Soil erosion and agricultural sustainability.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Montgomery DR
PROVIDER: S-EPMC1948917 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Understanding soil erosion by water is essential for a range of research areas but the predictive skill of prognostic models has been repeatedly questioned because of scale limitations of empirical data and the high variability of soil loss across space and time scales. Improved understanding of the underlying processes and their interactions are needed to infer scaling properties of soil loss and better inform predictive methods. This study uses data from multiple environments to highlight temporal-scale dependency of soil loss: erosion variability decreases at larger scales but the reduction rate varies with environment. The reduction of variability of the geomorphic response is attributed to a 'compensation effect': temporal alternation of events that exhibit either source-limited or transport-limited regimes. The rate of reduction is related to environment stochasticity and a novel index is derived to reflect the level of variability of intra- and inter-event hydrometeorologic conditions. A higher stochasticity index implies a larger reduction of soil loss variability (enhanced predictability at the aggregated temporal scales) with respect to the mean hydrologic forcing, offering a promising indicator for estimating the degree of uncertainty of erosion assessments.
| S-EPMC4771998 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Organic farming (OF) has been believed to be capable of curtailing some hazardous effects associated with chemical farming (CF). However, debates also exist on whether OF can feed a world with increasing human population. We hypothesized that some improvements on OF may produce adequate crops and reduce environmental pollutions from CF. This paper makes comparative analysis of crop yield, soil organic matter and economic benefits within the practice on Biodiversity Management of Organic Farming (BMOF) at Hongyi Organic Farm (HOF) over eight years and between BMOF and CF. Linking crop production with livestock to maximal uses of by-products from each production and avoid xenobiotic chemicals, we have achieved beneficial improvement in soil properties, effective pest and weed control, and increased crop yields. After eight years experiment, we have obtained a gradual but stable increase in crop yields with a 9.6-fold increase of net income. The net income of HOF was 258,827 dollars and 24,423 dollars in 2014 and 2007 respectively. Thus, BMOF can not only feed more population, but also increase adaptive capacity of agriculture ecosystems and gain much higher economic benefits.
| S-EPMC4817119 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ContextSoil erosion is one of the main threats driving soil degradation across the globe with important impacts on crop yields, soil biota, biogeochemical cycles, and ultimately human nutrition.ObjectivesHere, using an empirical model, we present a global and temporally explicit assessment of soil erosion risk according to recent (2001-2013) dynamics of rainfall and vegetation cover change to identify vulnerable areas for soils and soil biodiversity.MethodsWe used an adaptation of the Universal Soil Loss Equation together with state of the art remote sensing models to create a spatially and temporally explicit global model of soil erosion and soil protection. Finally, we overlaid global maps of soil biodiversity to assess the potential vulnerability of these soil communities to soil erosion.ResultsWe show a consistent decline in soil erosion protection over time across terrestrial biomes, which resulted in a global increase of 11.7% in soil erosion rates. Notably, soil erosion risk systematically increased between 2006 and 2013 in relation to the baseline year (2001). Although vegetation cover is central to soil protection, this increase was mostly driven by changes in rainfall erosivity. Globally, soil erosion is expected not only to have an impact on the vulnerability of soil conditions but also on soil biodiversity with 6.4% (for soil macrofauna) and 7.6% (for soil fungi) of these vulnerable areas coinciding with regions with high soil biodiversity.ConclusionsOur results indicate that an increasing proportion of soils are degraded globally, affecting not only livelihoods but also potentially degrading local and regional landscapes. Similarly, many degraded regions coincide with and may have impacted high levels of soil biodiversity.
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Project description:Soil is essential for sustaining life on land. Plant roots play a crucial role in stabilising soil and minimising erosion, although these mechanisms are still not completely understood. Consequently, identifying and breeding for plant traits to enhance erosion resistance is challenging. Root hair mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana were studied using three different quantitative methods to isolate their effect on root-soil cohesion. We present compelling evidence that micro-scale interactions of root hairs with surrounding soil increase soil cohesion and reduce erosion. Arabidopsis seedlings with root hairs were more difficult to detach from soil, compost and sterile gel media than those with hairless roots, and it was 10-times harder to erode soil from roots with than without hairs. We also developed a model that can consistently predict the impact root hairs make to soil erosion resistance. Our study thus provides new insight into the mechanisms by which roots maintain soil stability.
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Project description:While soil erosion drives land degradation, the impact of erosion on soil microbial communities and multiple soil functions remains unclear. This hinders our ability to assess the true impact of erosion on soil ecosystem services and our ability to restore eroded environments. Here we examined the effect of erosion on microbial communities at two sites with contrasting soil texture and climates. Eroded plots had lower microbial network complexity, fewer microbial taxa, and fewer associations among microbial taxa, relative to non-eroded plots. Soil erosion also shifted microbial community composition, with decreased relative abundances of dominant phyla such as Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Gemmatimonadetes. In contrast, erosion led to an increase in the relative abundances of some bacterial families involved in N cycling, such as Acetobacteraceae and Beijerinckiaceae. Changes in microbiota characteristics were strongly related with erosion-induced changes in soil multifunctionality. Together, these results demonstrate that soil erosion has a significant negative impact on soil microbial diversity and functionality.
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Project description:Soil phosphorus (P) loss from agricultural systems will limit food and feed production in the future. Here, we combine spatially distributed global soil erosion estimates (only considering sheet and rill erosion by water) with spatially distributed global P content for cropland soils to assess global soil P loss. The world's soils are currently being depleted in P in spite of high chemical fertilizer input. Africa (not being able to afford the high costs of chemical fertilizer) as well as South America (due to non-efficient organic P management) and Eastern Europe (for a combination of the two previous reasons) have the highest P depletion rates. In a future world, with an assumed absolute shortage of mineral P fertilizer, agricultural soils worldwide will be depleted by between 4-19 kg ha-1 yr-1, with average losses of P due to erosion by water contributing over 50% of total P losses.
| S-EPMC7486398 | biostudies-literature
Project description:To gain a better understanding of the global application of soil erosion prediction models, we comprehensively reviewed relevant peer-reviewed research literature on soil-erosion modelling published between 1994 and 2017. We aimed to identify (i) the processes and models most frequently addressed in the literature, (ii) the regions within which models are primarily applied, (iii) the regions which remain unaddressed and why, and (iv) how frequently studies are conducted to validate/evaluate model outcomes relative to measured data. To perform this task, we combined the collective knowledge of 67 soil-erosion scientists from 25 countries. The resulting database, named 'Global Applications of Soil Erosion Modelling Tracker (GASEMT)', includes 3030 individual modelling records from 126 countries, encompassing all continents (except Antarctica). Out of the 8471 articles identified as potentially relevant, we reviewed 1697 appropriate articles and systematically evaluated and transferred 42 relevant attributes into the database. This GASEMT database provides comprehensive insights into the state-of-the-art of soil- erosion models and model applications worldwide. This database intends to support the upcoming country-based United Nations global soil-erosion assessment in addition to helping to inform soil erosion research priorities by building a foundation for future targeted, in-depth analyses. GASEMT is an open-source database available to the entire user-community to develop research, rectify errors, and make future expansions.
| S-EPMC8140410 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We present a practical method to control erosion and soil conservation for agrarian activity. The method consists of four steps: (1) analyse the erosive state (as a percentage of the area affected) and soil losses (in m3?ha-1) by means of visual indicators (physical features on the soil surface that have been formed by erosion) and analyse environmental factors (as possible erodibility factors); (2) determine the factors of erodibility; (3) calculate the erosion threshold (value of the erodibility factor beyond which effective control of erosion is achieved), by statistical analysis of the databases collected in the field; (4) verify this result by applying a qualitative assessment of erosive intensity, using visual indicators. The erosion threshold is of particular interest for practical purposes because it can be used to improve the planning of agricultural activity, from the standpoint of soil conservation, thus promoting sustainable land use. This study makes the following main contributions to knowledge in this field: •It presents a new method to address erosion control, based on determining the erosion threshold.•Appropriate environmental and management conditions for effective erosion control are identified.•The method is simple to apply, which facilitates its implementation.
| S-EPMC6090081 | biostudies-other
Project description:Making agriculture sustainable is a global challenge. In the European Union (EU), the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is failing with respect to biodiversity, climate, soil, land degradation as well as socio-economic challenges.The European Commission's proposal for a CAP post-2020 provides a scope for enhanced sustainability. However, it also allows Member States to choose low-ambition implementation pathways. It therefore remains essential to address citizens' demands for sustainable agriculture and rectify systemic weaknesses in the CAP, using the full breadth of available scientific evidence and knowledge.Concerned about current attempts to dilute the environmental ambition of the future CAP, and the lack of concrete proposals for improving the CAP in the draft of the European Green Deal, we call on the European Parliament, Council and Commission to adopt 10 urgent action points for delivering sustainable food production, biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation.Knowledge is available to help moving towards evidence-based, sustainable European agriculture that can benefit people, nature and their joint futures.The statements made in this article have the broad support of the scientific community, as expressed by above 3,600 signatories to the preprint version of this manuscript. The list can be found here (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3685632).
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Project description:The debate over whether soil erosion is a carbon (C) sink or atmospheric CO2 source remains highly controversial. For the first time, we report the magnitude of C stabilization associated with soil erosion control for an entire large river basin. The soil erosion of the Yellow River basin in northern China is among the most severe worldwide. Progressive soil conservation has been implemented by the Chinese government since the 1970s, including the largest ever revegetation programme, the Grain-for-Green Project, which began in 1999. Based on compiled hydrological records and organic carbon (OC) data, together with primary production estimates, we evaluated the sequestered OC resulting from soil conservation. Compared with that at baseline in 1950-1970, in which significant soil conservation did not occur, the fate of erosion-induced OC was substantially altered in the period from 2000-2015. Approximately 20.6 Tg of OC were effectively controlled per year by soil conservation efforts. Simultaneously, the decomposition of erosion-induced soil organic carbon (SOC) declined from 8 Tg C yr-1 to current 5.3 Tg C yr-1. The reduced C emissions (2.7 Tg C yr-1) within the Yellow River basin alone account for 12.7% of the mean C accumulation acquired via forest expansion throughout all of China previously assessed. If the accumulated C in restored plants and soils was included, then 9.7 Tg C yr-1 was reduced from the atmospheric C pool during this period, which represents a tremendous C-capturing benefit. Thus, the increased C storage obtained via soil conservation should be considered in future C inventories.
| S-EPMC6089926 | biostudies-literature