Biological Indicators of Soil Health

by C Pankhurst, B Doube, V Gupta

Overview

Maintaining soil health is fundamental to successful crop production and ecosystem sustainability. To enable effective management soil health must first be measured and then monitored and so the authors review and evaluate how soil organisms can be used to fulfil this role. This book is essential for all soil scientists and consultants. It is of particular relevance to those involved in soil health monitoring and maintenance as well as those undertaking soil remediation. It is also important reading for agronomists, ecologists and environmentalists. This book is a comprehensive and effective resource for all those working to sustain healthy soils.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780851991580
Publisher:	CABI
Publication date:	04/01/1997
Series:	CABI
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.75(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

CSIRO Land and Water, Australia

CSIRO Land and Water, Australia

Cooperative Research Center for Soil and Land Management, Australia

Table of Contents

1. Defining and assessing soil health and sustainable productivity

Editorial Reviews

"Human activities have had a tremendous impact on this Earth, and our soils have paid a disproportionate share of the environmental cost imposed by the needs of our increasing human population. This multiauthored book makes a strong case for identifying biological indicators of soil health that can be used to understand the impacts we are having, and thereby lead to better management of one of the Earth's greatest resources. . . . The researchers who have contributed to this volume include names familiar to scientists outside the discipline of soil science, and each has written clearly in their area of expertise. Thus, although this is a research volume, the audience for this synthesis should include students and researchers in soil science, agronomy, plant physiology, and environmental biology, as well as those who have forgotten the important role of soils in world ecosystems."—The Quarterly Review of Biology

"Many ecosystem services required for the production of agricultural, economic, and environmental commodities are being heavily disrupted. When you add the increased pressure for greater agricultural and sivicultural production, the stress imposed on the resilience of ecosystems is unprecedented. In addition, we don't even know how many of the mechanisms that lend these services operate and which species are most responsible. Within this framework, I can see the appeal that a term like soil 'health' would have to individuals that must provide answers and solutions to many of these problems. ... The book has significant and interesting amounts of information that are worth the price of the book. This volume will appeal to many workers in ecology, agriculture, and management settings. Graduate students and researchers in areas such as microbial ecology and soil sciences should get plenty of discussions going in seminars and journal club meetings with this work."—Environmental Entomology

From the Publisher

In days gone by, old farmers would taste the soil to see what it would grow and how well, but the old farmers are as gone as the days they haunted, and scientists today seek methods for determining the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living system within ecosystem and land-use boundaries, sustain biological productivity, promote the quality of air and water environments, and maintain the health of organisms dependent on it. Compiling the current understanding, specialists here examine the concept of soil heath, its relationship to ecosystem health, and what is needed from biological indicators of soil health; evaluate the potential of different components of the soil biota and its activity as biological indicators, including micro-organisms such as plant root pathogens, fauna at micro, meso, and macro levels, biotic processes, and enzymes; address the development of new technologies to probe the composition and functioning of microbial soil communities; and review the use of plants as indicators of soil pollution. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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