Abstract
Soil can be degraded by several natural or human-mediated processes, including wind, water, or tillage erosion, and formation of undesirable physical, chemical, or biological properties due to industrialization or use of inappropriate farming practices. Soil degradation occurs whenever these processes supersede natural soil regeneration and, generally, reflects unsustainable resource management that is global in scope and compromises world food security. In North America, soil degradation preceded the catastrophic wind erosion associated with the dust bowl during the 1930s, but that event provided the impetus to improve management of soils degraded by both wind and water erosion. Chemical degradation due to site specific industrial processing and mine spoil contamination began to be addressed during the latter half of the 20th century primarily through point-source water quality concerns, but soil chemical degradation and contamination of surface and subsurface water due to on-farm non-point pesticide and nutrient management practices generally remains unresolved. Remediation or prevention of soil degradation requires integrated management solutions that, for agricultural soils, include using cover crops or crop residue management to reduce raindrop impact, maintain higher infiltration rates, increase soil water storage, and ultimately increase crop production. By increasing plant biomass, and potentially soil organic carbon (SOC) concentrations, soil degradation can be mitigated by stabilizing soil aggregates, improving soil structure, enhancing air and water exchange, increasing nutrient cycling, and promoting greater soil biological activity.
Highlights
Soil degradation describes ongoing processes that generally limit agronomic productivity, result in undesirable or deteriorating physical, chemical or biological properties, enhance soil displacement due to wind or water driven erosion [1], and require reassignment of land resources
Soil resources can be degraded in many ways, our goal is to examine the problem from an agronomic perspective
Sainju et al [29] concluded that fallowing reduces soil aggregation compared to continuous cropping by decreasing the amount of crop residue returned to the soil and by increasing soil organic matter mineralization due to enhanced microbial activity
Summary
Soil degradation describes ongoing processes that generally limit agronomic productivity, result in undesirable or deteriorating physical, chemical or biological properties, enhance soil displacement due to wind or water driven erosion [1], and require reassignment of land resources. The greatest soil degradation threat, is wind- or water-induced erosion that displaces soil and depresses land productivity, and results in deteriorated physical properties, nutrient losses, and reshaped, potentially unworkable, field surface conditions Both in situ deterioration and soil erosion are frequently a consequence of using unsuitable management practices because soil resource and climatic constraints are not well understood. Two other human-induced causes of in-situ soil degradation and its resultant reduction in land productivity are industrial dislocation through mining operations and urban sprawl The latter usually imposes no chemical or physical deterioration, but typically results in the irreversible reassignment of land resources for construction of housing and infrastructure as necessitated by population growth and related commerce. Our objective is to highlight problematic process agents and successful integrated management solutions for mitigating and restoring the soil resources such that a management perspective meeting mutual soil stewardship goals may emerge
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