This manual provides soil and water conservationists with the information they need to efficiently plan and implement soil and water conservation programmes. It is designed primarily for planners, executors, designers, and postgraduate students. It includes formal specifications, charts, and drawings that can be used as a reference in planning and applying soil and water conservation practices.
Emphasizes engineering design of soil and water conservation practices and their impact on the environment, primarily air and water quality. As in previous editions, the purpose of this book is to provide a professional text for undergraduate and graduate agricultural and biological engineering students and for others interested in soil and water conservation in rural and urban areas. Subject matter includes all the engineering phases of soil and water conservation for a one- or two-semester course.
“Principles of Soil Management and Conservation” comprehensively reviews the state-of-knowledge on soil erosion and management. It discusses in detail soil conservation topics in relation to soil productivity, environment quality, and agronomic production. It addresses the implications of soil erosion with emphasis on global hotspots and synthesizes available from developed and developing countries. It also critically reviews information on no-till management, organic farming, crop residue management for industrial uses, conservation buffers (e.g., grass buffers, agroforestry systems), and the problem of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico and in other regions. This book uniquely addresses the global issues including carbon sequestration, net emissions of CO2, and erosion as a sink or source of C under different scenarios of soil management. It also deliberates the implications of the projected global warming on soil erosion and vice versa. The concern about global food security in relation to soil erosion and strategies for confronting the remaining problems in soil management and conservation are specifically addressed. This volume is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate students interested in understanding the principles of soil conservation and management. The book is also useful for practitioners, extension agents, soil conservationists, and policymakers as an important reference material.
The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively addresses the SDGs in an integrated way. It encompasses 17 volumes, each devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. This volume addresses SDG 2, namely "End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture" and contains the description of a range of related terms, to allow for a better understanding and foster knowledge. Our planet produces enough food to feed everyone. Malnutrition and hunger are the result of inappropriate food production processes, bad governance and injustice. SDG 2 seeks to guarantee quality and nutritious food to ensure healthy life by adopting a holistic approach that involves various actions targeting different actors, technologies, policies and programs. These initiatives have to face challenges coming from extensive environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity and the interrelated effects of climate change. Concretely, the defined targets are: End hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round End all forms of malnutrition, including achieving the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons Double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment Ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality Maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, as internationally agreed Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect, in accordance with the mandate of the Doha Development Round Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility Editorial Board Datu Buyung Agusdinata, Mohammad Sadegh Allahyari, Usama Awan, Nerise Johnson, Paschal Arsein Mugabe, Vincent Onguso Oeba, Tony Wall/div
How can the United States meet demands for agricultural production while solving the broader range of environmental problems attributed to farming practices? National policymakers who try to answer this question confront difficult trade-offs. This book offers four specific strategies that can serve as the basis for a national policy to protect soil and water quality while maintaining U.S. agricultural productivity and competitiveness. Timely and comprehensive, the volume has important implications for the Clean Air Act and the 1995 farm bill. Advocating a systems approach, the committee recommends specific farm practices and new approaches to prevention of soil degradation and water pollution for environmental agencies. The volume details methods of evaluating soil management systems and offers a wealth of information on improved management of nitrogen, phosphorus, manure, pesticides, sediments, salt, and trace elements. Landscape analysis of nonpoint source pollution is also detailed. Drawing together research findings, survey results, and case examples, the volume will be of interest to federal, state, and local policymakers; state and local environmental and agricultural officials and other environmental and agricultural specialists; scientists involved in soil and water issues; researchers; and agricultural producers.
Streamlined to facilitate student understanding, this second edition, containing the latest techniques and methodologies and some new problems, continues to provide a comprehensive treatment of hydrology of watersheds, soil erosion problems, design and installation of soil conservation practices and structures, hydrologic and sediment yield models, watershed management and water harvesting. It also deals with the special requirements of management of agricultural and forested watersheds. This book is designed for undergraduate students of agricultural engineering for courses in hydrology, and soil and water conservation engineering. It will also be of considerable value to students of agriculture, soil science, forestry, and civil engineering. KEY FEATURES Emphasises fundamentals using numerous illustrations to help students visualise different phenomena Offers lucid presentation of field practices Presents the analysis and design of basic hydraulic structures Devotes an entire chapter to watershed management Provides numerous solved design problems and exercise problems to develop a clear understanding of the theory Gives theoretical questions, and objective type questions with answers to test the students’ understanding.
Book is written in easy english language. It is useful for degree and diploma students of Agricultural Engineering and those working in this field.CONTENTSIntroduction H Rainfall and Runoff relationship H Soil erosion principles H Gully erosion H Design of permanent gully control structures H Stream bank erosion H Wind erosion H Erosivity and Erodibility H Prerequisites for soil and water conservation measures H Argonomical Practices to control Soil Erosion H Terracing H Bunding H Grassed Waterways and Diversions H Water harvesting H Farm ponds H Earthen Dam H Retaining wall H Culverts H Soil loss estimation-models H Land use capability classification H Sedimentation H Reservoir sedimentation H Grassland farming H Watershed Concept and Management H Glossary H Question Bank H Appendices H Bibliography H Subject Index.
A comprehensive engineering guide to theory and design practices for the control, utilization, and management of water in agriculture, with emphasis on scientific principles. Integrates into a single volume engineering practices for solving problems relating to erosion control, flood control, drainage, and irrigation. Presents information on precipitation, infiltration, evapotranspiration, and runoff, in addition to providing the entire design data for the U.S., plus a wide range of its applications. Contains conversion tables from English units to SI, and SI to English units, as well as numerous example problems, illustrations, and appendix.
Written from an agronomic rather than an engineering perspective, this introduction to soil and water conservation explores a full range of topics and environmental issues, including some ignored or overlooked in other books on the subject. Comprehensive, up-to-date, and accessible, it considers the hazards posed by erosion, sedimentation, and pollution, and describes the techniques needed to conserve soil and maintain environmental quality. Situations and examples are drawn from many places to represent a cross-section of the soils, climates and cultures of the world, as well as the full scope of agricultural, engineering, mining, and other uses of the land. The volume covers conserving soil and water, soil erosion and civilization, geologic erosion and sedimentation, water erosion and sedimentation, wind erosion and deposition, predicting soil loss, soil surveys as a basis for land use planning, cropping systems, tillage practices for conservation, conservation structures, vegetating drastically disturbed areas, pastureland, rangeland, and forestland management, water conservation, soil drainage, irrigation and reclamation, soil pollution, water quality and pollution, economics of soil and water conservation, soil and water conservation agencies in the United States, and soil and water conservation around the world. For professionals that deal with soil and water conservation.
