Optimizing Best Management Practices for Climate-Smart Agriculture: Carbon Sequestration, Resilience, and Productivity

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change poses critical challenges to agricultural sustainability by threatening soil quality, reducing productivity, and intensifying climate-related risks. To address these challenges, Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) promotes an integrated approach to enhancing agricultural productivity, resilience, and climate mitigation. At the heart of CSA lies the strategic implementation and optimization of Best Management Practices (BMPs) that support long-term soil fertility, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance farm system resilience.

This Special Issue aims to gather cutting-edge research, reviews, and case studies that evaluate and optimize BMPs for CSA across various agroecosystems and climate zones. We particularly welcome studies that assess BMPs in terms of carbon sequestration, climate resilience, and productivity outcomes, while bridging science, practice, and policy.

Scope and key topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Carbon-Focused BMPs: Practices enhancing soil organic carbon, biochar application, residue retention, and agroforestry.
• Resilience Strategies: Water-efficient farming, conservation tillage, drought-tolerant cropping systems, and integrated land management.
• Productivity-Enhancing Interventions: Nutrient management, precision agriculture, diversified crop rotations, and digital farming tools.
• Monitoring and Assessment: Use of remote sensing, life-cycle assessment, long-term field trials, or carbon and GHG modeling.
• Policy and Socioeconomic Dimensions: Adoption barriers, incentives, cost–benefit analysis, gender inclusion, and smallholder adaptation strategies.

We particularly encourage submissions that

• Quantify BMP impacts on carbon storage, GHG emissions, crop yields, or water use efficiency.
• Apply interdisciplinary or systems approaches combining field data, modeling, and socioeconomic analysis.
• Focus on context-specific solutions for vulnerable regions, such as arid zones or smallholder farming systems.
• Offer insights for policy integration and scalability of climate-smart BMPs at regional or national levels.

Dr. Yuchuan Fan
Dr. Xi Zhang
Dr. Xun Wu
Dr. Bingwei Zhong
Guest Editors

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