scholarly journals Modeling Approaches to Assess Soil Erosion by Water at the Field Scale with Special Emphasis on Heterogeneity of Soils and Crops

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 422
Author(s):  
Ahsan Raza ◽  
Hella Ahrends ◽  
Muhammad Habib-Ur-Rahman ◽  
Thomas Gaiser
Keyword(s):  
Soil Erosion ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Overland Flow ◽  
Dynamic Models ◽  
Alley Cropping ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Field Scale ◽  
Soil Erosion By Water ◽  
Sedimentation Processes

Information on soil erosion and related sedimentation processes are very important for natural resource management and sustainable farming. Plenty of models are available for studying soil erosion but only a few are suitable for dynamic soil erosion assessments at the field-scale. To date, there are no field-scale dynamic models available considering complex agricultural systems for the simulation of soil erosion. We conducted a review of 51 different models evaluated based on their representation of the processes of soil erosion by water. Secondly, we consider their suitability for assessing soil erosion for more complex field designs, such as patch cropping, strip cropping and agroforestry (alley-cropping systems) and other land management practices. Several models allow daily soil erosion assessments at the sub-field scale, such as EPIC, PERFECT, GUEST, EPM, TCRP, SLEMSA, APSIM, RillGrow, WaNuLCAS, SCUAF, and CREAMS. However, further model development is needed with respect to the interaction of components, i.e., rainfall intensity, overland flow, crop cover, and their scaling limitations. A particular shortcoming of most of the existing field scale models is their one-dimensional nature. We further suggest that platforms with modular structure, such as SIMPLACE and APSIM, offer the possibility to integrate soil erosion as a separate module/component and link to GIS capabilities, and are more flexible to simulate fluxes of matter in the 2D/3D dimensions. Since models operating at daily scales often do not consider a horizontal transfer of matter, such modeling platforms can link erosion components with other environmental components to provide robust estimations of the three-dimensional fluxes and sedimentation processes occurring during soil erosion events.

Erosion and sediment transport models with reference to the needs of small scale

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahsan Raza ◽  
Thomas Gaiser ◽  
Muhammad Habib-Ur-Rahman ◽  
Hella Ahrends
Keyword(s):  
Soil Erosion ◽  
Overland Flow ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
Specific Model ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Field Scale ◽  
Erosion Prediction ◽  
Dynamic Components ◽  
Output Information

<p>Information on field scale soil erosion and related sedimentation process is very important for natural resource management and sustainable farming. Plenty of models are available for study of these processes but only a few are suitable for dynamic small scale soil erosion assessments. The available models vary greatly in terms of their input requirements, analysis capabilities, process [t1] complexities, spatial and temporal scale of their intended use, practicality, the manner they represent the processes, and the type of output information they provide. The study aims in examining, theoretically, 51 models classified as physical, conceptual, and empirical based on their representation of the processes of soil erosion. The literature review shows that there is no specific model available for soil erosion prediction under agroforestry systems.   It is further suggested that models like EPIC, PERFECT, GUEST, EPM, TCRP, SLEMSA, APSIM, RillGrow, and CREAMS can be potentially used for soil erosion assessment at plot/field scale at daily time steps. Most of these models are capable to simulate the soil erosion process at small scale; further model development is needed regarding their limitations with respect to components interaction i.e., rainfall intensity, overland flow, crop cover, and their difficulties in upscaling. The research suggested that SIMPLACE network can provide modules with LintulBiomass, HillFlow, Runoff to develop new dynamic components to simulate overland flow and soil erosion incorporating improved upscaling capabilities</p>

scholarly journals Kinerja dan Perspektif Usahatani Konservasi Alley Cropping di Indonesia

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Sri Hery Susilowati ◽  
Gelar Satya Budhi ◽  
I Wayan Rusastra
Keyword(s):  
Soil Erosion ◽  
Alley Cropping ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Soil Productivity ◽  
Soil Erosion Rate ◽  
Conservation Technology ◽  
Limited Degree ◽  
Unit Output

Alley cropping as a soil conservation technology owning certain advantages over terracing, particularly in that : a) costs are lower, b) soil productivity can be maintained, and c) it may be applied on all soil conditions. A disadvantage of alley cropping relates to the time taken for soil erosion control to become effective. However, over the longer time period, soil conversation control through alley cropping technology is more economical than that for terracing. The reviewed studies indicate that flemingia congesta is the most effective soil erosion controlling leguminous shrub,of those studied. Alley cropping is effective in maintaining land productivity. The synergic effect of soil productivity increase and soil erosion rate reduction. In some research,alley cropping systems have been shown to significantaly reduce farming costs per unit output,due to a decrease in manday (labour) use and other input reductions. In implementing alley cropping, land-holding status is one determining fector in farmers' willingness to apply the technology. That is why efforts to disseminate soil cinversation technology have often used some incentive in terms of land ownership rights for farmers. It is worthwhile to develop these incentives further, so that there is a legal certainty on cultivated land. Although alley cropping technology has currently been applied and adopted by farmers to a limited degree, there are still four main assues obstructing farmers' adoption of the tecnolog: a) small scale land-holding; b) limited capital ; c) production input availability; and d) lack of technology information

Application of Risk and Reliability in Designing Facility Site Containment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Ballard ◽  
Refaul Ferdous ◽  
Anthony Payoe ◽  
Amanda Kulhawy
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Overland Flow ◽  
Model Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reliability Modeling ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Enbridge is North America’s premier energy infrastructure company delivering the energy people need and want. Enbridge’s business value is asset intensive. With over 200 onshore liquids pipelines facility assets, operational safety and environmental protection are always top priorities. The embedment of risk management practices in business decisions is an effective way to appropriately optimize asset performance while avoiding catastrophic impacts to people and the environment. This includes understanding and managing these risk events and establishing barriers to prevent the impact. Facility site containment is an independent protection layer that mitigates the consequences of a spill. The United States Environmental Protection Agency and the National Fire Code of Canada provide requirements to contain overland flow of a spill from liquids pipelines facility assets. Although there are specific volumetric requirements for spill containment for facility tanks, there are no specific volumetric requirements for spill containment for pipeline facility assets such as pumps, valves, etc. Industry typically employs an index-based approach to determine the specific design volumes using catastrophic rupture volumes and facility location. This approach has several shortcomings, including design inadequacy, inconsistency, and challenges with scalability. A risk-based approach is appropriate in determining the required site containment volume based on oil spill history, facility assets, and environmental sensitivities. A probabilistic model can be created using historical facility oil spill data based on the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA’s) facility incident database to estimate the likelihood of a given size of release occurring. If available, company oil spill history can also be used or integrated with the PHMSA dataset. Combining the likelihood of the size of release occurring with the estimated consequence (by accounting for the volume of a release and the environmental sensitivity at the release location), it is possible to evaluate the risk of a release. This estimation of risk can then be leveraged to support facility site containment design to manage the risk to an acceptable level. By informing facility site containment with volumetric requirements using reliability and consequence models and risk management principles, an organization can prudently balance pipeline safety and capital constraints to comply with federal regulations. This paper demonstrates this approach and describes: • The value of available data and model development • Reliability modeling and consequence assessment • Risk-informed decision-making • Future model enhancements

scholarly journals Field-scale experiments reveal persistent yield gaps in low-input and organic cropping systems

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (5) ◽  
pp. 926-931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra N. Kravchenko ◽  
Sieglinde S. Snapp ◽  
G. Philip Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Production System ◽  
System Performance ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Block Design ◽  
Field Scale ◽  
Conventional Management ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
Yield Gaps

Knowledge of production-system performance is largely based on observations at the experimental plot scale. Although yield gaps between plot-scale and field-scale research are widely acknowledged, their extent and persistence have not been experimentally examined in a systematic manner. At a site in southwest Michigan, we conducted a 6-y experiment to test the accuracy with which plot-scale crop-yield results can inform field-scale conclusions. We compared conventional versus alternative, that is, reduced-input and biologically based–organic, management practices for a corn–soybean–wheat rotation in a randomized complete block-design experiment, using 27 commercial-size agricultural fields. Nearby plot-scale experiments (0.02-ha to 1.0-ha plots) provided a comparison of plot versus field performance. We found that plot-scale yields well matched field-scale yields for conventional management but not for alternative systems. For all three crops, at the plot scale, reduced-input and conventional managements produced similar yields; at the field scale, reduced-input yields were lower than conventional. For soybeans at the plot scale, biological and conventional managements produced similar yields; at the field scale, biological yielded less than conventional. For corn, biological management produced lower yields than conventional in both plot- and field-scale experiments. Wheat yields appeared to be less affected by the experimental scale than corn and soybean. Conventional management was more resilient to field-scale challenges than alternative practices, which were more dependent on timely management interventions; in particular, mechanical weed control. Results underscore the need for much wider adoption of field-scale experimentation when assessing new technologies and production-system performance, especially as related to closing yield gaps in organic farming and in low-resourced systems typical of much of the developing world.

Organic grain cropping systems to enhance ecosystem services

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel A. Cavigelli ◽  
Steven B. Mirsky ◽  
John R. Teasdale ◽  
John T. Spargo ◽  
John Doran
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Soil Erosion ◽  
Cover Crops ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Agricultural Research ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Animal Manure ◽  
Crop Rotations ◽  
Animal Manures ◽  
Organic Systems

AbstractOrganic grain cropping systems can enhance a number of ecosystem services compared with conventional tilled (CT) systems. Recent results from a limited number of long-term agricultural research (LTAR) studies suggest that organic grain cropping systems can also increase several ecosystem services relative to conventional no-till (NT) cropping systems: soil C sequestration and soil N fertility (N mineralization potential) can be greater while global warming potential (GWP) can be lower in organic systems that use animal manures and cover crops compared with conventional NT systems. However, soil erosion from organic systems and nitrous oxide (N2O, a greenhouse gas) emissions from manure-based organic systems appear to be greater than from conventional NT systems, though data are limited. Also, crop yields, on average, continue to be lower and labor requirements greater in organic than in both tilled and NT conventional systems. Ecosystem services provided by organic systems may be improved by expanding crop rotations to include greater crop phenological diversity, improving nutrient management, and reducing tillage intensity and frequency. More diverse crop rotations, especially those that include perennial forages, can reduce weed pressure, economic risk, soil erosion, N2O emissions, animal manure inputs, and soil P loading, while increasing grain yield and soil fertility. Side-dressing animal manures in organic systems may increase corn nitrogen use efficiency and also minimize animal manure inputs. Management practices that reduce tillage frequency and intensity in organic systems are being developed to reduce soil erosion and labor and energy needs. On-going research promises to further augment ecosystem services provided by organic grain cropping systems.

Nitrate Leaching to a Shallow Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain Aquifer as Influenced by Conventional No-Till and Low-Input Sustainable Grain Production Systems

1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (3-5) ◽  
pp. 691-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Craig ◽  
R. R. Weil
Keyword(s):  
Management Practices ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Cropping System ◽  
Atlantic Coastal Plain ◽  
Grain Production ◽  
Nitrogen And Phosphorus ◽  
Mineral N ◽  
Low Input ◽  
No Till

In December, 1987, the states in the Chesapeake Bay region, along with the federal government, signed an agreement which called for a 40% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus loadings to the Bay by the year 2000. To accomplish this goal, major reductions in nutrient loadings associated with agricultural management practices were deemed necessary. The objective of this study was to determine if reducing fertilizer inputs to the NT system would result in a reduction in nitrogen contamination of groundwater. In this study, groundwater, soil, and percolate samples were collected from two cropping systems. The first system was a conventional no-till (NT) grain production system with a two-year rotation of corn/winter wheat/double crop soybean. The second system, denoted low-input sustainable agriculture (LISA), produced the same crops using a winter legume and relay-cropped soybeans into standing wheat to reduce nitrogen and herbicide inputs. Nitrate-nitrogen concentrations in groundwater were significantly lower under the LISA system. Over 80% of the NT groundwater samples had NO3-N concentrations greater than 10 mgl-1, compared to only 4% for the LISA cropping system. Significantly lower soil mineral N to a depth of 180 cm was also observed. The NT soil had nearly twice as much mineral N present in the 90-180 cm portion than the LISA cropping system.

Corrigendum to: Conservation agriculture effects on soil properties and crop productivity in a semiarid region of India

Soil Research ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 200 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Somasundaram ◽  
M. Salikram ◽  
N. K. Sinha ◽  
M. Mohanty ◽  
R. S. Chaudhary ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Properties ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Soil Layer ◽  
Conservation Agriculture ◽  
Semiarid Region ◽  
Reduced Tillage ◽  
Organic C ◽  
Residue Retention

Conservation agriculture (CA) including reduced or no-tillage and crop residue retention, is known to be a self–sustainable system as well as an alternative to residue burning. The present study evaluated the effect of reduced tillage coupled with residue retention under different cropping systems on soil properties and crop yields in a Vertisol of a semiarid region of central India. Two tillage systems – conventional tillage (CT) with residue removed, and reduced tillage (RT) with residue retained – and six major cropping systems of this region were examined after 3 years of experimentation. Results demonstrated that soil moisture content, mean weight diameter, percent water stable aggregates (>0.25mm) for the 0–15cm soil layer were significantly (Pmoderately labile>less labile. At the 0–15cm depth, the contributions of moderately labile, less labile and non-labile C fractions to total organic C were 39.3%, 10.3% and 50.4% respectively in RT and corresponding values for CT were 38.9%, 11.7% and 49.4%. Significant differences in different C fractions were observed between RT and CT. Soil microbial biomass C concentration was significantly higher in RT than CT at 0–15cm depth. The maize–chickpea cropping system had significantly (P–1 followed by soybean+pigeon pea (2:1) intercropping (3.50 t ha–1) and soybean–wheat cropping systems (2.97 t ha–1). Thus, CA practices could be sustainable management practices for improving soil health and crop yields of rainfed Vertisols in these semiarid regions.

scholarly journals Effect of Forest Management Operations on Aggregate-Associated SOC Dynamics Using a 137Cs Tracing Method

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 859
Author(s):  
Geng Guo ◽  
Xiao Li ◽  
Xi Zhu ◽  
Yanyin Xu ◽  
Qiao Dai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Soil Erosion ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Dynamic Change ◽  
Aggregate Size ◽  
Nutrient Loss ◽  
Vegetation Coverage ◽  
Forest Conversion ◽  
Mountain Areas

Although forest conversions have long been a focus in carbon (C) research, the relationship between soil erosion and the dynamic change of soil organic carbon (SOC) has not been well-quantified. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of converting CBF (coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forests) to economic forests, including CF (chestnut forest), HF (hawthorn forest), and AF (apple forest), on the soil structure and nutrient loss in the Huaibei Rocky Mountain Areas, China. A 137Cs tracer method was used to provide soil erosion data in order to quantify the loss of aggregate-associated SOC. The results showed that forest management operations caused macro-aggregates to decrease by 1.69% in CF, 4.52% in AF, and 3.87% in HF. Therefore, the stability of aggregates was reduced. The SOC contents in each aggregate size decreased significantly after forest conversion, with the largest decreases occurring in AF. We quantified the loss of 0.15, 0.38, and 0.31 Mg hm−2 of aggregate-associated SOC after conversion from CBF to CF, AF, and HF, respectively. These results suggest that forest management operations have a negative impact on soil quality and fertility. CF has better vegetation coverage and less human interference, making it more prominent among the three economic forests species. Therefore, when developing forest management operations, judicious selection of tree varieties and appropriate management practices are extremely critical. In addition, measures should be taken to increase surface cover to reduce soil erosion and achieve sustainable development of economic forests.

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