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Smart Approaches for Soil Health, Water Quality and Nutrient Studies in Soil Environment

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil Conservation and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (26 October 2023) | Viewed by 4794

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Ahmed A. El Baroudy

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Guest Editor

Soil and Water Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Tanta University, Tanta 31527, Egypt
Interests: soil degradation; desertification; land evaluation; remote sensing and GIS modeling; soil pollution

Dr. Zheli Ding

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Haikou Experimental Station, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS), Haikou 570000, China
Interests: soil remediation; plant nutrition; fertilization; biochar

Dr. Mohamed S. Shokr

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Guest Editor

Soil and Water Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Tanta University, Tanta 31527, Egypt
Interests: GIS; remote sensing; soil modeling; soil quality; soil erosion; dryland region

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Smart approaches are a rising area bringing the benefits of digitalization through big data, artificial intelligence and linked data into the agricultural domain. Innovations in agricultural technologies in the last century that have been centered on maximizing food production to feed the growing population have contributed to significant changes in environmental processes, including soil health, water quality and soil nutrient studies. There is growing concern regarding remote sensing, GIS, soil, big data, fertilizers, modeling, land degradation, pollution, nutrient cycling, agricultural irrigated systems, water quality, agricultural land use and novel technologies.

This Special Issue will present a collection of original research and review papers on smart approaches for studding soil health, water quality and nutrient studies in soil environments.

We will cover topics related to soil quality, remote sensing, land evaluation, soil nutrients, water quality, land degradation, biochar and nanoparticles, soil amendments and crop residue management with reference to soil health.

We also cover topics that discuss the impacts and implications of natural processes and anthropogenic effects, such as climate change, drought and other forms of environmental stresses on soil and water dynamics and agricultural sustainability. In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Ahmed A. El Baroudy
Dr. Zheli Ding
Dr. Mohamed S. Shokr
Guest Editors

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Keywords

soil health
remote sensing
water quality
soil nutrients
biochar
nanoparticles

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 12452 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impacts of Human Activities on Urban Sprawl and Land Surface Temperature in Rural Areas, a Case Study of El-Reyad District, Kafrelsheikh Governorate, Egypt

by Wael Mostafa, Zenhom Magd, Saif M. Abo Khashaba, Belal Abdelaziz, Ehab Hendawy, Abdelaziz Elfadaly, Mohsen Nabil, Dmitry E. Kucher, Shuisen Chen and Elsayed Said Mohamed

Sustainability 2023, 15(18), 13497; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151813497 - 8 Sep 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1868

Abstract

Anthropogenic activities affect the surrounding environment dynamically in different ways. In the arid and hyper arid, agriculture is concentrated in rural communities, which are cooling surfaces that help mitigate surface temperature increases. Recently, rural communities are suffering from increasing urban sprawl. The current work focuses on evaluating the changes in land cover and their impacts on land surface temperature (LST) during (1988–2022) and predicting the changes until 2056 in El-Reyad District, Kafrelsheikh Governorate, Egypt. For achieving this purpose, Landsat images (TM, ETM+, and OLI) were used. The support vector machine (SVM) was applied using Google Earth Engine (GEE) to monitor changes in land use/cover and LST. The prediction of land use until 2056 was achieved using the CA-Markov simulation model. The results showed six land cover classes: agricultural lands, bare lands, urban areas, natural vegetation, Lake Burullus, and fish farms. The results showed the effects of human activity on the conversion of agricultural land to other activities, as agricultural lands have decreased by about 3950.8 acres, while urban areas have expanded by 6283.2 acres, from 1988 to 2022. Fish farms have increased from 3855.6 to 17,612 acres from 1988 to 2022. While the area of bare land decreased from 28.3% to 0.7% of the total area, it was converted to urban, agricultural, and fish farms. The spatiotemporal change in land cover affected the balance of LST in the study area, although the average temperature increased from 32.4 ± 0.5 to 33.6 ± 0.2 °C. In addition, it is expected to reach 36 ± 0.5 °C in 2056, and there are some areas with decreased LST where it is converted from bare areas into fish farms and agricultural uses. The prediction results show that the agricultural area will decrease by −11.38%, the urban area will increase by 4.6%, and the fish farms area will increase by 6.1%. Thus, preserving green spaces and reducing urban sprawl in rural communities are very important objectives. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Approaches for Soil Health, Water Quality and Nutrient Studies in Soil Environment)

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17 pages, 9956 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Change Characteristics of Soil Organic Carbon and Soil Available Nutrients and Their Relationship in the Subalpine Shrub Zone of Qilian Mountains in China

by Yue Zhang, Wenxiong Jia, Le Yang, Guofeng Zhu, Xin Lan, Huifang Luo and Zhijie Yu

Sustainability 2023, 15(17), 13028; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151713028 - 29 Aug 2023

Viewed by 815

Abstract

Studying the spatial and temporal distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) content in high-altitude mountainous areas and its correlation with soil nutrients provides a basis for understanding soil carbon stocks and the factors affecting the local carbon cycle. Based on soil samples collected from a semi-sunny slope and semi-shady slope in the subalpine shrub zone of the eastern Qilian Mountains from May to October 2019, we studied the temporal and spatial changes in SOC and soil available nutrients and their relationships. The results showed that SOC content and soil nutrients were greater on the semi-shady slope than on the semi-sunny slope during the growing season and decreased with an increase in soil depth in different slope directions, showing obvious surface aggregation. The soil available nitrogen (SAN) content was consistent with the SOC content and exhibited greater synchronization. SOC was significantly positively correlated with soil available nutrients in the study area during the whole growing season. However, the correlation between SOC and soil nutrients varied among the different soil layers and slope orientations. The SOC content was more obviously correlated with the SAN content in the soil layer at a depth of 30–40 cm (r = 0.67, p < 0.05) on the semi-shady slope. The SOC content was more obviously correlated with soil-available phosphorus (SAP) content in the soil layer at a depth of 30–40 cm (r = 0.57) on the semi-sunny slop. The SOC content was more obviously correlated with the SAP content in the soil layer at a depth of 60–70 cm (r = 0.55) and with the soil-available potassium (SAK) content in the soil layer at a depth of 70–80 cm (r = 0.84) on the semi-sunny slope. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Approaches for Soil Health, Water Quality and Nutrient Studies in Soil Environment)

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17 pages, 3849 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Predicting Dynamics of Soil Salinity and Sodicity Using Remote Sensing Techniques: A Landscape-Scale Assessment in the Northeastern Egypt

by Ahmed S. Abuzaid, Mostafa S. El-Komy, Mohamed S. Shokr, Ahmed A. El Baroudy, Elsayed Said Mohamed, Nazih Y. Rebouh and Mohamed S. Abdel-Hai

Sustainability 2023, 15(12), 9440; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15129440 - 12 Jun 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1383

Abstract

Traditional mapping of salt affected soils (SAS) is very costly and cannot precisely depict the space–time dynamics of soil salts over landscapes. Therefore, we tested the capacity of Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) data to retrieve soil salinity and sodicity during the wet and dry seasons in an arid landscape. Seventy geo-referenced soil samples (0–30 cm) were collected during March (wet period) and September to be analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity (EC), and exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP). Using 70% of soil and band reflectance data, stepwise linear regression models were constructed to estimate soil pH, EC, and ESP. The models were validated using the remaining 30% in terms of the determination coefficient (R²) and residual prediction deviation (RPD). Results revealed the weak variability of soil pH, while EC and ESP had large variabilities. The three indicators (pH, EC, and ESP) increased from the wet to dry period. During the two seasons, the OLI bands had weak associations with soil pH, while the near-infrared (NIR) band could effectively discriminate soil salinity and sodicity levels. The EC and ESP predictive models in the wet period were developed with the NIR band, achieving adequate outcomes (an R² of 0.65 and 0.61 and an RPD of 1.44 and 1.43, respectively). In the dry period, the best-fitted models were constructed with deep blue and NIR bands, yielding an R² of 0.59 and 0.60 and an RPD of 1.49 and 1.50, respectively. The SAS covered 50% of the study area during the wet period, of which 14 and 36% were saline and saline-sodic soils, respectively. The extent increased up to 59% during the dry period, including saline soils (12%) and saline-sodic soils (47%). Our findings would facilitate precise, rapid, and cost-effective monitoring of soil salinity and sodicity over large areas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Approaches for Soil Health, Water Quality and Nutrient Studies in Soil Environment)

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