Search results for "agricultural soil"
showing 10 items of 18 documents
Carbon sequestration in French agricultural soils: A spatial economic evaluation
2021
International audience; Soil organic carbon sequestration measures entail costs to farmers with different individual characteristics and located in different areas. A cost‐effective analysis taking into account these heterogeneities is crucial for developing effective public policy aimed at increasing carbon sequestration. We undertake such an analysis focusing on three soil organic carbon sequestration measures: no‐till, extension of temporary grasslands, and hedgerows. Through an optimization model applied to France, our results show that only extension of temporary grasslands can store carbon at low cost, though their potential for carbon sequestration is also low. For an ambitious carbo…
Soil structural stability and erosion rates influenced by agricultural management practices in a semi-arid Mediterranean agro-ecosystem
2012
Unsuitable agricultural practices can cause loss in soil quality and erodibility to thus increase or trigger desertification under Mediterranean conditions. A field experiment was performed at the El Teularet-Sierra de Enguera Experimental Station (eastern Spain) to assess the influence during a 5-yr period of different agricultural practices on physical and chemical indicators of soil quality (total and water-soluble carbohydrates, glomalin-related soil proteins (GRSP), total organic carbon, aggregate stability (AS), vegetation cover and soil erosion). The management practices included residual herbicide use, ploughing, ploughing + oats, addition of oat straw mulch and a control (land aban…
Copper Dynamics and Impact on Microbial Communities in Soils of Variable Organic Status
2008
International audience; The effect of soil organic status on copper impact was investigated by means of a microcosm study carried out on a vineyard soil that had been amended with varying types of organic matter during a previous long-term field experiment. Soil microcosms were contaminated at 250 mg Cu kg−1 and incubated for 35 days. Copper distribution and dynamics were assessed in the solid matrix by a sequential extraction procedure and in the soil solution by measuring total and free exchangeable copper concentrations. Copper bioavailability was also measured with a whole-cell biosensor. Modifications of microbial communities were assessed by means of biomass-C measurements and charact…
Spatial distribution of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea across a 44-hectare farm related to ecosystem functioning
2011
Characterization of spatial patterns of functional microbial communities could facilitate the understanding of the relationships between the ecology of microbial communities, the biogeochemical processes they perform and the corresponding ecosystem functions. Because of the important role the ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) have in nitrogen cycling and nitrate leaching, we explored the spatial distribution of their activity, abundance and community composition across a 44-ha large farm divided into an organic and an integrated farming system. The spatial patterns were mapped by geostatistical modeling and correlations to soil properties and ecosystem functioning in terms …
Soil Quality as Affected by Intensive Versus Conservative Agricultural Managements
2017
Soils, the earth’s skin, are at the intersection of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. The persistence of life on our planet depends on the maintenance of soils as they constitute the biological engines of earth. Human population has increased exponentially in recent decades, along with the demand for food, materials, and energy, which have caused a shift from low-yield and subsistence agriculture to a more productive, high-cost, and intensive agriculture. However, soils are very fragile ecosystems and require centuries for their development, thus within the human timescale they are not renewable resources. Modern and intensive agriculture implies serious concern about…
Mulching practices for reducing soil water erosion: A review
2016
Abstract Among the soil conservation practices that are used, mulching has been successfully applied to reduce soil and water losses in different contexts, such as agricultural lands, fire-affected areas, rangelands and anthropic sites. In these contexts, soil erosion by water is a serious problem, especially in semi-arid and semi-humid areas of the world. Although the beneficial effects of mulching are known, further research is needed to quantify them, especially in areas where soil erosion by water represents a severe threat. In the literature, there are still some uncertainties about how to maximize the effectiveness of mulching to reduce the soil and water loss rates. Given the serious…
Relationship between microbial diversity and soil organic matter turnover
2011
International audience
Urban growth (1956-2012) and soil sealing in the metropolitan area of Valencia (Eastern Spain)
2019
[EN] The aim of this study is to understand the urban growth dynamics from the mid-1950s to 2012 in the Metropolitan Area of Valencia, eastern Spain, and its impact on soils. The study area is a very interesting example of the many changes in land use and land cover in the landscape of Mediterranean alluvial plains. The analysis of urban growth was based on photo interpretation of aerial photographs and GIS based methodology. At a detailed scale (1:10,000), results show that there has been a highly dynamic process produced by the extent of land developed as urban area. In 1956 only 3,441 hectares (9.3% of the overall study area) were occupied by urban use. In 2012 the total sealed surface w…
Historical Perspectives on Soil Mapping and Process Modeling for Sustainable Land Use Management
2017
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…
Changes in soil microbial community structure influenced by agricultural management practices in a mediterranean agro-ecosystem.
2013
Agricultural practices have proven to be unsuitable in many cases, causing considerable reductions in soil quality. Land management practices can provide solutions to this problem and contribute to get a sustainable agriculture model. The main objective of this work was to assess the effect of different agricultural management practices on soil microbial community structure (evaluated as abundance of phospholipid fatty acids, PLFA). Five different treatments were selected, based on the most common practices used by farmers in the study area (eastern Spain): residual herbicides, tillage, tillage with oats and oats straw mulching; these agricultural practices were evaluated against an abandon…