Assessment of promising agricultural management practices.

iSQAPER project - Interactive Soil Quality Assessment in Europe and China for Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Resilience - aims to develop an app to advise farmers on selecting the best Agriculture Management Practice (AMPs) to improve soil quality. For this purpose, a soil quality index has to be developed to account for the changes in soil quality as impacted by the implementation of the AMPs. Some promising AMPs have been suggested over the time to prevent soil degradation. These practices have been randomly adopted by farmers but which practices are most used by farmers and where they are mostly adopted remains unclear. This study is part of the iSQAPER project with the specific aims: 1) map the current distribution of previously selected 18 promising AMPs in several pedo-climatic regions and farming systems located in ten and four study site areas (SSA) along Europe and China, respectively; and 2) identify the soil threats occurring in those areas. In each SSA, farmers using promising AMP's were identified and questionnaires were used to assess farmer's perception on soil threats significance in the area. 138 plots/farms using 18 promising AMPs, were identified in Europe (112) and China (26).Results show that promising AMPs used in Europe are Crop rotation (15%), Manuring & Composting (15%) and Min-till (14%), whereas in China are Manuring & Composting (18%), Residue maintenance (18%) and Integrated pest and disease management (12%). In Europe, soil erosion is the main threat in agricultural Mediterranean areas while soil-borne pests and diseases is more frequent in the SSAs from France and The Netherlands. In China, soil erosion, SOM decline, compaction and poor soil structure are among the most significant. This work provides important information for policy makers and the development of strategies to support and promote agricultural management practices with benefits for soil quality.

[1]  Panos Panagos,et al.  Estimating the soil erosion cover-management factor at the European scale , 2015 .

[2]  N. Ramankutty,et al.  Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992 , 1999 .

[3]  H. Turral,et al.  The state of the world's land and water resources for food and agriculture : managing systems at risk , 2011 .

[4]  C. López-Fando,et al.  Variability in soil nematode populations due to tillage and crop rotation in semi-arid Mediterranean agrosystems , 1995 .

[5]  A. S. Grandy,et al.  Crop rotational diversity enhances belowground communities and functions in an agroecosystem. , 2015, Ecology letters.

[6]  A. S. Rao,et al.  Effects of continuous use of cattle manure and fertilizer phosphorus on crop yields and soil organic phosphorus in a Vertisol , 2000 .

[7]  J. Keizer,et al.  Soil threats in Europe: status, methods, drivers and effects on ecosystem services , 2016 .

[8]  S. Chaw,et al.  Patterns of plant invasions in China: Taxonomic, biogeographic, climatic approaches and anthropogenic effects , 2010, Biological Invasions.

[9]  Luuk Fleskens,et al.  Soil quality – A critical review , 2018 .

[10]  H. Tiessen,et al.  The role of soil organic matter in sustaining soil fertility , 1994, Nature.

[11]  Ben Collen,et al.  Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity , 2015, Nature.

[12]  T. Gergely,et al.  Threats to Soil Quality in Europe , 2008 .

[13]  L. López-Bellido,et al.  Influence of tillage, crop rotation and nitrogen fertilization on soil organic matter and nitrogen under rain-fed Mediterranean conditions , 1997 .

[14]  S. Polasky,et al.  Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices , 2002, Nature.

[15]  Panos Panagos,et al.  A knowledge-based approach to estimating the magnitude and spatial patterns of potential threats to soil biodiversity. , 2016, The Science of the total environment.

[16]  J. Galloway,et al.  An Earth-system perspective of the global nitrogen cycle , 2008, Nature.

[17]  F. Allison.  Soil organic matter and its role in crop production , 1973 .

[18]  Jeffrey E. Herrick,et al.  Experiences in monitoring and assessment of sustainable land management , 2011 .

[19]  J. Murillo,et al.  Soil Contamination , 2015, Chinese Environmental Law.

[20]  D. Tilman,et al.  Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture , 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[21]  O. Dubois,et al.  The state of the world's land and water resources for food and agriculture: managing systems at risk. , 2011 .

[22]  F. Chapin,et al.  Consequences of changing biodiversity , 2000, Nature.

[23]  Matthew K. Horton,et al.  Global effects of land use on biodiversity differ among functional groups , 2020, Functional Ecology.

[24]  Ciro Gardi,et al.  Continental-scale assessment of provisioning soil functions in Europe , 2013, Ecological Processes.

[25]  Panos Panagos,et al.  The new assessment of soil loss by water erosion in Europe , 2015 .

[26]  C. W. Lindwall,et al.  Tillage intensity and crop rotation affect weed community dynamics in a winter wheat cropping system , 2001 .

[27]  Panos Panagos,et al.  Quantifying the erosion effect on current carbon budget of European agricultural soils at high spatial resolution , 2016, Global change biology.

[28]  P. Ciais,et al.  The phosphorus trilemma , 2013 .

[29]  M. Goss,et al.  Nitrogen conservation in soil and crop residues as affected by crop rotation and soil disturbance under Mediterranean conditions , 2007, Biology and Fertility of Soils.

[30]  Jean-Marie Monget,et al.  Corine Land Cover , 2018 .

[31]  John Boardman,et al.  The new assessment of soil loss by water erosion in Europe. Panagos P. et al., 2015 Environmental Science & Policy 54, 438–447—A response , 2016 .

[32]  Lu Zhang,et al.  Global impacts of conversions from natural to agricultural ecosystems on water resources: Quantity versus quality , 2007 .

[33]  Hanspeter Liniger,et al.  Soils, agriculture and food security: The interplay between ecosystem functioning and human well-being , 2015 .

[34]  R. Lal.  Restoring Soil Quality to Mitigate Soil Degradation , 2015 .

[35]  J. Six,et al.  Soil biodiversity and human health , 2015, Nature.

[36]  J. L. Hernanz,et al.  Long-term effects of tillage systems and rotations on soil structural stability and organic carbon stratification in semiarid central Spain , 2002 .

[37]  G. Robertson,et al.  Greenhouse gases in intensive agriculture: contributions of individual gases to the radiative forcing of the atmosphere , 2000, Science.