AUCTORES
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Editorial Note | DOI: https://doi.org/10.31579/2578-8825/006
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Copyright: © 2018 sanjay raina. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Received: 30 November -0001 | Accepted: 05 February 2018 | Published: 16 February 2018
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Society receives many benefits, called ecosystem services, from soils. Soils are essential for production of food, fibre, fuel and materials for shelter; additionally they provide a range of benefits that are difficult to quantify and have rarely been priced. Soil Quality is increasingly being proposed as an integrative indicator of environmental quality, food security and economic viability. Soil quality is conceptualized as the major linkage between the strategies of conservation management and achievement of major goals of sustainable agriculture. Therefore, it appears to be an ideal indicator of sustainable land management. Soil is the foundation for nearly all the land uses. It is no co-incidence that definitions of soil quality and sustainable agriculture are parallel. Agricultural practices can reduce the ability of an ecosystem to provide goods and services. For example, high applications of fertilizers and pesticides can increase nutrients and toxins in groundwater and surface waters, incurring health and water purification costs, and decreasing fishery and recreational values. Agricultural practices that degrade soil quality contribute to eutrophication of aquatic habitats and may necessitate the expense of increased fertilization, irrigation and energy to maintain productivity on degraded soils. Practices that change species composition or reduce biodiversity may also diminish goods and services, because the ability of an ecosystem to provide some services depends both on the number and type of species in the ecosystem.
Soil and environmental sustainability are also essential to human health. Depletion of natural resources and increasing competition for limited soil and water resources have been related to malnutrition and basic public health problems. Soil degradation affects food insecurity directly and indirectly. Direct effects are attributed to reduction in crop yields and decline in their nutritional values (protein content, micronutrients etc.). Indirect effects are primarily attributed to reduction in use efficiency of inputs (e.g., fertilizer, irrigation water) and additional land area required to compensate the loss of production. The loss of household income is another indirect cause with adverse impact on access to food. Other indirect effects of soil degradation are those related to pollution of soil, air, and water with severe impacts on human health. These effects are exacerbated by environmental change because the positive feedback between soil degradation and the projected global warming may also adversely impact food security. Both direct and indirect effects of climate change on food security can be positive or negative depending on the geographic location and prevalent climate. Positive effects include CO2 fertilization and increase in length of growing season among others. In contrast, negative effects include increase in respiration with the attendant decline in net primary production (NPP), and increase in incidence of pests and diseases. An important indirect effect of the projected global warming on food security is through increase in risks of soil degradation with the attendant increases in losses of water and nutrients. In addition to inadequate calorie intake, micronutrient deficiencies are an important cause of morbidity and mortality. Children are especially vulnerable to deficiency in Zn and vitamin A. Wind erosion can cause serious health problems by blowing soil particles and microbes into the air, aggravating allergies and asthma. Following large-scale deforestation, hookworm infection in Haiti increased from 0% to 12% of the population in 1990, and to 15% in 1996. Dry land salinity affecting 1.05 million hectare (Mha) in southwest Australia, and with a potential risk of spreading to 1.7 to 3.4 M ha, has severe human health implications. Three specific human health concerns of a salinized soilscape: (a) windborne dust and respiratory health, (b) altered ecology of the mosquito-borne disease, Ross River Virus, and (c) mental health consequences, have been identified. Indeed, there exists a strong link between soil health and human health.
Some of the steps to be taken for the sustainable development of agriculture may include: protection and enhancement of soil organic matter stock and soil biodiversity, as well as above ground biodiversity, reduction of soil erosion, maintenance soil structure, reduction of greenhouse gas emission from soils to optimum balance, enhancing water quality through improved soil management, reduction of soil contamination, enhancing knowledge and understanding of soils, strengthening of evidence base for policy review and development and effective coordination of all stakeholders.
The most important constituent of soil from its health point of view is organic matter which stores a huge amount of atmospheric carbon. Soil organic carbon can be improved in the soil through carbon sequestration. It is a process that refers to the removal of carbon dioxide from atmosphere and keeping it away into a long lived stable form such as wood or soil organic matter. Soil acts as an immediate sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is estimated that soil organic carbon in top 1 meter of soil is about 3/4th of earth’s terrestrial carbon. Carbon sequestration not only adds up to the quality of soil but also takes care of global warming and climatic change.
To maintain or improve the soil quality, it is must to ensure the minimum loss of organic carbon to the atmosphere through mineralization. In agriculture soils more carbon can sequestered by adopting the various recommended good management practices. The practices which enhance biomass production, add increased amount of below ground biomass to the soil, slows decomposition rates, enhances activity and species diversity of soil flora and fauna, improves soil fertility, strengthen the mechanisms of elemental recycling and take care of soil and water are the good management practices. The good management practices comprising of efficient land use, diversified cropping, conservation tillage, efficient nutrient management, afforestration / agroforestry, administered grazing, erosion control, use of cover crops and rehabilitation of degraded soil lead to more carbon sequestration.
It would be ideal if all the nutrients requirement of the crops is met through organic sources i.e. resorting to organic farming. Organic management practice result in reduced soil erosion due to improved aggregate stability, soil structure and surface protection by crop residues, composts/ manures or cover crops. It also enhances water holding capacity and aeration in soil. An efficient nutrient management of crop residues either through mulch or incorporation is a viable tool to mitigate the challenge of increase the soil organic carbon levels. This resource can be utilized as mulch at threshold level of 4 Mg mulch per hectare and incorporation depending upon the soil type, weather conditions, crop grown and physiological conditions etc. It has been observed that increasing diversity of the cultivated plants results in greater diversity of niches and resources leading to greater diversity of the soil micro flora in terms of their types, number and activities. Conservation tillage which would differ from soil to soil is beneficial for conserving organic matter. The beneficial effects of reduced tillage on soil health has been demonstrated in several studies. Various nitrogenous biofertilizers (symbiotic and asymbiotic) contribute to soil quality through enhancement of biomass as well as nitrogen resulting in the improvement of chemical and biological fertility of soils. Arbuscular Mycorrhiza is an important factor in reclamation of mine spoils, metal and tennary effluent soils by facilitating the crops to grow in such soils and thus increase the soil carbon status through biomass addition. Glomalin, a glycoprotein secreted by the extraradical hyphae of Mycorrhiza plays a significant role in production and maintenance of water stable aggregates in soil.
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