Soil development over millennial timescales - a comparison of soil chronosequences of different climates and lithologies

Sauer, Daniela; Schülli-Maurer, Isabelle; Wagner, Stephen; Scarciglia, Fabio; Sperstad, Ragnhild; Svendgård-Stokke, Siri; Sørensen, Rolf; Schellmann, Gerhard

doi:10.1088/1755-1315/25/1/012009

Cited by 17 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In contrast, rates below 0.5 t ha −1 yr −1 are considered negligible and assigned a value of 0 because soil formation is likely to be as fast or even faster than erosion. Soil formation was derived from soil thickness increase (Sauer et al, 2015) and soil bulk density (Tranter et al, 2007;Sequeira et al, 2014). Rates between the two boundary values were linearly scaled to the range 0 to 1.…”

Section: Crop Cyclesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities for sustainable intensification in European agriculture

Scherer

Verburg

Schulp

2018

Global Environmental Change

106

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Sustainable agricultural intensification is needed to tackle food insecurity and global environmental change. Local environmental conditions determine the needs and potentials for increasing sustainability of agricultural practices. However, the potential for implementation also depends on socioeconomic factors, as farmers need to adopt innovative farming practices, and consumer demand affects the economic feasibility. This study aims to map opportunities for sustainable intensification in Europe taking into account farmer characteristics, consumer behaviour, environmental pressures, and unexploited agronomic potentials. In areas identified as having high opportunities, we estimate the impacts of specific sustainable intensification measures on both intensification (in terms of calorie gains) and sustainability (in terms of resource savings). The study finds high spatial variation in opportunities for sustainable intensification across Europe. High opportunities for sustainable intensification are found on 34% of the arable area in Europe. In addition, the analysis shows that a combination of different measures can simultaneously improve food security and sustainability.

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Section: Crop Cyclesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities for sustainable intensification in European agriculture

Scherer

Verburg

Schulp

2018

Global Environmental Change

106

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“…The mineral composition of the parent material determines the mineral composition of the soil and nutrients released during weathering, which can either be processed by flora and fauna or leached from the soil. The parent material influences weathering rates as well as the chemical and physical properties of the soil and thus soil formation (Sauer et al, 2015) and also vegetation composition (Michalet et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subsurface flow paths in a chronosequence of calcareous soils: impact of soil age and rainfall intensities on preferential flow occurrence

Hartmann

Weiler²,

Greinwald³

et al. 2022

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Soil hydrologic processes play an important role in the hydro-pedo-geomorphological feedback cycle of landscape evolution. Soil properties and subsurface flow paths both change over time, but due to a lack of observations, subsurface water flow paths are often not properly represented in soil and landscape evolution models. We investigated the evolution of subsurface flow paths across a soil chronosequence in the calcareous glacier forefield at the Griessfirn glacier in the Swiss Alps. Young soils developed from calcareous parent material usually have a high pH value, which likely affects vegetation development and pedogenesis and thus the evolution of subsurface flow paths. We chose four glacial moraines of different ages (110, 160, 4 900, and 13 500 years) and conducted sprinkling experiments with the dye tracer Brilliant Blue on three plots at each moraine. Each plot was divided into three equal subplots, and dyed water was applied with three different irrigation intensities (20, 40, and 60 mm h−1) and an irrigation amount of 40 mm. Subsequent excavation of soil profiles enabled the tracing of subsurface flow paths. A change in flow types with increasing moraine age was observed from a rather homogeneous matrix flow at 110 and 160 years to heterogeneous matrix and finger-shaped flow at 4 900 and 13 500 years. However, the proportion of preferential flow paths is not necessarily directly related to the moraine age but rather to soil properties such as texture, soil layering, organic matter content, and vegetation characteristics such as root length density and biomass. Irrigation intensity had an effect on the number of finger-shaped flow paths at the two old moraines. We also found that flow paths in this calcareous material evolved differently compared to a previous study in siliceous material, which emphasizes the importance of parent material for flow path evolution. Our study provides a rare systematic dataset and observations on the evolution of vertical subsurface flow paths in calcareous soils, which is useful to improve their representation in the context of landscape evolution modeling.

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“…Globally, fertile soils are declining in areal extent due to residential, industrial, and transportation development, as well as improper land use practices [14,15]. Because soils are a finite resource of fundamental importance to terrestrial ecosystems and human nutrition, understanding soil formation processes and the rates at which they occur is crucial [16,17]. This is particularly true in the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States, where improved knowledge of soil and landscape evolution is needed to better inform long-term, sustainable land management planning in the face of competing agricultural, suburban, and urban land uses and a changing climate [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil Chemistry and Clay Mineralogy of an Alluvial Chronosequence from the North Carolina Sandhills of the Upper Coastal Plain, USA

2021

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Temporal changes in soil development were assessed on fluvial terraces of the Little River in the upper Coastal Plain of North Carolina. We examined five profiles from each of six surfaces spanning about 100,000 years. Soil-age relationships were evaluated with inter-surface clay mineral comparisons and regression of chemical properties versus previously reported optically-stimulated luminescence ages using the most developed subsoil horizon per profile. Bases to alumina (Bases/Al2O3) ratios have negative correlations with age, whereas dithionite-Fe (FeD) concentrations are positively correlated with time and differentiate floodplain (<200 yr BP) from terrace (≥10 ± 2 ka) soils and T4 pedons (75 ± 10 ka) from younger (T1-T3b, 10 ± 2–55 ± 15 ka) and older (T5b, 94 ± 16 ka) profiles. Entisols develop into Ultisols with exponentially decreasing Bases/Al2O3 ratios, reflecting rapid weatherable mineral depletion and alumina enrichment during argillic horizon development in the first 13–21 kyr of pedogenesis. Increasing FeD represents transformation and illuviation of free Fe inherited from parent sediments. Within ~80–110 kyr, a mixed clay mineral assemblage becomes dominated by kaolinite and gibbsite. Argillic horizons form by illuviation, secondary mineral transformations, and potentially, a bioturbation-translocation mechanism, in which clays distributed within generally sandy deposits are transported to surface horizons by ants and termites and later illuviated to subsoils. T5b profiles have FeD concentrations similar to, and gibbsite abundances greater than, those of pedons on 0.6–1.6 Ma terraces along Coastal Plain rivers that also drain the Appalachian Piedmont. This is likely because the greater permeability and lower weatherable mineral contents of sandy, Coastal Plain-sourced Little River alluvium favor more rapid weathering, gibbsite formation, and Fe translocation than the finer-grained, mineralogically mixed sediments of Piedmont-draining rivers. Therefore, recognizing provenance-related textural and mineralogical distinctions is crucial for evaluating regional chronosequences.

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Soil development over millennial timescales - a comparison of soil chronosequences of different climates and lithologies

Cited by 17 publications

References 37 publications

Opportunities for sustainable intensification in European agriculture

Opportunities for sustainable intensification in European agriculture

Subsurface flow paths in a chronosequence of calcareous soils: impact of soil age and rainfall intensities on preferential flow occurrence

Soil Chemistry and Clay Mineralogy of an Alluvial Chronosequence from the North Carolina Sandhills of the Upper Coastal Plain, USA

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