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Agronomy
Special Issues
Soil Structural Degradation Evaluation in Sustainable Agroecosystems
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Soil Structural Degradation Evaluation in Sustainable Agroecosystems

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil and Plant Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 October 2020) | Viewed by 3756

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Artemi Cerdà

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Soil Erosion and Degradation Research Group, Department of Geography, University of Valencia, Blasco Ibàñez 28, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Interests: soil; structure; bulk density; aggregation; water; erosion; physics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Soil is the key component of the earth system, as it controls biogeochemical, erosional, and hydrological cycles. Soil is also necessary to achieve sustainable production in agroecosystems. However, soil is being degraded by the abuse of tillage, herbicides, compaction, and biodiversity depletion due to non-sustainable land management practices. Within soil, its structure is a key component that can be used as a land degradation index. Within structure, aggregate size and stability have been used as key parameters to survey soil and ecosystem health. The water retention capacity of soil, soil erodibility, and soil crusts are also examples of structural soil characteristics, and they can be used to identify soil degradation processes. This Special Issue will focus on methods to survey soil structure and determine how soil structure is a tracer of land degradation. Any research with information about soil structure and soil management changes is welcome. Methodological approaches, modeling, and case studies are also welcome. Soil water behavior (soil water retention, soil erosion, runoff generation, etc.) related to the human impact on soil structure is a key topic for this Special Issue, with the aim to provide case studies and to determine how soil structure is affected by such behavior.

Dr. Artemi Cerdà
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Soil
  • Structure
  • Aggregates
  • Physics
  • Water
  • Degradation

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 3324 KiB  
Article
Structure Stability of Cultivated Soils from Semi-Arid Region: Comparing the Effects of Land Use and Anionic Polyacrylamide Application
by Amrakh I. Mamedov, Atsushi Tsunekawa, Mitsuru Tsubo, Haruyuki Fujimaki, Imanverdi Ekberli, Cevdet Şeker, Hasan S. Öztürk, Artemi Cerdà and Guy J. Levy
Agronomy 2020, 10(12), 2010; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10122010 - 20 Dec 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3147
Abstract
The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations call for applying soil management practices that contribute land degradation neutrality. Our objectives were to investigate the effect of (i) soil management—conventional tillage (CT under crop) and no-tillage (NT under grass)—and (ii) an amendment (polyacrylamide [...] Read more.
The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations call for applying soil management practices that contribute land degradation neutrality. Our objectives were to investigate the effect of (i) soil management—conventional tillage (CT under crop) and no-tillage (NT under grass)—and (ii) an amendment (polyacrylamide (PAM)) application on the structure stability indices of soils from a semi-arid region. Two sets of experiments were conducted using the high-energy moisture characteristic (HEMC) method for the assessment of (i) land-use type (CT vs. NT) in soils (30 samples) varying in texture, and (ii) the effect of six PAM concentrations (0, 10, 25, 50, 100, and 200 mg L−1) on three typical soils (sandy clay loam, clay loam, and clay) under CT management; then, the contributions of PAM concentration (CT) and NT were compared. Water retention curves of samples were obtained at a matric potential from 0 to −5.0 J kg−1 and characterized by a modified van Genuchten model that yields (i) model parameters α and n, and (ii) a soil structure stability index (SI). The treatments affected the shape of the water retention curves. Change of land use from CT to NT and PAM application to CT soil increased the SI and ɑ, and decreased n compared to CT-managed soils. The magnitude of the NT and PAM effect was inversely related to soil clay content. CT-managed soils treated with a low PAM rate (10–25 mg L−1) gave SI comparable to that obtained for the NT-managed soils, while CT-managed soils treated with a high PAM rate (50–200 mg L−1) yielded 1.3–2.0 and 2–4 times higher SI than that for NT and CT-managed soils, respectively. Our findings suggest that both the change of land use to NT or the addition of small amounts of PAM are viable alternatives for stabilizing CT-managed weakly alkaline semi-arid soils, whose soil structure stability is a priori limited. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Structural Degradation Evaluation in Sustainable Agroecosystems)
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