Meeting food and livelihood security needs in developing countries will require the conservation and enhancement of natural resources that contribute to agricultural production. Chief among the resources to be sustainably managed are soils and forests. Failure to protect and improve soils will lead to dramatic decreases in domestic agricultural production and consequent dependence on imported f...

Soil is the most basic resource for sustainable agricultural production; it promotes water quality, is a key component of the biogeochemical cycles and hosts a huge diversity of organisms. However, we are not paying enough attention to soil degradation produced by land use. Modern agriculture has been successful in increasing yields but has also caused extensive environmental damage, particular...

This study focuses on the assessment of herbicide adsorption and degradation in three soils (Haplic Chernozem, Haplic Fluvisol, Arenic Regozem) from different agricultural regions Czech Republic where sunflower is cultivated. Soil samples were used laboratory batch experiments for six herbicides commonly crops. The findings are to examine effect soil properties degradation, as well determine po...

Many attempts have been made worldwide to develop methods to identify the areas most threatened by soil degradation. Some soils in afflicted areas may be irreversibly degraded and thus have very little resilience (the ability to restore themselves). For the purpose of assessing the current state of soil degradation in the Czech Republic (CZ) we have developed an overall indicator of land vulner...

Study of the effect of pesticides on soil micro flora and their beneficial activities forms an important part of the pesticides risk assessment . The intensive use of these pesticides in agricultural soils, there may be an interaction with soil micro flora and their metabolic activities besides, controlling the different pest population (Baxter and Cummings, 2008). Therefore the behavior of the...

The state of soil Being the largest country in the world as to its territory, Russia has not managed to escape the problem of land loss in the face of challenges connected with modern social development. One such problem relates to the loss of the fertile layer of the land surface known as soil. The causes of these negative processes seem to be widely known and similar in many countries. Howeve...

Improving the existing knowledge on the enantioselectivity of processes affecting chiral pesticide enantiomers in the environment is necessary to maximize the efficacy and minimize the environmental impact caused by the use of pesticides with chiral properties. In this work, the enantioselectivity of the sorption, degradation, and leaching processes of the chiral fungicide metalaxyl in three sl...

This study was undertaken to determine sorption coefficients of eight herbicides (alachlor, amitrole, atrazine, simazine, dicamba, imazamox, imazethapyr, and pendimethalin) to seven agricultural soils from sites throughout Lithuania. The measured sorption coefficients were used to predict the susceptibility of these herbicides to leach to groundwater. Soil-water partitioning coefficients were m...

The Brazilian Amazon has experienced considerable colonization in the last few decades. Family agriculture based on slash-and-burn enables millions of people to live in that region. However, the poor nutrient content of most Amazonian soils requires cation-rich ashes from the burning of the vegetation biomass for cultivation to be successful, which leads to forest ecosystem degradation, soil er...