Soil quality indices can help ensure that site productivity and soil function are maintained. Biological indices yield evidence of how a soil functions and interacts with the plants, animals and climate that comprise an ecosystem. Soil scientists can identify and quantify both chemical and biological soil-quality indicators for ecosystems with a single main function, such as agricultural lands ...

Mollisols of Santa Fe have different tilth and load support capacity. Despite the importance of these attributes to achieve a sustainable crop production, few information is available. The objectives of this study are i) to assess soil physical indicators related to plant growth and to soil mechanical behavior; and ii) to establish relationships to estimate the impact of soil loading on the soi...

Re-vegetation is an important practice for eco-environmental rebuilding of degraded environments. Accordingly, re-vegetation has been widely used to reduce erosion and protect soils against degradation in the Loess Plateau. However, little research has been conducted to study the effects of long-term re-vegetation on soil properties, which is essential to reveal corresponding changes in soil qu...

Soil contamination is one of the major threats constraining proper functioning of the soil and thus provision of ecosystem services. Remedial actions typically only address the chemical soil quality by reducing total contaminant concentrations to acceptable levels guided by land use. However, emerging regulatory requirements on soil protection demand a holistic view on soil assessment in remedi...

Objective: Metal concentrations in 53 soil samples of Shahr-e-Babak were determined.  Methods: Assessment of enrichment factor and geo-accumulation index revealed higher degree of contamination of Cd, Pb, and Cu in soil samples. Moreover, results of metal fractionation study revealed high amount of Cd and Pb are associated in weakly bounds may lead to environmental risk of these metals.  Result...

Cropping systems in Western Australia (WA) are strongly dominated by cereals (wheat, barley and oaten hay) and are inextricably linked to soil quality and moisture supply. So a major research challenge is to devise cropping systems that improve soil health and maximise water-use efficiency. For a profitable and sustainable production system there is a clear need for ‘break crop’ to provide a pe...

s. Bloodworth, H., and T. Sobecki. 2002. Land use biodiversity index as a soil quality indicator. In Making conservation tillage conventional: Building a future on 25 years of research; Proceedings of 25 Annual Southern Conservation Tillage Conference for Sustainable Agriculture, Auburn, AL, USA, 24-26 June, 2002, Pp.219-221. E. van Santen, editor. Auburn, AL: Alabama Agricultural Experiment St...