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Healthy soil, with active soil life, deters long-term soil degradation and ensures that geo-physical processes are undisturbed. Is the vitality of soil under threat due to human civilization? Or is it due to contamination, intensification, and deforestation? Vital Soil aims to look at the effects society is having on soil and contains contributions from recognized experts in soil science. * Function and value of vital soils * Detailed information on how to prevent soil from irreversible stresses * Articles on soil life aiming to bridge the gap between science and practice from experienced and well known contributors
In Colombia, decades of social and armed conflict and the US-led war on drugs have created a seemingly untenable situation for scientists and rural communities as they attempt to care for forests and grow non-illicit crops. In Vital Decomposition Kristina M. Lyons presents an ethnography of human-soil relations. She follows state soil scientists and peasants across labs, greenhouses, forests, and farms and attends to the struggles and collaborations between farmers, agrarian movements, state officials, and scientists over the meanings of peace, productivity, rural development, and sustainability in Colombia. In particular, Lyons examines the practices and philosophies of rural farmers who value the decomposing layers of leaves, which make the soils that sustain life in the Amazon, and shows how the study and stewardship of the soil point to alternative frameworks for living and dying. In outlining the life-making processes that compose and decompose into soil, Lyons theorizes how life can thrive in the face of the violence, criminalization, and poisoning produced by militarized, growth-oriented development.
This multi-contributor, international volume synthesizes contributions from the world's leading soil scientists and ecologists, describing cutting-edge research that provides a basis for the maintenance of soil health and sustainability. The book covers these advances from a unique perspective of examining the ecosystem services produced by soil biota across different scales - from biotic interactions at microscales to communities functioning at regional and global scales. The book leads the user towards an understanding of how the sustainability of soils, biodiversity, and ecosystem services can be maintained and how humans, other animals, and ecosystems are dependent on living soils and ecosystem services. This is a valuable reference book for academic libraries and professional ecologists worldwide as a statement of progress in the broad field of soil ecology. It will also be of interest to both upper level undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in soil ecology, as well as academic researchers and professionals in the field requiring an authoritative, balanced, and up-to-date overview of this fast expanding topic.
Discusses the properties of soil, how it is formed, and why it is vital to survival on earth.
This book brings together the essential evidence and policy opportunities regarding the global importance of soil carbon for sustaining Earth's life support system for humanity. Covering the science and policy background for this important natural resource, it describes land management options that improve soil carbon status and therefore increase the benefits that humans derive from the environment. Written by renowned global experts, it is the principal output from a SCOPE rapid assessment process project.
This book focuses on drylands such as arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas where they form the main part of ecosystems, e.g., in Iran, but also around the world. Mismanagement and improper exploitation of these areas lead to more degradation day by day. Besides an introduction to the role and importance of vegetation cover in conserving soil against wind and water erosion, this book gives a scope of appropriate techniques and methods for vegetation establishment and maintenance, indicators for suitable plants selection for soil conservation, and soil erosion prevention and combat. It provides methods of soil erosion prevention and combating through the application of plants, using bioengineering systems for soil erosion control and the role of agroforestry in soil erosion prevention. This book can be helpful to those with an interest in countries with similar climates to Iran. In particular, this includes Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Climate is a soil-forming factor and soil can mitigate climate change through a reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases and sequestration of atmospheric CO2. Thus, there is a growing interest in soil management practices capable of mitigating climate change and enhancing environmental quality. Soil and Climate addresses global issues through soil management and outlines strategies for advancing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This volume in the Advances in Soil Science series is specifically devoted to describe state-of-the-knowledge regarding the climate–soil nexus in relation to: Soil Processes: weathering, decomposition of organic matter, erosion, leaching, salinization, biochemical, transformations, gaseous flux, and elemental cycling, Soil Properties: physical, chemical, biological, and ecological, Atmospheric Chemistry: gaseous concentrations of (CO2, CH4, N2O), water vapors, soot, dust, and particulate matter, Mitigation and Adaptation: source and sink of GHGs (CO2, CH4, N2O), land use and soil management, soil C sink capacity, permafrost, Soil Management: sequestration of organic and inorganic C, nutrient requirements, water demands, coupled cycling of H2O, N, P, S, and Policy and Outreach: carbon farming, payments for ecosystem services, COP21, SDGs, land degradation neutrality Special topics on soil as a source or sink of CO2, silicate weathering and carbon sequestration, nutrients required for carbon sequestration, physical protection and the mean resident time, and predicting soil carbon stocks are discussed in detail throughout the book.
The book focuses in detail on learning and adapting through partnerships between managers, scientists, and other stakeholders who learn together how to create and maintain sustainable resource systems. As natural areas shrink and fragment, our ability to sustain economic growth and safeguard biological diversity and ecological integrity is increasingly being put to the test. In attempting to meet this unprecedented challenge, adaptive management is becoming a viable alternative for broader application. Adaptive management is an iterative decision-making process which is both operationally and conceptually simple and which incorporates users to acknowledge and account for uncertainty, and sustain an operating environment that promotes its reduction through careful planning, evaluation, and learning until the desired results are achieved. This multifaceted approach requires clearly defined management objectives to guide decisions about what actions to take, and explicit assumptions about expected outcomes to compare against actual outcomes. In this edited book, we address the issue by pursuing a holistic and systematic approach that utilizes natural resources to reap sustainable environmental, economic and social benefits for adaptive management, helping to ensure that relationships between land, water and plants are managed in ways that mimic nature.