This study was aimed to identify optimal indicators for microtopography-oriented soil quality assessment. Twenty-two soil physicochemical and biological parameters were investigated at 93 sampling points in five different microtopographic units in semiarid regions of the Loess Plateau, where the principal functions of eroded agriculture soils are related to productivity and anti-erosion ability...

Management systems influence soil quality over time. A study was carried out on Vanmeter farm of the Ohio State University South Centers at Piketon Ohio, USA to evaluate the impact of crop rotations on soil quality from 2002 to 2007. The crop rotations comprised of continuous corn (CC), corn-soybean (CS) and corn–soybean-wheat-cowpea (CSW). Ten soil cores were collected at 0-7.5, 7.5-15, 15-22....

Soil erosion rates and soil quality indicators were measured along two hillslope transects in the Loess Plateau near Yan'an, China. The objectives were to: (a) quantify spatial patterns and controlling processes of soil redistribution due to water and tillage erosion, and (b) correlate soil quality parameters with soil redistribution along the hillslope transects for different land use manageme...

sustainable exploitation of land resources is directly affected by considering soil quality which finally will also conclude environmental protection. therefore, assessing different soil quality aspects which are sensitive to various land management practices seems too important. in this study, some selected soil quality indicators have been compared in five land use systems including untouched...

Soil environmental quality is the capacity of a soil to function, within ecosystem and land use boundaries, to sustain biological productivity, maintain environmental quality, and promote plant, animal and human health'. In the long-term, vegetative rehabilitation of mining wastes aims at, as far as possible, the proper ecological integration of the reclaimed area into the surrounding landscape...

Foresters have always relied on a knowledge of chemical and physical properties of soils to assess capacity of sites to support productive forests. Recently, the need for assessing soil properties has expanded because of growing public interest in determining consequences of management practices on the quality of soil relative to sustainability of forest ecosystem functions in addition to plant...

The application of organic amendments can be an appropriate solution to reclaim and improve physical propertiesof saline-sodic soils. In this research, an experiment was performed under greenhouse conditions to study the effect ofamendments to the physical properties of loamy saline-sodic soil. The five treatments were control (withoutamendment), municipal solid waste compost (MC), vermicompost...

This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of ECRAN and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union. Executive summary • Soil degradation, including soil erosion, land desertification, soil salinisation, soil impoverishment and soil pollution, has become more and more serious in...

Soil quality can be assessed by numerous soil variables (Mausbach and Seybold 1998). In addition to physicochemical variables, biotic variables also refl ect soil quality (Pankhurst et al. 1997). Soil variables often show different patterns of response to the same impact (Jha et al. 1992), refl ecting the multidimensional quality of soil health (van Straalen 2002). These soil variables are asso...