Regional Soil Nutrient Balances for Cropland in 1920s Catalonia, Spain

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Elena Galán

Abstract Understanding the replacement of soil nutrients removed by harvests makes it possible to understand the influence of humans on long-term soil fertility. This article calculates nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium balances for cropland in 1920 for three agroecoregions distinguished by particular historical settlement patterns, land use, geography, and climatic characteristics in Catalonia, Spain. The analysis assesses and compares the regional potential for farmers to have returned the nutrients extracted from croplands at a time of transition, when only a few synthetic fertilizers were yet available. From sustainability science, the article borrows a methodology to reconstruct soil nutrient balances in historical agroecosystems from available regional historical sources. The soil balances indicate that nutrient extractions were balanced with the additions in Catalonia’s wetter Pyrenees and eastern regions, but were in deficit in the arid western regions, where less livestock manure was available. In Barcelona province, farmers made considerable use of synthetic fertilizers already in 1920. Such fertilizers were mainly intended to supplement phosphorus in the eastern region, suggesting that they played an important role there too, where there was not enough manure.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kormla Nyameasem ◽  
Thorsten Reinsch ◽  
Friedhelm Taube ◽  
Charles Yaw Fosu Domozoro ◽  
Esther Marfo-Ahenkora ◽  
...  

Abstract. Enhancing the capacity of agricultural soils to resist soil degradation and to mitigate climate change requires long-term assessments of land-use systems. Such long-term evaluations, particularly regarding low-input livestock systems, are limited. This study evaluated the impact of long-term land-use practices, condensed tannins (CT) and soil nutrient status on carbon cycling in arable and permanent systems of a tropical Savannah. Soil samples were taken (0–30 cm depth) from arable crop fields, grazed-seeded grassland, cut-use permanent crops and native grassland. Soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks ranged from 19.9 to 36.8 Mg SOC ha−1 (mean ± sd = 32.9 ± 0.2 Mg ha−1). SOC stocks were lower for grazed-seeded grassland relative to cut-use grass, legume trees and shrubs. Within sown systems, nitrogen availability seemed to be the most critical factor that determines the fate of the SOC stocks, with soil nitrogen (N) concentration and the SOC being highly correlated (r = 0.90; p 


CATENA ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 243-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Ouyang ◽  
Yiming Xu ◽  
Fanghua Hao ◽  
Xuelei Wang ◽  
Chen Siyang ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 15-23
Author(s):  
Barrie J. Wills

A warm welcome to our "World of Difference" to all delegates attending this conference - we hope your stay is enjoyable and that you will leave Central Otago with an enhanced appreciation of the diversity of land use and the resilient and growing economic potential that this region has to offer. Without regional wellbeing the national economy will struggle to grow, something Central Government finally seems to be realising, and the Central Otago District Council Long Term Plan 2012-2022 (LTP) signals the importance of establishing a productive economy for the local community which will aid in the economic growth of the district and seeks to create a thriving economy that will be attractive to business and residents alike. Two key principles that underpin the LTP are sustainability and affordability, with the definition of sustainability being "… development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."


2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-79
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Nikorowicz-Zatorska

Abstract The present paper focuses on spatial management regulations in order to carry out investment in the field of airport facilities. The construction, upgrades, and maintenance of airports falls within the area of responsibility of local authorities. This task poses a great challenge in terms of organisation and finances. On the one hand, an active airport is a municipal landmark and drives local economic, social and cultural development, and on the other, the scale of investment often exceeds the capabilities of local authorities. The immediate environment of the airport determines its final use and prosperity. The objective of the paper is to review legislation that affects airports and the surrounding communities. The process of urban planning in Lodz and surrounding areas will be presented as a background to the problem of land use management in the vicinity of the airport. This paper seeks to address the following questions: if and how airports have affected urban planning in Lodz, does the land use around the airport prevent the development of Lodz Airport, and how has the situation changed over the time? It can be assumed that as a result of lack of experience, land resources and size of investments on one hand and legislative dissonance and peculiar practices on the other, aviation infrastructure in Lodz is designed to meet temporary needs and is characterised by achieving short-term goals. Cyclical problems are solved in an intermittent manner and involve all the municipal resources, so there’s little left to secure long-term investments.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 420-428
Author(s):  
Johana Juliet Caballero Vanegas ◽  
Karen Bibiana Mejía Zambrano ◽  
Lizeth Manuela Avellaneda-Torres

ABSTRACT Understanding the impacts of agricultural practices on soil quality indicators, such as enzymatic activities, is of great importance, in order to advance in their diagnosis and sustainable management. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of ecological and conventional agricultural managements on enzymatic activities of a soil under coffee agroecosystems. The enzymatic activities were associated with the biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen (urease and protease), phosphorus (acid and alkaline phosphatase) and carbon (β-glucosidase), during the rainy and dry seasons. Physical-chemical soil proprieties were also assessed and related to resilience scores linked to the climatic variability reported for the areas under study. The activities of urease, alkaline and acid phosphatase and ß-glucosidase were statistically higher in ecological agroecosystems than in conventional ones. This may be attributed to the greater application of organic waste in the ecological environment, as well as to the absence of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, which allow better conditions for the microbial activity. The resilience scores to the climate variability that showed the highest correlations with the assessed enzymatic activities were: the farmers' knowledge on soil microorganisms, non-use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and non-dependence on external supplies. It was concluded that the enzymatic activities are modified by the management systems, being specifically favored by the ecological management. This agroecosystem, in the long term, ensures an efficient use of the soil resources, with a lower degradation and contamination.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 3763-3775 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Meusburger ◽  
G. Leitinger ◽  
L. Mabit ◽  
M. H. Mueller ◽  
A. Walter ◽  
...  

Abstract. Snow processes might be one important driver of soil erosion in Alpine grasslands and thus the unknown variable when erosion modelling is attempted. The aim of this study is to assess the importance of snow gliding as a soil erosion agent for four different land use/land cover types in a subalpine area in Switzerland. We used three different approaches to estimate soil erosion rates: sediment yield measurements in snow glide depositions, the fallout radionuclide 137Cs and modelling with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). RUSLE permits the evaluation of soil loss by water erosion, the 137Cs method integrates soil loss due to all erosion agents involved, and the measurement of snow glide deposition sediment yield can be directly related to snow-glide-induced erosion. Further, cumulative snow glide distance was measured for the sites in the winter of 2009/2010 and modelled for the surrounding area and long-term average winter precipitation (1959–2010) with the spatial snow glide model (SSGM). Measured snow glide distance confirmed the presence of snow gliding and ranged from 2 to 189 cm, with lower values on the north-facing slopes. We observed a reduction of snow glide distance with increasing surface roughness of the vegetation, which is an important information with respect to conservation planning and expected and ongoing land use changes in the Alps. Snow glide erosion estimated from the snow glide depositions was highly variable with values ranging from 0.03 to 22.9 t ha−1 yr−1 in the winter of 2012/2013. For sites affected by snow glide deposition, a mean erosion rate of 8.4 t ha−1 yr−1 was found. The difference in long-term erosion rates determined with RUSLE and 137Cs confirms the constant influence of snow-glide-induced erosion, since a large difference (lower proportion of water erosion compared to total net erosion) was observed for sites with high snow glide rates and vice versa. Moreover, the difference between RUSLE and 137Cs erosion rates was related to the measured snow glide distance (R2 = 0.64; p < 0.005) and to the snow deposition sediment yields (R2 = 0.39; p = 0.13). The SSGM reproduced the relative difference of the measured snow glide values under different land uses and land cover types. The resulting map highlighted the relevance of snow gliding for large parts of the investigated area. Based on these results, we conclude that snow gliding appears to be a crucial and non-negligible process impacting soil erosion patterns and magnitude in subalpine areas with similar topographic and climatic conditions.


Author(s):  
Temesgen Mulualem ◽  
Enyew Adgo ◽  
Derege Tsegaye Meshesha ◽  
Atsushi Tsunekawa ◽  
Nigussie Haregeweyn ◽  
...  

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 334
Author(s):  
Juraj Lieskovský ◽  
Dana Lieskovská

This study compares different nationwide multi-temporal spatial data sources and analyzes the cropland area, cropland abandonment rates and transformation of cropland to other land cover/land use categories in Slovakia. Four multi-temporal land cover/land use data sources were used: The Historic Land Dynamics Assessment (HILDA), the Carpathian Historical Land Use Dataset (CHLUD), CORINE Land Cover (CLC) data and Landsat images classification. We hypothesized that because of the different spatial, temporal and thematic resolution of the datasets, there would be differences in the resulting cropland abandonment rates. We validated the datasets, compared the differences, interpreted the results and combined the information from the different datasets to form an overall picture of long-term cropland abandonment in Slovakia. The cropland area increased until the Second World War, but then decreased after transition to the communist regime and sharply declined following the 1989 transition to an open market economy. A total of 49% of cropland area has been transformed to grassland, 34% to forest and 15% to urban areas. The Historical Carpathian dataset is the more reliable long-term dataset, and it records 19.65 km2/year average cropland abandonment for 1836–1937, 154.44 km2/year for 1938–1955 and 140.21 km2/year for 1956–2012. In comparison, the Landsat, as a recent data source, records 142.02 km2/year abandonment for 1985–2000 and 89.42 km2/year for 2000–2010. These rates, however, would be higher if the dataset contained urbanisation data and more precise information on afforestation. The CORINE Land Cover reflects changes larger than 5 ha, and therefore the reported cropland abandonment rates are lower.


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