NDLI: Soil management practices for sustainable agro-ecosystems

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Soil management practices for sustainable agro-ecosystems

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Komatsuzaki, Masakazu Ohta, Hiroyuki
Copyright Year	2007
Abstract	A doubling of the global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses a huge challenge for the sustainability of both food production and global and local environments. Today’s agricultural technologies may be increasing productivity to meet world food demand, but they may also be threatening agricultural ecosystems. For the global environment, agricultural systems provide both sources and sinks of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which include carbon dioxide (CO$_{2}$), methane (CH$_{4}$), and nitrous oxide (N$_{2}$O). This paper addresses the importance of soil organic carbon (SOC) for agro-ecosystems and GHG uptake and emission in agriculture, especially SOC changes associated with soil management. Soil management strategies have great potential to contribute to carbon sequestration, since the carbon sink capacity of the world’s agricultural and degraded soil is 50–66% of the historic carbon loss of 42–72 Pg (1 Pg=10$^{15}$ g), although the actual carbon storage in cultivated soil may be smaller if climate changes lead to increasing mineralization. The importance of SOC in agricultural soil is, however, not controversial, as SOC helps to sustain soil fertility and conserve soil and water quality, and organic carbon compounds play a variety of roles in the nutrient, water, and biological cycles. No-tillage practices, cover crop management, and manure application are recommended to enhance SOC storage and to contribute to sustainable food production, which also improves soil quality. SOC sequestration could be increased at the expense of increasing the amount of non-CO$_{2}$ GHG emissions; however, soil testing, synchronized fertilization techniques, and optimum water control for flooding paddy fields, among other things, can reduce these emissions. Since increasing SOC may also be able to mitigate some local environmental problems, it will be necessary to have integrated soil management practices that are compatible with increasing SOM management and controlling soil residual nutrients. Cover crops would be a critical tool for sustainable soil management because they can scavenge soil residual nitrogen and their ecological functions can be utilized to establish an optimal nitrogen cycle. In addition to developing soil management strategies for sustainable agro-ecosystems, some political and social approaches will be needed, based on a common understanding that soil and agro-ecosystems are essential for a sustainable society.
Starting Page	103
Ending Page	120
Page Count	18
File Format	PDF
ISSN	18624065
Journal	Sustainability Science
Volume Number	2
Issue Number	1
e-ISSN	18624057
Language	English
Publisher	Springer-Verlag
Publisher Date	2007-03-06
Publisher Place	Tokyo
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Soil carbon sequestration Greenhouse gas emission Soil management Sustainable agriculture Cover crop Public Health/Gesundheitswesen Landscape Ecology Environmental Economics Climate Change Environmental Management
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Sociology and Political Science Geography, Planning and Development Ecology Health (social science) Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Global and Planetary Change Nature and Landscape Conservation

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