Management Of Problem Soils In Arid Ecosystems

Management of Problem Soils in Arid Ecosystems examines the challenges of managing soils in arid and semiarid regions. These soils contain low organic matter, are not leached, and accumulate lime, gypsum, and/or soluble salts, requiring special management and practices. This book discusses how to identify problems, reclaim the soils, and then use them efficiently and economically. Water management and desertification in these areas are also discussed. It contains extensive references as well as 40 tables and illustrations.

Bringing together a wealth of knowledge, Environmental Management Handbook, Second Edition, gives a comprehensive overview of environmental problems, their sources, their assessment, and their solutions. Through in-depth entries and a topical table of contents, readers will quickly find answers to questions about environmental problems and their corresponding management issues. This six-volume set is a reimagining of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Environmental Management, published in 2013, and features insights from more than 400 contributors, all experts in their field. The experience, evidence, methods, and models used in studying environmental management are presented here in six stand-alone volumes, arranged along the major environmental systems. Features The first handbook that demonstrates the key processes and provisions for enhancing environmental management Addresses new and cutting-edge topics on ecosystem services, resilience, sustainability, food–energy–water nexus, socio-ecological systems, and more Provides an excellent basic knowledge on environmental systems, explains how these systems function, and offers strategies on how to best manage them Includes the most important problems and solutions facing environmental management today In this third volume, Managing Soils and Terrestrial Systems, the general concepts and processes of the geosphere with its related soil and terrestrial systems are introduced. It explains how these systems function and provides strategies on how to best manage them. It serves as an excellent resource for finding basic knowledge on the geosphere systems and includes important problems and solutions that environmental managers face today. This book practically demonstrates the key processes, methods, and models used in studying environmental management.

Extensive regions of the world have a climate which, whilst permitting development of a continuous vegetative cover, is too dry for successful annual cropping. These are the semi-arid areas where land use is based on the natural vegetation. Easily degraded and difficult to maintain, they are under increasing pressure as expanding human populations move in and endeavour to force a living from them. As a result they contain some of the worst examples of resource degradation. This book examines the problems and opportunities involved in man's use of semi-arid areas. The authors are all actively involved in research and land management in the areas discussed. Each chapter begins with a detailed, up-to-date account of the ecology of the region (its climate, soils, vegetation, fauna and main ecological characteristics). This is followed by a history of land use, problems involved in its management, a review of current research and recommended land use practices. The common features of semi-arid ecosystems are brought together in a final section.

The soil is a fundamental constituent of the Earth's system, maintaining a careful state of equilibrium within the biosphere. However, this natural balance is being increasingly disturbed by a variety of anthropogenic and natural processes, leading to the degradation of many soil environments. Soil Management provides a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to the many problems, challenges and potential solutions facing soil management in the twenty-first century. Covering a range of topics, including erosion, desertification, salinization, soil structure, carbon sequestration, acidification and chemical pollution, the book also develops a prognosis for the future of soil management in the face of growing populations and global warming. Written with the needs of students in mind, each chapter provides a broad overview of a problem, analyses approaches to its solution and concludes with references and suggestions for further reading. Soil Management will be of great value to environmental science and geography undergraduates taking soil management courses in their second or third year.

Offers various directions for both research and management.

Soil carbon sequestration can play a strategic role in controlling the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and thereby help mitigate climatic change. There are scientific opportunities to increase the capacity of soils to store carbon and remove it from circulation for longer periods of time. The vast areas of degraded and desertified lands throughout the world offer great potential for the sequestration of very large quantities of carbon. If credits are to be bought and sold for carbon storage, quick and inexpensive instruments and methods will be needed to monitor and verify that carbon is actually being added and maintained in soils. Large-scale soil carbon sequestration projects pose economic and social problems that need to be explored. This book focuses on scientific and implementation issues that need to be addressed in order to advance the discipline of carbon sequestration from theory to reality. The main issues discussed in the book are broad and cover aspects of basic science, monitoring, and implementation. The opportunity to restore productivity of degraded lands through carbon sequestration is examined in detail. This book will be of special interest to professionals in agronomy, soil science, and climatology.

This Encyclopedia of Land Use, Land Cover and Soil Sciences is a component of the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Land is one of our most precious assets. It represents space, provides food and shelter, stores and filters water, and it is a base for urban and industrial development, road construction, leisure and many other social activities. Land is, however not unlimited in extent, and even when it is physically available its use is not necessarily free, either because of natural limitations (too cold, too steep, too wet or too dry, etc.) or because of constraints of access or land tenure. This 7-volume set contains several chapters, each of size 5000-30000 words, with perspectives, applications and extensive illustrations. It carries state-of-the-art knowledge in the fields of Land Use, Land Cover and Soil Sciences and is aimed, by virtue of the several applications, at the following five major target audiences: University and College Students, Educators, Professional Practitioners, Research Personnel and Policy Analysts, Managers, and Decision Makers and NGOs.

Advances in Agronomy has the highest impact factor among serial publications in Agriculture. The Science Citation Index, 1986, reports an impact factor over 2,459 and a cited half-life over 10 years. Volume 76 contains five excellent reviews on topics of great interest to crop and soil scientists as well as others in various fields. Chapter 1 is concerned with the potential of tropical soils to sequester carbon. Topics that are covered include soil inorganic and organic pools and dynamics, loss of soil organic pools from tropical soils, and potential for C sequestration in tropical soils. Chapter 2 covers the applications of crop/soil simulation models in tropical agricultural systems. Chapter 3 deals with interorganismal signaling in suboptimum environments with emphasis on legume-rhizobia symbiosis. Chapter 4 discusses the surface chemistry and function of microbial biofilms. The authors discuss biofilm formation and matrix architecture and general features and properties. Chapter 5 deals with vegetable crop scheduling and prediction. Topics that are covered include identification of stages of growth and development and experimental approaches for developing scheduling and prediction models. Advances in Agronomy has the highest impact factor among serial publications in Agriculture. The Science Citation Index, 1986, reports an impact factor over 2,459 and a cited half-life over 10 years. Volume 76 contains five excellent reviews on topics of great interest to crop and soil scientists as well as others in various fields. Chapter 1 is concerned with the potential of tropical soils to sequester carbon. Topics that are covered include soil inorganic and organic pools and dynamics, loss of soil organic pools from tropical soils, and potential for C sequestration in tropical soils. Chapter 2 covers the applications of crop/soil simulation models in tropical agricultural systems. Chapter 3 deals with interorganismal signaling in suboptimum environments with emphasis on legume-rhizobia symbiosis. Chapter 4 discusses the surface chemistry and function of microbial biofilms. The authors discuss biofilm formation and matrix architecture and general features and properties. Chapter 5 deals with vegetable crop scheduling and prediction. Topics that are covered include identification of stages of growth and development and experimental approaches for developing scheduling and prediction models.