0000000000876382
AUTHOR
Beatriz Lozano-garcía
Historical Perspectives on Soil Mapping and Process Modeling for Sustainable Land Use Management
Basic soil management goes back to the earliest days of agricultural practices, approximately 9000 BCE. Through time humans developed soil management techniques of ever increasing complexity, including plows, contour tillage, terracing, and irrigation. Spatial soil patterns were being recognized as early as 3000 BCE, but the first soil maps did not appear until the 1700s and the first soil models finally arrived in the 1880s. The beginning of the 20th century saw an increase in standardization in many soil science methods and wide-spread soil mapping in many parts of the world, particularly in developed countries. However, the classification systems used, mapping scale, and national coverag…
Soil organic carbon stocks assessment in Mediterranean natural areas: A comparison of entire soil profiles and soil control sections
Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an important part of the global carbon (C) cycle. In addition, SOC is a soil property subject to changes and highly variable in space and time. Over time, some researches have analyzed entire soil profile (ESP) by pedogenetic horizons and other researches have analyzed soil control sections (SCS) to different thickness. However, very few studies compare both methods (ESP versus SCS). This research sought to analyze the SOC stock (SOCS) variability using both methods (ESP and SCS) in The Despeñaperros Natural Park, a nature reserve that consists of a 76.8 km(2) forested area in southern Spain. Thirty-four sampling points were selected in the study zone. Each samp…
Long-term effects of soil management on ecosystem services and soil loss estimation in olive grove top soils
Soil management has important effects on soil properties, runoff, soil losses and soil quality. Traditional olive grove (OG) management is based on reduced tree density, canopy size shaped by pruning and weed control by ploughing. In addition, over the last several decades, herbicide use has been introduced into conventional OG management. These management strategies cause the soil surface to be almost bare and subsequently high erosion rates take place. To avoid these high erosion rates several soil management strategies can be applied. In this study, three strategies were assessed in OG with conventional tillage in three plots of 1. ha each. Soil properties were measured and soil erosion …