scholarly journals Assessing the Role of Phosphorus as a Macropollutant in Four Typical Mediterranean Basin Soils

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 10973
Author(s):  
José Telo da Telo da Gama ◽  
Luis Loures ◽  
António Lopez-Piñeiro ◽  
José Rato Nunes
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Available Phosphorus ◽  
Soil Productivity ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressures ◽  
The Face ◽  
Soil Groups

Available phosphorus (AP) is a key macropollutant predictor of ecosystem services as well as a crucial indicator of soil productivity. Long-term applications of this macronutrient and its implications on sustainability in the face of peak phosphorus harvest have raised some concerns in recent years. This study aimed to characterise the edaphic AP in nearly 15,000 ha of the Mediterranean basin, an agricultural study area whose intensification is increasing with time. Four typical Mediterranean reference soil groups (RSG)—Calcisols, Luvisols, Fluvisols and Cambisols—were analysed and compared for their AP in two different agricultural settings—rain-fed and irrigation—from 2002 to 2012, where 1417 and 1451 topsoil samples were taken, respectively. AP increased from 2002 to 2012 in the irrigated Luvisols (p < = 0.05), Fluvisols (p < = 0.01) and Cambisols (p < = 0.05), while irrigated Calcisols maintained its concentrations (p > 0.05) over time. For rain-fed soils, the AP did not reveal significant differences in time for all RSG (p > 0.05). Additionally, irrigated Fluvisols and Cambisols presented 9% (p < = 0.01) and 68% (p < = 0.01) higher AP concentrations, respectively, than the corresponding rain-fed RSGs in 2012. We provide predictive maps for both 2002 and 2012. These results suggest that this area is departing from the sustainable goals of ecosystem services equilibrium; proper management practices that counteract the anthropogenic pressures in the area should be adopted.

Economic valuation and the commodification of ecosystem services

2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 613-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Gómez-Baggethun ◽  
Manuel Ruiz-Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Economic Valuation ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Valuation Of Ecosystem Services ◽  
Equity Of Access ◽  
The Way

In the last decade a growing number of environmental scientists have advocated economic valuation of ecosystem services as a pragmatic short-term strategy to communicate the value of biodiversity in a language that reflects dominant political and economic views. This paper revisits the controversy on economic valuation of ecosystem services in the light of two aspects that are often neglected in ongoing debates. First, the role of the particular institutional setup in which environmental policy and governance is currently embedded in shaping valuation outcomes. Second, the broader economic and sociopolitical processes that have governed the expansion of pricing into previously non-marketed areas of the environment. Our analysis suggests that within the institutional setup and broader sociopolitical processes that have become prominent since the late 1980s economic valuation is likely to pave the way for the commodification of ecosystem services with potentially counterproductive effects in the long term for biodiversity conservation and equity of access to ecosystem services benefits.

scholarly journals Crop Yield and Soil Fertility Status of Long-Term Rice-Rice-Wheat Cropping Systems

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-50
Author(s):  
Nabin Rawal ◽  
Rajan Ghimire ◽  
Devraj Chalise
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Oryza Sativa L ◽  
Farmyard Manure ◽  
Wheat Yield ◽  
Nutrient Supply ◽  
Available Phosphorus

Balanced nutrient supply is important for the sustainable crop production. We evaluated the effects of nutrient management practices on soil properties and crop yields in rice (Oryza sativa L.) - rice - wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) system in a long-term experiment established at National Wheat Research Program (NWRP), Bhairahawa, Nepal. The experiment was designed as a randomized complete block experiment with nine treatments and three replications. Treatments were applied as: T1- no nutrients added, T2- N added; T3- N and P added; T4- N and K added; T5- NPK added at recommended rate for all crops. Similarly, T6- only N added in rice and NPK in wheat at recommended rate; T7- half N; T8- half NP of recommended rate for both crops; and T9- farmyard manure (FYM) @10 Mg ha-1 for all crops in rotation. Results of the study revealed that rice and wheat yields were significantly greater under FYM than all other treatments. Treatments that did not receive P (T2, T3, T7, T8) and K (T2, T4) had considerably low wheat yield than treatments that received NPK (T5) and FYM (T9). The FYM lowered soil pH and improved soil organic matter (SOM), total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (P), and exchangeable potassium (K) contents than other treatments. Management practices that ensure nutrient supply can increase crop yield and improve soil fertility status.Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 5(1): 42-50

Planning or Improvisation

2020 ◽  
pp. 116-120
Author(s):  
Alasdair Roberts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Governance Strategies ◽  
The Face ◽  
Imperfect Knowledge

This chapter assesses the role of planning in the design of governance strategies. Enthusiasm for large-scale planning—also known as overall, comprehensive, long-term, economic, or social planning—boomed and collapsed in twentieth century. At the start of that century, progressive reformers seized on planning as the remedy for the United States' social and economic woes. By the end of the twentieth century, enthusiasm for large-scale planning had collapsed. Plans could be made, but they were unlikely to be obeyed, and even if they were obeyed, they were unlikely to work as predicted. The chapter then explains that leaders should make plans while being realistic about the limits of planning. It is necessary to exercise foresight, set priorities, and design policies that seem likely to accomplish those priorities. Simply by doing this, leaders encourage coordination among individuals and businesses, through conversation about goals and tactics. Neither is imperfect knowledge a total barrier to planning. There is no “law” of unintended consequences: it is not inevitable that government actions will produce entirely unexpected results. The more appropriate stance is modesty about what is known and what can be achieved. Plans that launch big schemes on brittle assumptions are more likely to fail. Plans that proceed more tentatively, that allow room for testing, learning, and adjustment, are less likely to collapse in the face of unexpected results.

Ontario, Canada’s LTSP Experience: Forging Lasting Research Partnerships and the Adaptive Management Cycle in Action

2020 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-351
Author(s):  
Dave M Morris ◽  
Rob L Fleming ◽  
Paul W Hazlett
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Forest Policy ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Soil Productivity ◽  
Research Partnerships ◽  
Foliar Nutrition ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
The North

Abstract In this paper, we summarize Ontario’s Long-term Soil Productivity (LTSP) experience focusing on our efforts to forge lasting research partnerships, highlight the approaches we feel were effective in getting emerging science into forest policy within an adaptive management (AM) framework, and describe the future direction of Ontario’s LTSP program as new policy issues are emerging as part of the continuous AM cycle. Fourteen installations were established on nutrient-poor, conifer-dominated sites, considered to be the most sensitive to increased biomass removals. From 1993 to 1995, all sites were clearcut-harvested, with replicated (three reps per site) biomass removal treatments that included: stem only, full-tree, and full-tree + forest floor removal. Routine (every 5 years) measurements have been carried out to track changes in soil carbon and nutrient levels, as well as stand- and individual-tree growth and development metrics and foliar nutrition. The published results from Ontario’s LTSP program, in combination with the North American-wide LTSP synthesis outputs, have suggested that these nutrient-poor, conifer-dominated sites are less sensitive to biomass (nutrient) removals than previously thought. The evidence provided through peer-reviewed publications, conference and workshop presentations, and field tours was substantive and led to a review and revision of the full-tree logging direction within Ontario’s guidelines. We conclude with a set of recommendations (lessons learned) for the successful delivery of any new long-term, interdisciplinary research projects examining the sustainability of forest-management practices.

Comment on “Long-term decline of sugar maple following forest harvest, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire”

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 861-862
Author(s):  
Scott W. Bailey ◽  
Robert P. Long ◽  
Stephen B. Horsley
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Acer Saccharum ◽  
Sugar Maple ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Hubbard Brook ◽  
Whole Tree

Cleavitt et al. (2018, Can. J. For. Res. 48(1): 23–31, doi: 10.1139/cjfr-2017-0233 ) report a lack of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) regeneration in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF), Watershed 5 (W5), following whole-tree clearcut harvesting and purport that harvesting-induced soil calcium depletion contributed to regeneration failure of this species. In New England, clearcutting is a silvicultural strategy used to promote less tolerant species, especially birch (Betula spp.; Marquis (1969), Birch Symposium Proceedings, USDA Forest Service; Leak et al. (2014), doi: 10.2737/NRS-GTR-132 ), which is just the outcome that the authors report. While this study reports an impressive, long-term data set, given broad interest in sugar maple and sustainability of forest management practices, we feel that it is critical to more fully explore the role of nutrition on sugar maple dynamics, both prior to and during the experiment, and to more fully review the scientific record on the role of whole-tree clearcutting in nutrient-induced sugar maple dynamics.

Soil organic matter in rainfed cropping systems of the Australian cereal belt

Soil Research ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 435 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Dalal ◽  
K. Y. Chan
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Soil Organic Matter ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Performance Indicator ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Soil Productivity ◽  
Organic C ◽  
Soil C ◽  
Eastern Australia

The Australian cereal belt stretches as an arc from north-eastern Australia to south-western Australia (24˚S–40˚S and 125˚E–147˚E), with mean annual temperatures from 14˚C (temperate) to 26˚C (subtropical), and with annual rainfall ranging from 250 mm to 1500 mm. The predominant soil types of the cereal belt include Chromosols, Kandosols, Sodosols, and Vertosols, with significant areas of Ferrosols, Kurosols, Podosols, and Dermosols, covering approximately 20 Mha of arable cropping and 21 Mha of ley pastures. Cultivation and cropping has led to a substantial loss of soil organic matter (SOM) from the Australian cereal belt; the long-term SOM loss often exceeds 60% from the top 0–0.1 m depth after 50 years of cereal cropping. Loss of labile components of SOM such as sand-size or particulate SOM, microbial biomass, and mineralisable nitrogen has been even higher, thus resulting in greater loss in soil productivity than that assessed from the loss of total SOM alone. Since SOM is heterogeneous in nature, the significance and functions of its various components are ambiguous. It is essential that the relationship between levels of total SOM or its identif iable components and the most affected soil properties be established and then quantif ied before the concentrations or amounts of SOM and/or its components can be used as a performance indicator. There is also a need for experimentally verifiable soil organic C pools in modelling the dynamics and management of SOM. Furthermore, the interaction of environmental pollutants added to soil, soil microbial biodiversity, and SOM is poorly understood and therefore requires further study. Biophysically appropriate and cost-effective management practices for cereal cropping lands are required for restoring and maintaining organic matter for sustainable agriculture and restoration of degraded lands. The additional benefit of SOM restoration will be an increase in the long-term greenhouse C sink, which has the potentialto reduce greenhouse emissions by about 50 Mt CO2 equivalents/year over a 20-year period, although current improved agricultural practices can only sequester an estimated 23% of the potential soil C sink.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAND TENURE AND SOIL PRODUCTIVITY

1986 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. VAN VUUREN ◽  
P. YSSELSTEIN
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Soil Conservation ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Soil Productivity ◽  
Corn Yield ◽  
Contractual Obligations ◽  
The Impact

Renting of agricultural land is gaining in importance in Canada. The impact of rental on soil conservation and on long-term soil productivity was examined in central southwestern Ontario. Prevailing leasing contracts were short-term, with a minimum of contractual obligations on both parties. A difference in soil management practices was found between owner-operated land and rented land. Both recurrent and nonrecurrent practices upgrading the soil were carried out to a lesser extent on rented than on owner-operated land, while the quality of the rented land was in fact lower and in greater need of ameliorative practices. This resulted in a difference in grain corn yield; the lower yield being obtained from rented land. Key words: Land tenure, tenancy, rental contract, soil conservation, soil productivity, soil quality

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