Search results for "Soil functions"
showing 3 items of 23 documents
The anthropogenic sealing of soils in urban areas
2009
The sealing of soils by impervious materials is, normally, detrimental to its ecological functions. Exchanges of energy, water and gases are restricted or hampered and an increasing pressure is being exerted on adjacent, non sealed areas. The negative effects span from loss of plant production and natural habitats to increased floods, pollution, and health risks and consequently higher social costs. Environmental Agencies produce periodical reports where the phenomenon of soil consumption by urban infrastructures is monitored with extremely sophisticated geographical tools but little specific research is available that describes the effects of soil sealing. This paper reviews some recent co…
Effective Practices in Mitigating Soil Erosion from Fields
2017
Soil erosion by water is a natural process that cannot be avoided. Soil erosion depends on many factors, and a distinction should be made between humanly unchangeable (e.g., rainfall) and modifiable (e.g., length of the field) soil erosion factors. Soil erosion has both on-site and off-site effects. Soil conservation tries to combine modifiable factors so as to maintain erosion in an area of interest to an acceptable level. Strategies to control soil erosion have to be adapted to the desired land use. Knowledge of soil loss tolerance, T, i.e., the maximum admissible erosion from a given field, allows technicians or farmers to establish whether soil conservation practices need to be applied …
A soil biodiversity survey coupled with the national soil quality monitoring network?
2021
International audience; Despite its importance for human activities, soil biodiversity remains largely unknown and threatened. Aware of the need for large-scale monitoring, we studied the feasibility to add a soil biodiversity survey (RMBS-Biodiversity) to the already existing French soil quality monitoring network (RMQS). We worked with soil biodiversity experts to couple RMBS-Biodiversity with RMQS i.e. to choose soil taxons and functions, the methodologies and the sampling design. According to the experts, the sampling design of RMQS fits with a soil biodiversitysurvey. We propose sampling protocols for i) bacteria and fungi, ii) protists, iii) nematodes, iv) mesofauna (particularly spri…