A new approach to elaborate a multifunctional soil quality index

Australian Journal of Soil Research, 2007

Soil quality indexing is a new approach in spatial and temporal evaluation of land management systems effects on soils’ capacity to function. A field experiment was conducted at Caffee Doonsa (2400 m a.s.l., 08°57′N, 39°06′E) for 6 years (1998–2003) to compare the effects of land preparation methods on soil quality (SQ) and to test the use of the Soil Management Assessment Framework (SMAF) in assessing SQ under the Ethiopian Central Highlands conditions. Four methods of land preparation [broad bed and furrows (BBF), green manure (GM), ridge and furrows (RF), and reduced tillage (RT)] were arranged in a randomised complete block design with 3 replications on permanent plots (22 m by 6 m). Physical, chemical, and biological SQ indicators were determined and scored, and a soil quality index (SQI) was developed using the SMAF procedures. Seven SQ indicators including microbial biomass carbon (MBC), bulk density, aggregate stability (AGG), soil organic carbon (Corg), pH, available water ...

American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, 1992

The impact of soil degradation on human welfare and the global environment presents a major challenge. A significant decline in soil quality has occurred worldwide through adverse changes in its physical, chemical and biological attributes and contamination by inorganic and organic chemicals. There is a need to develop criteria to evaluate soil quality so that the progress of any corrective action required by the international community can be monitored.There currently are no generally accepted criteria to evaluate changes in soil quality. This lack impedes the design and evaluation of meaningful soil management programs. This paper examines the principal physical and chemical attributes that can serve as indicators of a change in soil quality under particular agroclimatic conditions. Proposed indicators include soil depth to a root restricting layer, available water-holding capacity, bulk density/penetration resistance, hydraulic conductivity, aggregate stability, organic matter, n...

Land Use and Soil Resources, 2008

Environmental sustainability will only be achieved by maintenance and improvement of soil quality. Soil quality is considered as the capacity of a soil to function. Its assessment focuses on dynamic aspects to evaluate the sustainability of soil management practices. In this chapter, a wide perspective of soil quality and the complex task of its assessment, considering the inherent and dynamic factors, are introduced. It focuses on the possibilities of applying and integrating the accumulated knowledge in agroecological land evaluation in order to predict soil quality. Advanced information technologies in modern decision support tools enable the integration of large and complex databases, models, tools, and techniques, and are proposed to improve the decision-making process in soil quality management. Although universal recommendations on soil quality and sustainability of soil management must not be done, this chapter presents general trends in soil quality management strategies. This includes arable land identification, crop diversification, organic matter restoration, tillage intensity, and soil input rationalization.

The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Science, 2019

This study was conducted to assess Soil Quality Indicators (SQIs) in some cultivated soils in North Delta, Egypt. Two methodologies were implemented (Simple additive SQI 1 and Weighted additive SQI 2) to assess Soil Quality (SQ) status. SQ was determined qualitatively and quantitatively based on field study and laboratory analysis. In addition the results of both methods were evaluated statistically. Soil Quality Indices (SQI) were examined based on vertical and horizontal soil properties. Twenty potential physiochemical SQIs of sixty soil profiles were assessed. The physiochemical parameters considered in this study were given SQ rate based on each parameter standard rate. The results demonstrated that the assessment of soil Quality based on both methods are similar with significant correlation in the case of well distributed soil samples. SQI 2 Outperform SQI 1 in comprising all indicators, while SQI 1 is timely appreciated economically preferable. The differences in results of SQI 1 and SQI 2 are mainly due to the numbers of SQIs considered in the calculations and the variations of soil properties through the soil profile. The results indicated that north part of the area characterized by low SQ while the south portion is high SQ whilst the eastern part is moderate. However the low value of SQ in north Nile Delta is mainly associated with the levels of soil salinity, soil compaction and waterlogging.

Applied and Environmental Soil Science

Soil quality serves as the basis for both food security and environmental sustainability. To optimize production and implement soil management interventions, understanding the state of the soil quality is fundamental. Thus, this study was conducted to assess the soil quality of arable lands situated in the Nitisols and Luvisols using different assessment techniques. A total of 57 georeferenced soil samples were taken at a depth of 20 cm (18 from Nitisols and 39 from Luvisols land). The soil samples were analyzed for particle size distribution (PSD), texture, pH, organic carbon (OC), total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (P), sulfur (S), exchangeable bases (calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and potassium (K)), soil micronutrients (boron (B), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), and zinc (Zn)), and cation exchange capacity (CEC). The techniques used to estimate soil quality includes principal component analysis (PCA), a normalized PCA, and common soil parameters (soil texture, pH, ...

Revista Internacional de Contaminación Ambiental

Soil degradation and the use of urban biosolid wastes to soil restoration have an economic, social-environmental and health impact. Therefore, there is interest worldwide in the use and comparison of methodologies to establish soil quality indexes (SQIs) based on physical, chemical, and biological indicators of soils. Considering that more than 60% of the territory in the Bajío region of Mexico in the State of Guanajuato is affected by some type of soil degradation, three methodologies for the establishment of SQIs—additive, weighted and unified weighted indexes—were compared in this study to evaluate the short-term effects—30 days—of the addition of biosolids as soil improvers. The methodologies were applied in experiments on carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) mineralization dynamics in a sodic agricultural soil. The ammonium indicator (N-NH4+) was established as the one that is most related to the quality of the soil. The additive and unified weighted indexes differentiated the level of ...

PLoS ONE, 2014

Assessment of management-induced changes in soil quality is important to sustaining high crop yield. A large diversity of cultivated soils necessitate identification development of an appropriate soil quality index (SQI) based on relative soil properties and crop yield. Whereas numerous attempts have been made to estimate SQI for major soils across the World, there is no standard method established and thus, a strong need exists for developing a user-friendly and credible SQI through comparison of various available methods. Therefore, the objective of this article is to compare three widely used methods to estimate SQI using the data collected from 72 soil samples from three on-farm study sites in Ohio. Additionally, challenge lies in establishing a correlation between crop yield versus SQI calculated either depth wise or in combination of soil layers as standard methodology is not yet available and was not given much attention to date. Predominant soils of the study included one organic (Mc), and two mineral (CrB, Ko) soils. Three methods used to estimate SQI were: (i) simple additive SQI (SQI-1), (ii) weighted additive SQI (SQI-2), and (iii) statistically modeled SQI (SQI-3) based on principal component analysis (PCA). The SQI varied between treatments and soil types and ranged between 0-0.9 (1 being the maximum SQI). In general, SQIs did not significantly differ at depths under any method suggesting that soil quality did not significantly differ for different depths at the studied sites. Additionally, data indicate that SQI-3 was most strongly correlated with crop yield, the correlation coefficient ranged between 0.74-0.78. All three SQIs were significantly correlated (r = 0.92-0.97) to each other and with crop yield (r = 0.65-0.79). Separate analyses by crop variety revealed that correlation was low indicating that some key aspects of soil quality related to crop response are important requirements for estimating SQI.

Soil and Tillage Research, 2013

A B S T R A C T Soil quality assessment can provide a practical approach for early detection of adverse influences of management practices. Our objective was to develop soil quality indices (SQI) for assessing the effects of current arable management practices on soil quality for temperate maritime soils. The study was conducted on twenty arable sites with conventional or minimum tillage and mono-cropping or crop rotation. Twenty-two soil properties were measured as potential indicators of soil quality, and those indicators that were responsive to management were considered as a total data set. Principal component analysis was used to determine a minimum data set (MDS), and four indices of soil quality were calculated using linear/non-linear scoring functions and additive/weighted additive methods. Visual evaluation of soil structure (VESS) was used to validate these indices. Total nitrogen, carbon nitrogen ratio, magnesium, aggregate size distribution, bulk density, penetration resistance and soil respiration were identified as the MDS (independent variables with r < 0.7). All four SQI differed significantly by VESS class (P < 0.05), but the linear additive index showed the best discrimination by management practices (P < 0.05). The study indicated the positive influences of minimum tillage in combination with crop rotation on soil quality in Ireland, and indicated a detrimental effect of mono-cropping. The method developed in this study can provide a practical, quantitative tool for assessing soil quality under agricultural management systems.

"Soils are an essential resource in both managed and natural systems, and maintaining soil quality is critical to the development of sustainable development of human activities, in particular agriculture. The assessment of impacts of human activities on soil quality needs a universal practical approach that can be incorporated in global environmental assessments. But so far, no synthetic indicators have been proposed that would combine the main soil characteristics in a simple formula valid for all types of soils and climates. The existence of numerous interrelated soil characteristics and their complex interactions with agricultural practices has postponed development of a universal soil-quality impact indicator in environmental assessment, especially in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA is an internationally normalized method widely used to evaluate potential impacts of products. The inability to represent impacts on soil quality remains one of the unresolved problems in LCA because of soil’s spatial and temporal variability and the complex interactions between soil properties. It is crucial to consider soil quality in the environmental assessment of products, especially those with a majority of their life cycle in biological processes (such as agriculture and forestry). After presenting a general overview of the soil quality concept, we review the existing LCA approaches that consider soil quality in their inventory and impactassessment phases, and outline the challenges to refining soil quality impacts in LCA. These challenges include estimation of complex soil quality impacts that depend on fluctuating soil characteristics, consideration of both on-site and off-site agricultural soils, and aggregation of impacts both spatially and temporally. The inventory items describing soil quality can be soil properties, functions or processes (e.g., erosion, compaction). Their quantification implies that they be (1) relevant for calculating impacts on soil quality, (2) related to one or more functional units, (3) as accurate as possible and (4) calculated with available data at a global scale. Inventory items based on processes fulfill these four needs and can be considered as midpoint indicators in LCA. Furthermore, indicators based on processes allow an incremental improvement of the method through the inclusion of new impacts. Efforts first must focus on developing robust impact indicators for individual soil processes before attempting to aggregate them into a single indicator. Nonetheless, several aggregation approaches are presented. The appropriate level of complexity and comprehensiveness for assessing impacts on soil quality should result from a compromise between oversimplified and overcomplicated descriptions of the multiple functions and properties of soils."