Sustainable land management (SLM) is the key to harmonizing environmental and ecological concernsof society with the economic realities of producing adequate food and fiber of high quality and ensuring abasic minimal ...Sustainable land management (SLM) is the key to harmonizing environmental and ecological concernsof society with the economic realities of producing adequate food and fiber of high quality and ensuring abasic minimal quality of life. The aim of SLM is to maintain the integrity of the biophysical land resourcebase, but it can only be realized if land users understand the impacts of land management options on theirlands but also on other off-site areas and can optimize the socioeconomic and environmental benefits of theirchoice. To facilitate this, the contribution of soil survey organizations would be through the assessment andmonitoring of land quality. Land quality is a measure of the ability of land to perform specific functions and isderived by an integration of soil survey information with other environmental, and if necessary, socioeconomicinformation. The desired reliability influences the operational scale of the assessment. Such an assessmentwould assist in: 1) locating homologous areas for research sites or for transferring technologies; 2) providingthe geographic basis for systems analysis (e.g. by modeling); 3) serving as a basis for local, national andglobal resource assessment and monitoring; 4) providing an ecosystem context for land use, assessments oftemporal and spatial variability, and impact of human interventions; 5) serving as a framework for moredetailed assessment for all levels of interest; and 6) evaluating global issues such as food security, impacts ofclimate change, biodiversity monitoring, and addressing desertification.Based on an evaluation of the progress made in soil resource inventories and considering the demandsof the environment focused world, the paper considers the need for countries to mount such a program. Theauthors believe that this is the next demand of soil science and that we can fulfill our social contract byperiodically providing such information on the state of a nation's land resource.展开更多
New Zealand is highly dependent on its soil resource for continued agricultural production. To avoiddepleting this resource, there is a need to identify soils and associated land management practices wherethere is a r...New Zealand is highly dependent on its soil resource for continued agricultural production. To avoiddepleting this resource, there is a need to identify soils and associated land management practices wherethere is a risk of soil degradation. Environmental integrity and ecosystem services also need to be maintained.Accordingly, to ensure sustainable production, the on- and off-site environmental impacts of land managementneed to be identified and managed. We developed a structural vulnerability index for New Zealand soils. Thisindex ranks soils according to their inherent susceptibility to physical degradation when used for agricultural(pasture, forestry and cropping) purposes. We also developed a rule-based model to assess soil compactionvulnerability by characterising the combined effects of resistance and resilience. Other soil attributes havebeen appraised using seven chemical, physical and biological indicators of soil quality. These indicators havebeen applied in a nation-wide project involving data collection from over 500 sites for a range of land uses.These soil quality data can be interpreted via the World Wide Web - through the interactive decision-support tool SINDI. The land-use impact model is a framework to assess agricultural land management andenvironmental sustainability, and may be applied to land units at any scale. Using land resource data andinformation the model explicitly identifies hazards to land productivity and environmental integrity. It utilisesqualitative expert and local knowledge and quantitative model-based evaluations to assess the potentialenvironmental impacts of land-management practices. The model is linked to a geographic informationsystem (GIS), allowing model outputs, such as the environmental impacts of site-specific best managementpractices, to be identified in a spatially explicit manner. The model has been tested in New Zealand in anarea of pastoral land use. Advantages of this risk identification model include: utilising current knowledge ofthe causes and effects of land-management practices on soil degradation; linking land management practiceto both on- and off-site environmental consequences; identifying important gaps in local knowledge; andproviding spatially explicit information on the environmental impact of land-management practices.展开更多
文摘Sustainable land management (SLM) is the key to harmonizing environmental and ecological concernsof society with the economic realities of producing adequate food and fiber of high quality and ensuring abasic minimal quality of life. The aim of SLM is to maintain the integrity of the biophysical land resourcebase, but it can only be realized if land users understand the impacts of land management options on theirlands but also on other off-site areas and can optimize the socioeconomic and environmental benefits of theirchoice. To facilitate this, the contribution of soil survey organizations would be through the assessment andmonitoring of land quality. Land quality is a measure of the ability of land to perform specific functions and isderived by an integration of soil survey information with other environmental, and if necessary, socioeconomicinformation. The desired reliability influences the operational scale of the assessment. Such an assessmentwould assist in: 1) locating homologous areas for research sites or for transferring technologies; 2) providingthe geographic basis for systems analysis (e.g. by modeling); 3) serving as a basis for local, national andglobal resource assessment and monitoring; 4) providing an ecosystem context for land use, assessments oftemporal and spatial variability, and impact of human interventions; 5) serving as a framework for moredetailed assessment for all levels of interest; and 6) evaluating global issues such as food security, impacts ofclimate change, biodiversity monitoring, and addressing desertification.Based on an evaluation of the progress made in soil resource inventories and considering the demandsof the environment focused world, the paper considers the need for countries to mount such a program. Theauthors believe that this is the next demand of soil science and that we can fulfill our social contract byperiodically providing such information on the state of a nation's land resource.
基金Project supported by the Foundation for Science,Research and Technology,New Zealand(Contract CO9X0016)by the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment Sustainable Management Fund(Contract 5089)and by the following Regional Councils of New Zealand:
文摘New Zealand is highly dependent on its soil resource for continued agricultural production. To avoiddepleting this resource, there is a need to identify soils and associated land management practices wherethere is a risk of soil degradation. Environmental integrity and ecosystem services also need to be maintained.Accordingly, to ensure sustainable production, the on- and off-site environmental impacts of land managementneed to be identified and managed. We developed a structural vulnerability index for New Zealand soils. Thisindex ranks soils according to their inherent susceptibility to physical degradation when used for agricultural(pasture, forestry and cropping) purposes. We also developed a rule-based model to assess soil compactionvulnerability by characterising the combined effects of resistance and resilience. Other soil attributes havebeen appraised using seven chemical, physical and biological indicators of soil quality. These indicators havebeen applied in a nation-wide project involving data collection from over 500 sites for a range of land uses.These soil quality data can be interpreted via the World Wide Web - through the interactive decision-support tool SINDI. The land-use impact model is a framework to assess agricultural land management andenvironmental sustainability, and may be applied to land units at any scale. Using land resource data andinformation the model explicitly identifies hazards to land productivity and environmental integrity. It utilisesqualitative expert and local knowledge and quantitative model-based evaluations to assess the potentialenvironmental impacts of land-management practices. The model is linked to a geographic informationsystem (GIS), allowing model outputs, such as the environmental impacts of site-specific best managementpractices, to be identified in a spatially explicit manner. The model has been tested in New Zealand in anarea of pastoral land use. Advantages of this risk identification model include: utilising current knowledge ofthe causes and effects of land-management practices on soil degradation; linking land management practiceto both on- and off-site environmental consequences; identifying important gaps in local knowledge; andproviding spatially explicit information on the environmental impact of land-management practices.
