Poor soil fertility and soil degradation induced by persistent conventional farming with repeated tillage and removal or in situ burning of crop residue are major limitations to food security and environmental sustainability. However, degraded agricultural lands with depleted soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks are capable of soil carbon restoration through improved management practices like aggregation, humification and deep placement of C that can increase SOC seques-tration. According to FAO, conservation agriculture (CA) is arrived at as a solution to restore SOC with three pillars of minimum soil disturbance, permanent organic soil cover and diversified crop rotations. A significant increase in SOC levels under zero tillage (ZT) over conventional tillage (CT) was found; returning more crop residues to the soil is associated with an increase in SOC concentration that is further increased by crop diversification. Additionally, the incorporation of high-value trees with CA is treated as a working model for C storage. Thus, conservation agriculture is an operational approach to restore SOC that aggrades soil, reduces environmental footprints and makes agricultural systems more resilient to climate change.
Part of the book: Natural Resources Management and Biological Sciences
The exploitation of nature for decades due to several anthropogenic activities has changed the climatic conditions worldwide. The environment has been polluted with an increase of greenhouse gases. The major consequences are global warming, cyclone, an increase in sea level, etc. It has a clear negative impact on the natural environment including aquatic ones. As a result, production of fish in the aquaculture system and marine system is greatly affected. Marine ecosystems like coral reefs are also destroyed. Decreased fish production has also affected the livelihood and economic condition of the fish farmers. So, corrective measures should be taken to reduce the climate changes for minimizing its effects on fish production. Using more eco-friendly substances, planting more trees, and preserving our nature are some steps to be taken. Awareness should also be generated among the common people.
Part of the book: Inland Waters
Asian agriculture sector contributes about 44% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Predominantly paddy rice cultivation couples with indiscriminate use of agrochemicals, burning of fossil fuels in farm machinery majorly causes GHG emissions from farmlands in Asia. Presently, Asian soils have 25% cropland soil organic carbon (SOC) content but with moderately to highly vulnerability towards land degradation. To make up the soil carbon losses which has occurred due to continuous cultivation and tillage, it is recommended to adopt suitable carbon management practices to sequester carbon in soil through their physio-chemical protection. Conservation agriculture (CA), cover crop, crop diversification, integrated nutrient management (INM) and balanced fertilisation promotes better soil structure formation, stabilisation of aggregate associated carbon, microbial polymerisation of organic matter as well as a better root architecture. Carbon management practices not only improve soil fertility but also supports improved grain and straw yield. More the yield more biomass addition occurs to the soil. Soil carbon sequestration may not be the only panacea of climate change related issues, but is certainly a way forward to enriched soil fertility, improved agronomic production as well as adaptive- mitigation for offsetting anthropogenic GHG emission.
Part of the book: Climate Change in Asia and Africa