Search results for "soil science"

Inhibition of denitrification and N2O emission by urine-derived benzoic and hippuric acid

2006

Abstract Hippuric acid (HA) in cattle urine acts as a natural inhibitor of soil N2O emissions. As HA concentration varies with diet, we determined critical HA levels. We also tested the hypothesis that the inhibition occurs because the HA breakdown product benzoic acid (BA) inhibits denitrification rates. During a 64-day incubation, we quantified emissions from artificial urine varying in HA, BA and glycine (Gly) concentrations, added to a sandy pasture soil. Increasing HA concentration from 0.4 to 5.6 mmol kg−1 soil significantly decreased the average N2O flux by 54%. At 3.9 mmol kg−1 soil, denitrification levels were 50% reduced for BA as compared to Gly. We conclude that HA inhibits both…

ESTIMATING SOIL PARTICLE-SIZE DISTRIBUTION FOR SICILIAN SOILS

2009

The soil particle-size distribution (PSD) is commonly used for soil classification and for estimating soil behavior. An accurate mathematical representation of the PSD is required to estimate soil hydraulic properties and to compare texture measurements from different classification systems. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of the Haverkamp and Parlange (HP) and Fredlund et al. (F) PSD models to fit 243 measured PSDs from a wide range of 38 005_Bagarello(547)_33 18-11-2009 11:55 Pagina 38 soil textures in Sicily and to test the effect of the number of measured particle diameters on the fitting of the theoretical PSD. For each soil textural class, the best fitting perf…

Labile nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus pools and nitrogen mineralization and immobilization rates at low temperatures in seasonally snow-covered soi…

2006

Surface mineral horizons from four ecosystems sampled in the northwestern Italian Alps were incubated at −3 and +3°C to simulate subnivial and early thaw period temperatures for a seasonally snow-covered area. The soil profiles at these sites represent extreme examples of management, grazed meadow (site M) and extensive grazing beneath larch (site L) or naturally disturbed by avalanche and colonized by alder (site A) and the expected forest climax vegetation beneath fir (site F). Changes in labile pools of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) were active at all sites at both temperatures during 14 days of laboratory incubation. Ammonium was the dominant inorganic form of total dissolved N (TDN),…

Social Memory and the Resilience of Communities Affected by Land Degradation

2017

Análisis conjunto y espacios naturales: una aplicación al Paraje Natural del Desert de les Palmes

2007

We use stated preference methods to analyze consumer preferences on the attributes of protected natural areas and to estimate the willingness to pay for reducing the risk of fires in the site. For the first goal, conjoint analysis is used. Three attributes are considered: biodiversity, dimension of the natural area and the economic contribution that would have to be made for its maintenance and preservation. The willingness to pay for reducing the risk of fires has been estimated using choice experiment. The data have been gathered from a mail survey conducted among people living near the Desert de les Palmes Park, a protected area located in the Valencian Community (Spain). En el trabajo s…

Soils, environmental awareness and ecological footprint in the European countries

2008

Testing the Universal Soil Loss Equation-MB equation in plots in Central and South Italy

2019

Planning soil conservation strategies requires predictive techniques at event scale because a large percentage of soil loss over a long-time period is due to relatively few large storms. Considering runoff is expected to improve soil loss predictions and allows relation of the process-oriented approach with the empirical one, furthermore, the effects of detachment and transport on soil erosion processes can be distinguished by a runoff component. In this paper, the empirical model USLE-MB (USLE-M based), including a rainfall-runoff erosivity factor in which the event rainfall erosivity index EI30 of the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) multiplies the runoff coefficient QR raised to an ex…

Evaluation of Soil Organic Carbon Storage of Atillo in the Ecuadorian Andean Wetlands

2022

Identifying the SOC levels and revealing the potential of SOC storage of ecosystems difficult to sample and study are necessary contributions to the understanding of the global reserves of SOC. Wetlands store large amounts of SOC within their soils. They have an important role in water regulation and have great biological and floristic diversity. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the SOC stock in Atillo micro-watershed in the Ecuadorian Andean wetlands at two soil depths (0–30 cm and 30–60 cm below ground) and to assess the importance of the ecosystem and its conservation in favor of reducing emissions due to degradation processes. For that, we sampled the study zone with 10…

The Mechanical Impact of Water Affected the Soil Physical Quality of a Loam Soil under Minimum Tillage and No-Tillage: An Assessment Using Beerkan Mu…

2021

The multi-height (low, L = 3 cm

Assessing the quality of dissolved organic matter in forest soils using ultraviolet absorption spectrophotometry

2007

Abbreviations: DOC, dissolved organic carbon; SUVA, specifi c ultraviolet absorbance; UV, ultraviolet. Ultraviolet spectrophotometry was used to investigate the effects, 30 yr after planting, of tree species substitution on the aromatic C content and related properties of dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Precautions were taken to correct measurements for the absorbance of NO 3 and dissolved Fe. In litter leachates, a signifi cant reduction in the aromatic content of DOC was found in the Douglas-fi r [Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco] plantation but not in the beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) plantation. The disturbance of short-term C dynamics thus revealed agreed well with fi eld observations…