Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy is emerging as one of the most promising technologies, as it is a rapid and cost-effective alternative to routine laboratory analysis for many soil properties. This study was conducted to evaluate the potential of mid-infrared spectroscopy for the rapid and nondestructive measurement of some important soil properties of Alfisols. A total of 336 georeferenced soil samples fromthe 0–15 cm soil layer of Alfisols that were collected from the eastern Indian states of Odisha and Jharkhand were used. The partial least-squares regression (PLSR), random forest, and support vector machine regression techniques were compared for the calibration of the spectral data with the wet chemistry soil data. The PLSR-based predictive models performed better than the other two regression techniques for all the soil properties, except for the electrical conductivity (EC). Good predictions with independent validation datasets were obtained for the clay and sand percentages and for the soil organic carbon (SOC) content, while satisfactory predictions were achieved for the silt percentage and the pH value. However, the performance of the predictive models was poor in the case of the EC and the extractable nutrients, such as the available phosphorus and potassium contents of the soil. Specific regions of the MIR spectra that contributed to the prediction of the soil SOC, the pH, and the clay and sand percentages were identified. The study demonstrates the potential of the MIR spectroscopic technique in the simultaneous estimation of the SOC content, the sand, clay, and silt percentages, and the pH of Alfisols from eastern India. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Security and Ecosystem Services)
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