scholarly journals Biochar: A Sustainable Approach for Improving Soil Health and Environment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shreya Das ◽  
Samanyita Mohanty ◽  
Gayatri Sahu ◽  
Mausami Rana ◽  
Kiran Pilli
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Soil Amendment ◽  
Soil Health ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Soil Contaminants ◽  
Multiple Challenges

Current agriculture faces multiple challenges due to boom in food demand and environmental concerns. Biochar is increasingly being recognized by scientists and policy makers for its potential role in carbon sequestration, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, waste mitigation and as a soil amendment. The purpose of this review is to provide a balanced perspective on the agronomic and environmental impacts of biochar amendment to soil. Application of biochar to soil can play a significant role in the alteration of nutrients dynamics, soil contaminants as well as microbial functions. Therefore, strategic biochar application to soil may provide agronomic, environmental and economic benefits. Recent findings also supported that in order to enhance crop yield, improve soil quality and soil health, biochar has proven significant role as fertilizer and soil conditioner respectively.

BIOCHAR AS A SOIL AMENDMENT TO IMPROVE CROP YIELD AND SOIL CARBON SEQUESTRATION

2014 ◽  
pp. 203-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.B. Rosenani ◽  
S.H. Ahmad ◽  
S. Nurul Adila ◽  
Tan Wei Loon
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Soil Carbon ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Soil Amendment ◽  
Soil Carbon Sequestration

scholarly journals Review of Large-Scale Biochar Field-Trials for Soil Amendment and the Observed Influences on Crop Yield Variations

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vandit Vijay ◽  
Sowmya Shreedhar ◽  
Komalkant Adlak ◽  
Sachin Payyanad ◽  
Vandana Sreedharan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Soil Health ◽  
Crop Productivity ◽  
Field Trials ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Rapid Urbanization

Increasing pressure on farming systems due to rapid urbanization and population growth has severely affected soil health and fertility. The need to meet the growing food demands has also led to unsustainable farming practices with the intensive application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, resulting in significant greenhouse gas emissions. Biochar, a multifunctional carbon material, is being actively explored globally for simultaneously addressing the concerns related to improving soil fertility and mitigating climate change. Reviews on biochar, however, mainly confined to lab-scale studies analyze biochar production and its characteristics, its effects on soil fertility, and carbon sequestration. The present review addresses this gap by focusing on biochar field trials to enhance the current understanding of its actual impact on the field, w.r.t. agriculture and climate change. The review presents an overview of the effects of biochar application as observed in field studies on soil health (soil’s physical, chemical, and biological properties), crop productivity, and its potential role in carbon sequestration. General trends from this review indicate that biochar application provides higher benefits in soil properties and crop yield in degraded tropical soils vis-a-vis the temperate regions. The results also reveal diverse observations in soil health properties and crop yields with biochar amendment as different studies consider different crops, biochar feedstocks, and local climatic and soil conditions. Furthermore, it has been observed that the effects of biochar application in lab-scale studies with controlled environments are not always distinctly witnessed in corresponding field-based studies and the effects are not always synchronous across different regions. Hence, there is a need for more data, especially from well-designed long-term field trials, to converge and validate the results on the effectiveness of biochar on diverse soil types and agro-climatic zones to improve crop productivity and mitigate climate change.

A NEW WEED MANAGEMENT APPROACH TO IMPROVE SOIL HEALTH IN A TROPICAL PLANTATION CROP, RUBBER (HEVEA BRASILIENSIS)

2015 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSHUA ABRAHAM ◽  
PHEBE JOSEPH
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Weed Management ◽  
Hevea Brasiliensis ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Soil Health ◽  
Management Approach ◽  
Crop Cultivation ◽  
Tropical Plantation

SUMMARYThe soil health of rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) plantations shows a declining trend, mainly due to the continuous mono crop cultivation and the ‘clean-weeding’ practices. Another weeding approach which allows the under-flora to grow profusely after closing up of the rubber canopy (no-weeding) can establish a multi-flora system that can improve soil health. A case study was undertaken to test this hypothesis. Rubber fields with and without control of under-flora were investigated for different soil properties, biomass and nutrients of under-flora and rubber yield. The ‘no-weeding’ practice for about 10 years in the rubber fields significantly improved the soil OC, N, available forms K and Mg, respiration rate and moisture status. The biomass and associated nutrients of under-flora also were much higher while the rubber yield was not negatively affected in the ‘no-weeding’ fields. The new weed management system is of great significance in improving soil quality, carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation, besides the economic and energy savings without affecting crop yield.

scholarly journals Prospects of bicar as soil amendment in Nepal hill farming systems

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 92-103
Author(s):  
Ngamindra Dahal ◽  
Roshan Man Bajracharya ◽  
Juerg Merz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Soil Amendment ◽  
Agricultural Soils ◽  
Soil Health ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Soil Microbial Activity ◽  
Soil Types ◽  
Soil Productivity ◽  
Cropping Patterns

Burning of biomass under controlled temperature and oxygen limited environment produces biochar along with syn-gases and bio-oil. A significant volume of literatures portray biochar as a remedial option to meet growing needs of amending agricultural soils for global food security and carbon sequestration to curb climate change. Biochar has generated huge interests among agro-practitioners mainly for its two sets of benefits. The first set of benefits is about desirable changes in soil function that includes enhanced soil microbial activity, retention of nutrients and moisture, alkaline effect for treating acidic soils and, increased porosity on soil structure. The second set includes enhanced adaptive capacity of agricultural systems to climate change impacts, and, carbon sequestration due to its recalcitrant nature that remain in soil for a very long period. These acclaimed effects of biochar on soils are among the much sought-after remedies to heal a number of soil health ailments that millions of farmers and policy planners are looking for. However, effectiveness of biochar has yet to be examined carefully in different soil types over diverse topography corresponding with local cropping patterns. Matching properties of soils with those of biochar is a prerequisite for any interventions aimed at soil amendment. Properties of biochar generally depend on feedstock types, and temperatures during pyrolysis. This review analyses major published works on different aspects of biochar with the key question of whether promotion of biochar could be a viable solution to address some of the critical concerns of soil productivity in the Nepal mid hills and concludes with a note that there are serious knowledge gaps in two fronts – systematic practice of biochar production and application in agricultural farms is yet to take off, and, documented evidences of effectiveness of biochar on various soil types and cropping patterns are insignificant.

POLICY CHANGE – THE ROLE OF IDEAS AND POLICY ENTREPRENEURS

2018 ◽  
pp. 63-72
Author(s):  
Arwanto Arwanto ◽  
Wike Anggraini
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurs ◽  
Multiple Streams ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Problem Framing ◽  
Exogenous Factors ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACT Understanding policy process involves many distinctive approaches. The most common are institutional, groups or networks, exogenous factors, rational actors, and idea-based approach. This paper discussed the idea-based approach to explain policy process, in this case policy change. It aims to analyse how ideas could assist people to understand policy change. What role do they play and why are they considered as fundamental element? It considers that ideas are belong to every policy actor, whether it is individual or institution. In order to answer these questions, this paper adopts Kingdon’s multi streams approach to analyse academic literatures. Through this approach, the relationship between ideas and policy change can be seen clearer. Ideas only can affect in policy change if it is agreed and accepted by policy makers. Therefore the receptivity of ideas plays significant role and it emerges policy entrepreneurs. They promote ideas (through problem framing, timing, and narrative construction) and manipulate in order to ensure the receptivity of ideas. Although policy entrepreneurs play significant role, political aspects remains the most important element in the policy process. Keywords: policy change, ideas, idea-based approach, Kingdon’s multiple streams, policy entrepreneurs.

Challenges for Entrepreneurs of ‘Religious Tourism Circuits’: A Study of ‘Holy City’ Kurukshetra

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Reeti Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Cultural Tourism ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Tourist Destinations ◽  
Travel Agencies ◽  
Religious Tourism ◽  
Restaurant Owners ◽  
Holy City

Government of India launched a ‘Swadesh Darshan Scheme’ in January 2015 that pinpoints 13 designated circuits including Ramayana circuit, Krishna Circuit, Buddhist Circuit, and Spiritual Circuit to promote religious and cultural tourism in the country. Kurukshetra is a ‘Holy City’ of State of Haryana that is recently been added in ‘Krishna Religious Tourism Circuit’. ‘Krishna Circuit’ embraces inherent mythology and beliefs pertaining to Lord Krishna and includes different place of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujrat, and Odisha for tourism facilitation. This scheme is alleged to contribute significantly in increasing the attractiveness of certain religious tourist destinations. Tourism entrepreneurs like hoteliers, restaurant owners, tour operators, travel agencies as well as religious entrepreneurs (Shinde, 2010) such as religious gurus, priests and managers of temples and ashrams are expected to get benefited from the initiatives proposed in the scheme in varied ways. Given the significant role of this scheme for growth of entrepreneurs, the present study aims to highlight the challenges faced by entrepreneurs that deserve attention of policy makers.

scholarly journals Transposition of European Guidelines for Energy Communities into Austrian Law: A Comparison and Discussion of Issues and Positive Aspects

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3922
Author(s):  
Bernadette Fina ◽  
Hubert Fechner
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Electricity Market ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Detailed Comparison ◽  
Regulatory Framework ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
European Guidelines ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
Grid Operators ◽  
Austrian Law

The Renewable Energy Directive and the Electricity Market Directive, both parts of the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package (issued in 2019), provide supranational rules for renewable energy communities and citizen energy communities. Since national transpositions need to be completed within two years, Austria has already drafted corresponding legislation. This article aims at providing a detailed comparison of the European guidelines and the transposition into Austrian law. The comparison not only shows how, and to what extent, the European guidelines are transposed into Austrian law, but also helps to identify loopholes and barriers. The subsequent discussion of these issues as well as positive aspects of the Austrian transposition may be advantageous for legislators and policy makers worldwide in their process of designing a coherent regulatory framework. It is concluded that experts from different areas (i.e., project developers, scientists concerned with energy communities, energy suppliers and grid operators) should be closely involved in the law-making process in order to introduce different perspectives so that a consistent and supportive regulatory framework for energy communities is created.

scholarly journals An Investigation of the Socio-Economic Benefits of Small-Scale Gold Mining in Malawi

Mining ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Tiyamike Haundi ◽  
Gift Tsokonombwe ◽  
Steven Ghambi ◽  
Theresa Mkandawire ◽  
Ansley Kasambara
Keyword(s):  
Gold Mining ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Low Literacy ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
The Government

In the recent years, there has been a surge in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in various districts of Malawi. Reports of a gold rush have emerged in various districts, including Mangochi, Lilongwe, Balaka, and lately in Kasungu. There has been persistence by many indigenous communities participating in ASGM activities, yet little is being done by the government to formalize and support the sub-sector. The purpose of this study was to investigate the benefits of artisanal small-scale gold mining in Malawi and expose the shortfalls so that key stakeholders and policy makers are well informed. A quantitative approach which used semi-structured questionnaires was used and the data was analyzed using Microsoft excel and Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study shows that ASGM is characterized by people with low literacy levels, who use traditional tools (low-tech) and use methods fueled by lack of capital, and deficiency of basic knowledge of mining and geology. The study found that the government could achieve substantial socio-economic development from the sector by: (1) revising the current artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) legislation so that it embraces the customary practices whilst safeguarding the environment and improving the tax collection base; (2) providing support in form of mining related training and education to these communities; (3) leading in transfer of modern technologies for improved extraction; (4) supporting ASM cooperatives in securing credit facilities from financial institutions; and (5) closing the existing knowledge gap for ASM related issues through introduction of mining desk officers in district councils.

scholarly journals Multi-Objective Sizing Optimization of Hybrid Renewable Energy Microgrid in a Stand-Alone Marine Context

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 174
Author(s):  
Wenqiang Zhu ◽  
Jiang Guo ◽  
Guo Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Optimization Problem ◽  
System Optimization ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Grey Wolf Optimizer ◽  
Grey Wolf ◽  
Energy Management Strategy ◽  
Sizing Optimization ◽  
Multi Objective ◽  
Hybrid Renewable Energy

Islands are the main platforms for exploration and utilization of marine resources. In this paper, an island hybrid renewable energy microgrid devoted to a stand-alone marine application is established. The specific microgrid is composed of wind turbines, tidal current turbines, and battery storage systems considering the climate resources and precious land resources. A multi-objective sizing optimization method is proposed comprehensively considering the economy, reliability and energy utilization indexes. Three optimization objectives are presented: minimizing the Loss of Power Supply Probability, the Cost of Energy and the Dump Energy Probability. An improved multi-objective grey wolf optimizer based on Halton sequence and social motivation strategy (HSMGWO) is proposed to solve the proposed sizing optimization problem. MATLAB software is utilized to program and simulate the optimization problem of the hybrid energy system. Optimization results confirm that the proposed method and improved algorithm are feasible to optimally size the system, and the energy management strategy effectively matches the requirements of system operation. The proposed HSMGWO shows better convergence and coverage than standard multi-objective grey wolf optimizer (MOGWO) and multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) in solving multi-objective sizing problems. Furthermore, the annual operation of the system is simulated, the power generation and economic benefits of each component are analyzed, as well as the sensitivity.

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