Sustainable Management of Agriculture with a Focus on Water and Soil

Dear Colleagues,

Increasing global population and unsustainable human activities to produce more food present a significant challenge for agriculture. It is estimated that by 2050, agriculture will need to produce 60 percent more food globally to meet the growing food demand. On the other hand, about one-third of the food produced is wasted throughout the supply chain, with enormous financial and environmental costs. The current agricultural production is unsustainable because of the increasing water scarcity, soil degradation, and negative impacts of climate change. Sustainability in agricultural production must be seen as a process to cope with these challenges and increasing uncertainty. Sustainability can be achieved by developing technical, policy, governance, and financial frameworks to support agricultural producers and resource managers in adopting innovations. Advances in technologies have shifted the focus from traditional agricultural production systems to intelligent agriculture. Since irrigation and drainage practices directly impact the sustainability of crop production, soil and agricultural water management is crucial in modern agriculture. Increasing competition for water from different sectors has forced the agriculture sector to reduce its share of freshwater and look for alternate water resources to meet its demand. Sustainable agricultural practices must make full use of technology, research, and development to ensure efficient utilization of soil and water resources.

This special issue will focus on new insights and advances in soil and water management for sustainable agricultural production. The goal is to provide an for better understanding of the current advances in technologies, knowledge, and approaches for sustainable use of natural resources management. This may include evidence-based planning and management, tackling the negative impacts of climate change, creating a balance between soil and water use by different sectors.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Advanced approaches to soil and water management in agriculture.
• Improving water use efficiency in agriculture.
• Managing surface water and groundwater for soil salinity control.
• Soil and water management in the marginal areas.
• Innovative solutions for Agricultural Water Management.
• Sustainable approaches for conjunctive water management for agriculture.
• Water and soil management approaches for dry regions.
• Policies and institutions to provide incentives for the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices.
• Integrated management of ecosystems and/or landscapes.
• Modeling approaches for sustainable water management
• Data-driven agriculture

Dr. Asad Sarwar Qureshi
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.