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Key processes and factors to mitigate land degradation
Catena 133 (2015) 453–454
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Catena journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/catena
Preface
Key processes and factors to mitigate land degradation
Keywords: Soil and land use changes have large impact on the functions of soil. Unfortunately, the common trend of world soil and land use changes is toward degradation of those functions. Soil and land degradation easily happen due to improper managements of human with additional impact of the climate changes and various kinds of degradations are reported all over the world. As the Global Assessment of Humaninduced Soil Degradation (GLASOD) map was created, soil degradation was defined as a “process that describes human induced phenomena which lower the current or future capacity of the soil to support human life (Oldeman et al., 1991)”. Soil degradation declines the quality and capacity of soil productivity through improper soil managements. Improper soil managements also declines the quality of production processes leading environmental loads. Land degradation includes soil degradation, and stands for the reduction in the capacity of the land to produce benefits from a particular land use under a specified form of land management (Mantel and van Oostrum, 2004). The causative factors for those land degradations are deforestation, overgrazing, agricultural mismanagement, overexploitation or industrial activities. The degradation types can be due to water or wind erosion, nutrient decline, salinization, pollution, acidification, compaction, water logging and subsidence of organic soils. It is estimated that 1965 million ha or 15% of the total land area is degraded. The degraded area accounts for 22% of the area under agriculture, permanent pasture and under forest and woodland (Oldeman et al., 1995). Many researches have been conducted on soil and land degradation. Most of the researches are on degraded soils and lands as defined above. The remediation once the soil and land are degraded often requires high efforts and long time. Preventing soil and land degradation by identifying early symptoms of the degradation is required. If the soil and land degradation mapped in GLASOD is referred to as “hard degradation”, early symptoms of soil and land degradation can be referred to as “soft degradation”. The loss of soil and land function to support human life is not obvious at first glance. However, the degradation can be found in the reduction of ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and mitigation of climate change, biodiversity or water storage. Nutrient cycling is a good indicator for many ecosystem services related to soil and land use changes, and can be used as an indicator for soil and land degradation. Lal (2001) describe the influence of the different stages of soil erosion to soil organic matter content and the impact on the soil carbon budget. Turnover of soil organic matter is especially useful since it releases cations, changes soil water retention capacity, and releases greenhouse gasses as well as anions to the ground and surface water. Prevention of desertification contributes highly to carbon sequestration and mitigation of greenhouse effect (Lal, 2003).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2015.07.011 0341-8162/© 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.
In order to create mitigation technology to reduce soil and land degradation, we must know which process strongly shows the symptoms of soil and land degradation under various land uses, regions and management practices. Key factors in the processes are different among regions and comparison and analysis of various case studies conducted in different regions are necessary. At the 20th World Conference of Soil Science (WCSS) held at Jeju, Korea on 8–13 June, 2014, an inter-divisional symposium was held on “Key Processes and Factors to Mitigate Land Degradation”. Purpose of the symposium was to specify the key processes and the controlling factors that lead to soil and land degradation in land use and land management in every region (World Conference on Soil Science, 2014). The base of the symposium was the Division 4.3 Soils and Land Use Change of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS). The Division 4 is a kind of “capstone” of all the different area of soil sciences, and has the mission to integrate the knowledge of soil science and to inform stakeholders about the utility of the soil. Due to this nature, the inter-divisional symposium was a highly inter-disciplinary and active discussion was conducted at the oral as well as poster presentations. This special issue “Key Processes and Factors to Mitigate Land Degradation” includes eight papers which are contributed by the presenters of that symposium as well as researchers of related area of soil carbon sequestration, methane and nitrous oxide emissions, eutrophication and soil acidification. Two papers mention soil carbon stocks with land use change. Converting the secondary forest to Chinese fir and Moso bamboo plantations which is dominant land use change in southern China significantly decreased the soil organic carbon and nitrogen stocks over 0–50 cm soil depth for 17 and 18 years, respectively (Guan et al., 2015). On the other hand, land use change from cropland to natural vegetation in Russia and Kazakhstan led to the increase of soil organic carbon in abandoned crop fields (Kurganova et al., 2015). Those papers indicate that there was a trade-off relationship between agricultural production and soil carbon sequestration. Gypsum addition in saline soil also resulted in a trade-off relationship between rice production and methane emission (Theint et al., 2015). Soil carbon sequestration is often enhanced by manure application. It was clearly shown in an experiment using eddy covariance method that proper manure application considering balance of plant nutrient demand rate and manure nutrient supply rate maintained crop production without decrease of soil carbon (Shimizu et al., 2015). Application of nitrogen fertilizer increases N2O emission. Especially, chemical nitrogen fertilizer application at the events of high temperature and rainfall increased the frequency of N2O hot moments and tillage stimulate it (Li et al., 2015). It is well known that eutrophication in lake and near seashore results from nutrients and sediment transport in river, but little is known about mechanism of eutrophication. In Lake Hachiro, lowering the
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Preface
ratio of dissolved inorganic nitrogen to soluble reactive phosphorous (DIN/SRP) which was caused by SRP release from sediments and denitrification under hypoxic summer conditions in the river mouths would be a key factor for growth of algal or cyanobacterial blooms (Hayakawa et al., 2015). Activities of animals often influences soil degradation. In Ogasawara Island, soil acidification resulted from subsoil exposure by erosion caused by feral goats, while parts of the bare soils with high acidity received phosphorus and nitrogen derived from seabird activities (Hiradate et al., 2015). These findings give us a key to create good practices for reducing soil and land degradation. We expect that this special issue contribute to further research. Finally, we highly appreciate the all the contribution and reviewing of this special issue. We also thank Catena for the occasion to put a mile stone on the research of soil and land use change in relation to soil and land degradation. References Guan, F., Tang, X.S., Fan, S., Zhao, J., Peng, C., 2015. Changes in soil carbon and nitrogen stocks followed the conversion from secondary forest to Chinese fir and Moso bamboo plantations. Catena 133, 453–458. Kurganova, I., de Gerenyu, V.L., Kuzyakov, Y., 2015. Large-scale carbon sequestration in post-agrogenic ecosystems in Russia and Kazakhstan. Catena 133, 459–464. Hayakawa, A., Ikeda, S., Tsushima, R., Ishikawa, Y., Hidaka, S., 2015. Spatial and temporal variation in nutrients in water and riverbed sediments at the mouths of rivers that enter Lake Hachiro, a shallow eutrophic lake in Japan. Catena 133, 484–492. Hiradate, S., Sayaka Morita, S., Hata, K., Osawa, T., Sugai, K., Kachi, N., 2015. Effects of soil erosion and seabird activities on chemical properties of surface soils on an oceanic island in Ogasawara Islands, Japan. Catena 133, 493–500. Lal, R., 2001. Potential of desertification control to sequester carbon and mitigate the greenhouse effect. Climate Change 51, 35–72. Lal, R., 2003. Soil erosion and the global carbon budget. Environ. Int. 29, 437–450.
Li, M., Shimizu, M., Hatano, R., 2015. Evaluation of N2O and CO2 hot moments in managed grassland and cornfield, southern Hokkaido, Japan. Catena 133, 1–13. Mantel, S., van Oostrum, A., 2004. Guiding principles for the quantitative assessment of soil degradation. In: Van Lynden, G.W.K. (Ed.), International Soil Reference and Information center, p. 74. Oldeman, L.R., Hakkeling, R.T.A., Sombroek, W.G., 1991. World map of the status of human-induced soil degradation. An explanatory note. ISRIC/UNEP, Wageningen, Nairobi, p. 26. Oldeman, L.R., van Lynden, G.W.J., van Engelen, V.W.O., 1995. An international methodology for soil degradation assessment and for a soil and terrain digital database (SOTER). International Soil Reference and Information center, p. 18. Shimizu, M., Limin, A., Desyatkin, A.R., Jin, T., Mano, M., Ono, K., Miyata, A., Hata, H., Hatano, R., 2015. Effect of manure application on seasonal carbon fluxes in a temperate managed grassland in Southern Hokkaido, Japan. Catena 133, 472–483. Theint, E.E., Suzuki, S., Ono, E., Bellingrath-Kimura, S.D., 2015. Influence of different rates of gypsum application on methane emission from saline soil related with rice growth and root exudation. Catena 133, 465–471. World Conference on Soil Science, 2014. http://www.20wcss.org/ (access 6th Dec 2014).
Hatano Ryusuke Division of Environmental Resources, Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Japan Suwardi Department of Soil Science and Land Resources, Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia Bellingrath-KimuraSonoko Dorothea⁎ Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research Institute of Land Use Systems, Germany Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected]
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Catena journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/catena
Preface
Key processes and factors to mitigate land degradation
Keywords: Soil and land use changes have large impact on the functions of soil. Unfortunately, the common trend of world soil and land use changes is toward degradation of those functions. Soil and land degradation easily happen due to improper managements of human with additional impact of the climate changes and various kinds of degradations are reported all over the world. As the Global Assessment of Humaninduced Soil Degradation (GLASOD) map was created, soil degradation was defined as a “process that describes human induced phenomena which lower the current or future capacity of the soil to support human life (Oldeman et al., 1991)”. Soil degradation declines the quality and capacity of soil productivity through improper soil managements. Improper soil managements also declines the quality of production processes leading environmental loads. Land degradation includes soil degradation, and stands for the reduction in the capacity of the land to produce benefits from a particular land use under a specified form of land management (Mantel and van Oostrum, 2004). The causative factors for those land degradations are deforestation, overgrazing, agricultural mismanagement, overexploitation or industrial activities. The degradation types can be due to water or wind erosion, nutrient decline, salinization, pollution, acidification, compaction, water logging and subsidence of organic soils. It is estimated that 1965 million ha or 15% of the total land area is degraded. The degraded area accounts for 22% of the area under agriculture, permanent pasture and under forest and woodland (Oldeman et al., 1995). Many researches have been conducted on soil and land degradation. Most of the researches are on degraded soils and lands as defined above. The remediation once the soil and land are degraded often requires high efforts and long time. Preventing soil and land degradation by identifying early symptoms of the degradation is required. If the soil and land degradation mapped in GLASOD is referred to as “hard degradation”, early symptoms of soil and land degradation can be referred to as “soft degradation”. The loss of soil and land function to support human life is not obvious at first glance. However, the degradation can be found in the reduction of ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and mitigation of climate change, biodiversity or water storage. Nutrient cycling is a good indicator for many ecosystem services related to soil and land use changes, and can be used as an indicator for soil and land degradation. Lal (2001) describe the influence of the different stages of soil erosion to soil organic matter content and the impact on the soil carbon budget. Turnover of soil organic matter is especially useful since it releases cations, changes soil water retention capacity, and releases greenhouse gasses as well as anions to the ground and surface water. Prevention of desertification contributes highly to carbon sequestration and mitigation of greenhouse effect (Lal, 2003).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2015.07.011 0341-8162/© 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.
In order to create mitigation technology to reduce soil and land degradation, we must know which process strongly shows the symptoms of soil and land degradation under various land uses, regions and management practices. Key factors in the processes are different among regions and comparison and analysis of various case studies conducted in different regions are necessary. At the 20th World Conference of Soil Science (WCSS) held at Jeju, Korea on 8–13 June, 2014, an inter-divisional symposium was held on “Key Processes and Factors to Mitigate Land Degradation”. Purpose of the symposium was to specify the key processes and the controlling factors that lead to soil and land degradation in land use and land management in every region (World Conference on Soil Science, 2014). The base of the symposium was the Division 4.3 Soils and Land Use Change of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS). The Division 4 is a kind of “capstone” of all the different area of soil sciences, and has the mission to integrate the knowledge of soil science and to inform stakeholders about the utility of the soil. Due to this nature, the inter-divisional symposium was a highly inter-disciplinary and active discussion was conducted at the oral as well as poster presentations. This special issue “Key Processes and Factors to Mitigate Land Degradation” includes eight papers which are contributed by the presenters of that symposium as well as researchers of related area of soil carbon sequestration, methane and nitrous oxide emissions, eutrophication and soil acidification. Two papers mention soil carbon stocks with land use change. Converting the secondary forest to Chinese fir and Moso bamboo plantations which is dominant land use change in southern China significantly decreased the soil organic carbon and nitrogen stocks over 0–50 cm soil depth for 17 and 18 years, respectively (Guan et al., 2015). On the other hand, land use change from cropland to natural vegetation in Russia and Kazakhstan led to the increase of soil organic carbon in abandoned crop fields (Kurganova et al., 2015). Those papers indicate that there was a trade-off relationship between agricultural production and soil carbon sequestration. Gypsum addition in saline soil also resulted in a trade-off relationship between rice production and methane emission (Theint et al., 2015). Soil carbon sequestration is often enhanced by manure application. It was clearly shown in an experiment using eddy covariance method that proper manure application considering balance of plant nutrient demand rate and manure nutrient supply rate maintained crop production without decrease of soil carbon (Shimizu et al., 2015). Application of nitrogen fertilizer increases N2O emission. Especially, chemical nitrogen fertilizer application at the events of high temperature and rainfall increased the frequency of N2O hot moments and tillage stimulate it (Li et al., 2015). It is well known that eutrophication in lake and near seashore results from nutrients and sediment transport in river, but little is known about mechanism of eutrophication. In Lake Hachiro, lowering the
454
Preface
ratio of dissolved inorganic nitrogen to soluble reactive phosphorous (DIN/SRP) which was caused by SRP release from sediments and denitrification under hypoxic summer conditions in the river mouths would be a key factor for growth of algal or cyanobacterial blooms (Hayakawa et al., 2015). Activities of animals often influences soil degradation. In Ogasawara Island, soil acidification resulted from subsoil exposure by erosion caused by feral goats, while parts of the bare soils with high acidity received phosphorus and nitrogen derived from seabird activities (Hiradate et al., 2015). These findings give us a key to create good practices for reducing soil and land degradation. We expect that this special issue contribute to further research. Finally, we highly appreciate the all the contribution and reviewing of this special issue. We also thank Catena for the occasion to put a mile stone on the research of soil and land use change in relation to soil and land degradation. References Guan, F., Tang, X.S., Fan, S., Zhao, J., Peng, C., 2015. Changes in soil carbon and nitrogen stocks followed the conversion from secondary forest to Chinese fir and Moso bamboo plantations. Catena 133, 453–458. Kurganova, I., de Gerenyu, V.L., Kuzyakov, Y., 2015. Large-scale carbon sequestration in post-agrogenic ecosystems in Russia and Kazakhstan. Catena 133, 459–464. Hayakawa, A., Ikeda, S., Tsushima, R., Ishikawa, Y., Hidaka, S., 2015. Spatial and temporal variation in nutrients in water and riverbed sediments at the mouths of rivers that enter Lake Hachiro, a shallow eutrophic lake in Japan. Catena 133, 484–492. Hiradate, S., Sayaka Morita, S., Hata, K., Osawa, T., Sugai, K., Kachi, N., 2015. Effects of soil erosion and seabird activities on chemical properties of surface soils on an oceanic island in Ogasawara Islands, Japan. Catena 133, 493–500. Lal, R., 2001. Potential of desertification control to sequester carbon and mitigate the greenhouse effect. Climate Change 51, 35–72. Lal, R., 2003. Soil erosion and the global carbon budget. Environ. Int. 29, 437–450.
Li, M., Shimizu, M., Hatano, R., 2015. Evaluation of N2O and CO2 hot moments in managed grassland and cornfield, southern Hokkaido, Japan. Catena 133, 1–13. Mantel, S., van Oostrum, A., 2004. Guiding principles for the quantitative assessment of soil degradation. In: Van Lynden, G.W.K. (Ed.), International Soil Reference and Information center, p. 74. Oldeman, L.R., Hakkeling, R.T.A., Sombroek, W.G., 1991. World map of the status of human-induced soil degradation. An explanatory note. ISRIC/UNEP, Wageningen, Nairobi, p. 26. Oldeman, L.R., van Lynden, G.W.J., van Engelen, V.W.O., 1995. An international methodology for soil degradation assessment and for a soil and terrain digital database (SOTER). International Soil Reference and Information center, p. 18. Shimizu, M., Limin, A., Desyatkin, A.R., Jin, T., Mano, M., Ono, K., Miyata, A., Hata, H., Hatano, R., 2015. Effect of manure application on seasonal carbon fluxes in a temperate managed grassland in Southern Hokkaido, Japan. Catena 133, 472–483. Theint, E.E., Suzuki, S., Ono, E., Bellingrath-Kimura, S.D., 2015. Influence of different rates of gypsum application on methane emission from saline soil related with rice growth and root exudation. Catena 133, 465–471. World Conference on Soil Science, 2014. http://www.20wcss.org/ (access 6th Dec 2014).
Hatano Ryusuke Division of Environmental Resources, Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Japan Suwardi Department of Soil Science and Land Resources, Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia Bellingrath-KimuraSonoko Dorothea⁎ Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research Institute of Land Use Systems, Germany Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected]