Download or read book Carbon and Nutrient Dynamics in Natural and Agricultural Tropical Ecosystems written by L. Bergström and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soil fertility is one of the most important factors regulating yield and productivity in both the agricultural and natural ecosystems of the tropics, and maintaining soil fertility has become a key challenge to sustainable development in this region. This book presents the ecological processes and management practices which affect soil fertility and then looks at ways to integrate this knowledge to develop economically feasible solutions. Based on a symposium held at the University of Zimbabwe in May 1996, the volume is partly the result of ten years of research by the Soil Biology and Fertility Project in Zimbabwe and includes contributions from researchers in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. The book is divided into five sections covering nutrient dynamics in soil, decomposition of crop residues, tree-soil-crop interactions in agroforestry and in ecosystem dynamics, and prospects for the future. Essential reading for agronomists, soil scientists and ecologists studying the tropics, this volume is also an important reference for decision-makers in land use and development in tropical countries.
Download or read book Global Climate Change and Tropical Ecosystems written by John M. Kimble and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tropical ecosystems - the regions between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn - play an important role in global processes, economic issues, and political concerns. In their natural state, tropical ecosystems support a large quantity of above- and below-ground biomass, and constitute a major part of the terrestrial carbon pool. Conversion of the natural ecosystem to agriculture and forestry ecosystems disturbs this ecological balance. Global Climate Change and Tropical Ecosystems presents data on carbon pool fluxes from case studies in 12 countries in tropical regions. The chapters cover: Characteristics of tropical ecosystems Soil and biotic carbon pools Impacts of land use and soil management Slash-and-burn practices Crop residue and fertility management This volume adds to the understanding of pedospheric processes in tropical ecosystems and how to better use soils as a sink for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. With Global Climate Change and Tropical Ecosystems you will understand the link between soil productivity, environmental quality and the global carbon cycle, not only in these ecologically sensitive regions but worldwide.
Download or read book Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Ecosystems written by Klaus Lorenz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive book on basic processes of soil C dynamics and the underlying factors and causes which determine the technical and economic potential of soil C sequestration. The book provides information on the dynamics of both inorganic (lithogenic and pedogenic carbonates) and organic C (labile, intermediate and passive). It describes different types of agroecosystems, and lists questions at the end of each chapter to stimulate thinking and promote academic dialogue. Each chapter has a bibliography containing up-to-date references on the current research, and provides the state-of-the-knowledge while also identifying the knowledge gaps for future research. The critical need for restoring C stocks in world soils is discussed in terms of provisioning of essential ecosystem services (food security, carbon sequestration, water quality and renewability, and biodiversity). It is of interest to students, scientists, and policy makers.
Download or read book Agrosphere written by K R Krishna and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2003-01-05 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book deals with agroecological aspects of nutrients essential to crop production. A new concept termed 'AGROSPHERE' has been introduced in the book. A brief description about agrosphere, its expanse, contrasting features and interactions with other ecospheres, global nutrient dynamics and food production trends within various agro ecosystems fo
Download or read book Dynamics and Diversity written by Ian Scoones and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soils are critical to agriculture and, in turn, to food supply and livelihoods. Sustainable management of soils is crucial for a large proportion of the population of Africa. Contrary to many claims, soil fertility is improved and managed successfully by small-scale farmers there. Careful studies from widely different areas reveal how closely bound up soil management is with complex social, cultural and ecological factors - requiring a far more subtly tuned approach to development policy and practice. This work is a study of how the context of livelihood systems has to inform development policy and practice.
Download or read book Nutrient Cycling in Tropical Forest Ecosystems written by Carl F. Jordan and published by . This book was released on 1985-11-20 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings together much of the recent literature on nutrient cycling due to conversion of forests to croplands, pastures, and plantation forests. It explains why nutrients are often very critical in tropical humid ecosystems and discusses principles that can guide land managers to conserve nutrients and sustain productivity.
Download or read book Carbon Management in Tropical and Sub Tropical Terrestrial Systems written by Probir K. Ghosh and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-11-23 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soil organic carbon (SOC), a key component of the global carbon (C) pool, plays an important role in C cycling, regulating climate, water supplies and biodiversity, and therefore in providing the ecosystem services that are essential to human well-being. Most agricultural soils in temperate regions have now lost as much as 60% of their SOC, and as much as 75% in tropical regions, due to conversion from natural ecosystems to agricultural uses and mainly due to continuous soil degradation. Sequestering C can help to offset C emissions from fossil fuel combustion and other C-emitting activities, while also enhancing soil quality and long-term agronomic productivity. However, developing effective policies for creating terrestrial C sinks is a serious challenge in tropical and subtropical soils, due to the high average annual temperatures in these regions. It can be accomplished by implementing improved land management practices that add substantial amounts of biomass to soil, cause minimal soil disturbance, conserve soil and water, improve soil structure, and enhance soil fauna activity. Continuous no-till crop production is arguably the best example. These soils need technically sound and economically feasible strategies to sustainably enhance their SOC pools. Hence, this book provides comprehensive information on SOC and its management in different land-use systems, with a focus on preserving soils and their ecosystem services. The only book of its kind, it offers a valuable asset for students, researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders involved in the sustainable development and management of natural resources at the global level.
Download or read book Tropical Ecosystems Structure Functions and Challenges in the Face of Global Change written by Satish Chandra Garkoti and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book brings together research topics having a broad focus on human and climate change impacts on the terrestrial ecosystems in the tropics in general and more specifically from the most significant and vulnerable Himalayan ecosystem. A total of 16 contributions included in the book cover a diverse range of global change themes such as the impacts of changing temperature and precipitation on soil ecosystems, forest degradation, extent and impacts of invasive species, plant responses to pollution, climate change impacts on biodiversity and tree phenology, environmental changes associated with land use, importance of traditional knowledge in climate change adaptation, timberline ecosystems, and role of integrated landscape modeling for sustainable management of natural resources. The book is a collective endeavour of an international multidisciplinary group of scientists focused on improving our understanding of the impacts of global change on the structure and functioning of tropical ecosystems and addressing the challenges of their future sustainable management. We hope that the book will help researchers working in the areas of ecology and environmental science to update their knowledge. We also expect that natural resource managers and policy planners will find explanations for some of their observations and hypotheses on multiple global change factors impacting tropical ecosystems and especially Himalayan ecosystems.
Download or read book Tropical Fire Ecology written by Mark Cochrane and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-04-11 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tropics are home to most of the world’s biodiversity and are currently the frontier for human settlement. Tropical ecosystems are being converted to agricultural and other land uses at unprecedented rates. Land conversion and maintenance almost always rely on fire and, because of this, fire is now more prevalent in the tropics than anywhere else on Earth. Despite pervasive fire, human settlement and threatened biodiversity, there is little comprehensive information available on fire and its effects in tropical ecosystems. Tropical deforestation, especially in rainforests, has been widely documented for many years. Forests are cut down and allowed to dry before being burned to remove biomass and release nutrients to grow crops. However, fires do not always stop at the borders of cleared forests. Tremendously damaging fires are increasingly spreading into forests that were never evolutionarily prepared for wild fires. The largest fires on the planet in recent decades have occurred in tropical forests and burned millions of hectares in several countries. The numerous ecosystems of the tropics have differing levels of fire resistance, resilience or dependence. At present, there is little appreciation of the seriousness of the wild fire situation in tropical rainforests but there is even less understanding of the role that fire plays in the ecology of many fire adapted tropical ecosystems, such as savannas, grasslands and other forest types.
Download or read book Measuring and modelling soil carbon stocks and stock changes in livestock production systems A scoping analysis for the LEAP work stream on soil carbon stock changes written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2019-01-14 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order to build consensus on methods to measure and model soil carbon stocks and stock changes, the Steering Committee of the Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership mandated a task force to develop this scoping analysis and pave the way towards the formation of the LEAP Tecnical Advisory Group on soil carbon stock changes. Soil carbon sequestration and storage in grasslands offers a significant potential to compensate for GHG emissions from livestock, but the lack of consensus on the appropriate methodologies to account for soil carbon stock changes hinders robust and standardized assessments. In this report, we reviewed several published soil organic carbon (SOC) models, and evaluated their aptitude to combine them with life cycle assessments (LCAs). Among contentious issues, the most relevant are: a) the lack of universal models, b) the uneven data availability, comparability and quality between countries and regions, and c) the difficulty to match measurable SOC fractions with those determined by the models. Taking this into account, a tiered approach is proposed, according to the availability of original data to run the models. The use of IPCC carbon (C) accounting system appears to be the simplest approach suitable to countries with scarcity of original C data. Conversely, more complex models such as Century (Parton 1987, 1988) or Roth C (Smith 1998) are likely to perform better and give less uncertainty when original input data are easily available.
Download or read book Ecosystem Ecology Research Trends written by Junying Chen and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2008 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecosystem ecology is the integrated study of biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems and their interactions within an ecosystem framework. This science examines how ecosystems work and relates this to their components such as chemicals, bedrock, soil, plants, and animals. A major focus of ecosystem ecology is on functional processes, ecological mechanisms that maintain the structure and services produced by ecosystems. These include primary productivity (production of biomass), decomposition, and trophic interactions. Studies of ecosystem function have greatly improved human understanding of sustainable production of forage, fibre, fuel, and provision of water. Functional processes are mediated by regional-to-local level climate, disturbance, and management thus ecosystem ecology provides a powerful framework for identifying ecological mechanisms that interact with global environmental problems, especially global warming and degradation of surface water. This book presents the latest developments in the field from around the world.
Download or read book Carbon and Nitrogen in the Terrestrial Environment written by R. Nieder and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-05-30 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carbon and Nitrogen in the Terrestrial Environment is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary description of C and N fluxes between the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere; issues related to C and N management in different ecosystems and their implications for the environment and global climate change; and the approaches to mitigate emission of greenhouse gases. Drawing upon the most up-to-date books, journals, bulletins, reports, symposia proceedings and internet sources documenting interrelationships between different aspects of C and N cycling in the terrestrial environment, Carbon and Nitrogen in the Terrestrial Environment fills the gap left by most of the currently available books on C and N cycling. They either deal with a single element of an ecosystem, or are related to one or a few selected aspects like soil organic matter (SOM) and agricultural or forest management, emission of greenhouse gases, global climate change or modeling of SOM dynamics.
Download or read book Maize Agroecosystem written by K. R. Krishna and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2012-07-19 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maize is among the most widely spread and widely used crops of the world, used for cereals for over 4 billion humans, as food for farm animals, and as a source material for biofuel production. Yet there are relatively few books on the cropping system of this important crop. This book, Maize Agroecosystem, is a concise treatise dealing with agronomy
Download or read book Advances in Integrated Soil Fertility Management in sub Saharan Africa Challenges and Opportunities written by Andre Bationo and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 1051 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food insecurity is a fundamental challenge to human welfare and economic growth in Africa. Low agricultural production leads to low incomes, poor nutrition, vulnerability to risk and threat and lack of empowerment. This book offers a comprehensive synthesis of agricultural research and development experiences from sub-Saharan Africa. The text highlights practical lessons from the sub-Saharan Africa region.
Download or read book Recarbonization of the Biosphere written by Rattan Lal and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-03-28 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human activities are significantly modifying the natural global carbon (C) cycles, and concomitantly influence climate, ecosystems, and state and function of the Earth system. Ever increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) are added to the atmosphere by fossil fuel combustion but the biosphere is a potential C sink. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of C cycling in the biosphere is crucial for identifying and managing biospheric C sinks. Ecosystems with large C stocks which must be protected and sustainably managed are wetlands, peatlands, tropical rainforests, tropical savannas, grasslands, degraded/desertified lands, agricultural lands, and urban lands. However, land-based sinks require long-term management and a protection strategy because C stocks grow with a progressive improvement in ecosystem health.
Download or read book Managing Organic Matter in Tropical Soils Scope and Limitations written by Christopher Martius and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soil organic matter is a reservoir for plant nutrients, provides water-holding capacity, stabilizes soil structure against compaction and erosion, and thus determines soil productivity. All agriculture to some degree depends on soil organic matter. It has long been known that soil organic matter declines when land is taken into cultivation, and that the productivity of new agricultural land is governed by fertility contributions from decomposing natural organic matter. The expansion of agriculture to ever new and more fragile lands, particularly in tropical and developing regions, causes environmental degradation with local effects on soil quality, regional effects on landscape integrity and water quality, and global effects on carbon cycles and the atmosphere. This book summarizes current knowledge of the properties and dynamics of soil organic matter in the tropics, its role in determining soil quality, its stability and turnover, and the options for management in the context of tropical landuse systems, for a readership of resource scientists, economists and advanced students. Maintenance of organic matter is critical for preventing land degradation. Case studies and practical applications are therefore an important part of the book, as are the exploration of future directions in research and management.
Download or read book Agroforestry on Acid Soils in the Humid Tropics written by and published by World Agroforestry Centre. This book was released on 2000 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
