Soil Quality

Abstract

The term soil quality (SQ) encompasses both a soil's productive and environmental capabilities. Strategies or frameworks that help farmers manage SQ are vital as sole emphasis on production can have negative environmental consequences and exclusive focus on environmental considerations could endanger supplies of food or fiber. Recent efforts in the USA have prioritized the development of SQ assessment strategies that would be used by individual farmers. The Illinois Soil Quality Initiative (ISQI) is an example of a participatory research strategy coupled with a SQ index‐screening trial conducted on farm fields. A multivariate approach was used to identify promising indices and document tradeoffs in soil condition that were associated with tillage choices. Participatory aspects of the project confirmed that farmers appreciated the multivariate nature of soil and had great interest in SQ and stewardship. A dialogue component of the project had been structured to identify and then respond to cooperators' SQ information needs and to contribute to the development of indices that were related to soil function. Cooperator feedback suggested that a simple extension of this approach would be incapable of motivating or justifying the adoption of SQ building practices because factors constraining management choices were primarily structural (socioeconomic). Constructive follow‐up efforts might strive to develop techniques to integrate SQ information into frameworks that reflect the outcomes to be achieved within social or economic contexts. Only by devising such strategies (which might combine models, indices, expert knowledge, and/or direct measurement) will we be able to manage the soil resource to achieve desired ends.

New Soil Index Development and Integration with Econometric Theory

“…Another reason could be that no purification concepts exist for soil science (Warkentin and Fletcher, 1977). As opposed to water quality/health, no "pure" natural soil can be found that could be used as a reference or standard measured by certain chemical concentrations.…”

Assessing Soil Quality in a Semiarid Tropical Watershed Using a Geographic Information System

“…The score of these indicators was then derived by dividing the corresponding observed value by the highest value. For the available P value, where higher was better up to the optimum value of 50 kg ha"' (Wander et al, 2002) and thereafter less was better, scores were derived by dividing the observed values <50 kg ha"' by 50, and for observed values >50 kgha" , scores were determined by dividing 50 by the observed values. For available Zn values below 0.6 mg kg" , the observed values were divided by 0.6 and those above 0.6 mg kg" ' were assigned a score of 1 .…”

Soil Quality Assessment for Peat-Mineral Mix Cover Soil Used in Oil Sands Reclamation

“…A requirement for the design of a SQ management and assessment framework (SQMAF) involves the identification of a set of minimum, quantitative, and readily available data that represent the soil functions of interest (Carter, 2002; Arshad and Martin, 2002; Doran and Parkin, 1994; Wander et al, 2002). This includes parameters showing measurable responses to changes in management, climate, and edaphic factors (Andrews et al, 2004; Doran and Parkin, 1994; Doran and Parkin, 1996).…”