Sustainable Soil Management—Principles and Importance
摘要
Soil is a non-renewable resource; however, it takes centuries to form 1 mm of soil. Soil performs many ecosystem functions and services and mainly provides food and supports nutrition. The soil resource has become progressively neglected and threatened in the quest for increased food production, urbanization, and development. Soil health has been vulnerable for many reasons, like soil infertility and degradation, a lack of soil organic carbon and biodiversity, acidification, contamination, salinization, erosion, and degradation of soil. Hence, sustainable soil management is important to protect this valuable natural resource. As per the FAO, soil management can be considered sustainable if it doesn’t harmfully disturb biodiversity or the functions of soil that facilitate the abovementioned services. It can also be sustained or improved. This chapter delivers on sustainable soil management principles and their importance in agricultural and environmental services.