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 11272
Special Issue Editors
Interests: rhizosphere fertility; resource use efficiency; input quality control; environmental quality; soil remediation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: agroecosystem sustainability; carbon management; land degradation and restoration; soil ecology; climate change; soil-plant-microbes interactions
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
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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
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