Climate Change Implications on Soil Health and Agronomical Interventions to Increase Soil Carbon Sequestration under different Landuses
Abstract
Healthy soil is the crucial factor required to meet the global demands for food and fibre for the burgoining population. However, global food security is threatened by climate change impacts. Climate change, variability, and mismanagement or misuse of resources lead to soil degradation and vulnerability. Hence, sustainable soil management aims for the services of soil to be maintained without significantly impairing the soil functions that enable those services or biodiversity. Sequestering higher carbon in soils will help the soil increase its resilience to climate change in the long run. Therefore, every step towards sustainable soil health management in the climate change scenario should focus on soil carbon sequestration. The soils under different land use systems have various carbon sequestration potential. Adoption of the best management practices like conservation tillage (minimum, zero/no-till), balanced fertilization, green mulching, crop residue management, cover cropping, organic manures and in-situ soil and moisture conservation measures in agricultural lands can improve the carbon sequestration potential. The amount of carbon stored in forest soils is often greater than aboveground in living and dead plant biomass. Managing forests to optimize carbon sequestration is also essential to increase the carbon in forest soils. Carbon sequestration is the global mission achieving this is possible only through local vision involving the farmers, researchers and common public as agricultural/ forest soils and trees have the tremendous potential to sequester atmospheric carbon. Focus on soil health management to mitigate the climate change impacts is indispensable to have a sustainable ecosystem with high biodiversity.
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Introduction
Soil is a storehouse of nutrients and water essential for crop production, hydrological cycle and atmospheric gas exchange. It is the foundation for plant establishment, growth, agriculture, and forest and livestock production. The soil'sbiodiversity and abundance of biological activity are more incredible than in any other terrestrial ecosystem. Soil contributes about 98% of our food directly or indirectly (Lal et al., 2021). Climate change, variability, and mismanagement or misuse of resources lead to soil degradation and vulnerability. The SOC pool in 1 mdepth of soil is 30 tons ha-1 in arid regions, whereas inorganic soils of temperate areas, it is 800 tons ha-1. But it is also an alarming message that most agricultural soils have lost 30 to 75% of the soil organic carbon pool that accounts 30 to 40 t C ha-1. This carbon loss is more significant in soils prone to accelerated erosion due to human activities, resulting in soil quality degradation and productivity decline. The optimum organic carbon level is necessary for the soil to hold water and nutrients, decrease soil erosion and degradation risks, improve soil structure, and provide energy to soil microorganisms.
In contrast, soils have more potential to store carbon than other terrestrial ecosystems as agriculture, deforestation, and other anthropogenic activities have reduced their organic carbon content. Practices like intensive agriculture, high chemical input farming, and clean cultivation have drastically depleted the soil'sorganic carbon content and adversely affected soil health. The critical limit of SOC concentration for tropical soil is 1.1%, but they have avery low organic carbon content level of 0.1 to 0.2 %. Accomplishing the critical organic carbon content level in these regions will be arduous for farmers and scientists. But agricultural soils have the potential to sequester carbon to their original capacity. The effect of carbon sequestration is more prominent in degraded soils regarding soil health improvement. Soil C sequestration is an effective food and nutrition security strategy through soil quality improvement. SOC sequestration in soils is an effective climate change mitigation option (Lal 2004), and the 4 per 1000 initiative suggested that 20–35% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by increasing global SOC stocks in the top 40 cm by 0.4% per year (Minasny et al. 2017). Therefore, every step towards sustainable soil health management in the climate change scenario should focus on soil carbon sequestration.
Conclusion
Soil health management will continue to playa prominent role in any land use systems and will be influenced by climate change. Healthy soil is more resilient against fluctuations in climatic parameters. The resiliency of the soil ecosystem needs to be enhanced to cope with climatic variations. Building and improving soil health through SCS in agricultural and forest soils will ensure continued productivity, enhance farmers' incomes, and holistically promote food security. Building and maintaining healthy soil is not easy, especially in the arid and semi-arid regions. Carbon sequestration is the global need to combat the impacts of climate change through greenhouse gas emissions. Achieving this global mission is possible only through local vision involving the farmers, researchers and common public as agricultural/ forest soils and trees have the tremendous potential to sequester atmospheric carbon. Focus on soil health management to mitigate the climate change impacts is indispensable to have a sustainable ecosystem with high biodiversity.
