E. Avemegah, C.K. May, J.D. Ulrich-Schad, P. Kovács, J.D. Clark
The government and stakeholders in the US agricultural sector promote conservation farming practices, but voluntary adoption is still a challenge among agricultural producers at the farm level. This paper aims to investigate the factors that influence the adoption of conservation tillage (CT) among producers in eastern and central South Dakota. A modified application of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) including controls for socioeconomic and demographic indicators is used to understand farmers’ current usage of CT. Data were gathered from a probability sample of 486 commodity crop farming operations through an online and mail survey. We find that the three constructs of the TPB—attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control—are positively and significantly correlated with the adoption of CT. Binary logistic regression models also show that attitude and perceived behavioral control are related to farmers’ likelihood of adopting CT. Farm size and farmers’ level of education were also positively associated with CT adoption. The results indicate that a modified application of the TPB is useful for understanding the behavior of farmers regarding conservation practices, specifically the adoption of CT in South Dakota. This study contributes to knowledge regarding the role of social-psychological factors in farmers’ CT adoption and provides insights for policymakers and conservation practitioners promoting the adoption of CT in the region.
{"title":"Understanding farmers’ adoption of conservation tillage in South Dakota: A modified application of the theory of planned behavior","authors":"E. Avemegah, C.K. May, J.D. Ulrich-Schad, P. Kovács, J.D. Clark","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2024.00124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2024.00124","url":null,"abstract":"The government and stakeholders in the US agricultural sector promote conservation farming practices, but voluntary adoption is still a challenge among agricultural producers at the farm level. This paper aims to investigate the factors that influence the adoption of conservation tillage (CT) among producers in eastern and central South Dakota. A modified application of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) including controls for socioeconomic and demographic indicators is used to understand farmers’ current usage of CT. Data were gathered from a probability sample of 486 commodity crop farming operations through an online and mail survey. We find that the three constructs of the TPB—attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control—are positively and significantly correlated with the adoption of CT. Binary logistic regression models also show that attitude and perceived behavioral control are related to farmers’ likelihood of adopting CT. Farm size and farmers’ level of education were also positively associated with CT adoption. The results indicate that a modified application of the TPB is useful for understanding the behavior of farmers regarding conservation practices, specifically the adoption of CT in South Dakota. This study contributes to knowledge regarding the role of social-psychological factors in farmers’ CT adoption and provides insights for policymakers and conservation practitioners promoting the adoption of CT in the region.","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139411091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Houser, B. Campbell, A. Jacobs, S. Fanok, S.E. Johnson
Farmers must widely adopt conservation practices if the agricultural system is to become more sustainable. In the United States, federal, state, nonprofit, and private efforts focus on encouraging voluntary adoption through incentive programs. Toward increasing the adoption of conservation practices, it is critical to gain a better understanding of farmers’ past experiences with existing voluntary incentive programs and how they feel programs can be improved going froward to enable greater and more meaningful participation. To offer preliminary insight into these research needs, our study draws on interviews with 10 dairy farmers in the key agricultural county of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In focusing on this regional context and farming segment, our work offers needed insight into this population’s views on conservation programs and decision-making more generally. Farmers in our sample noted several challenges with current programs that limited wider participation. Programs were seen to enable, rather than directly motivate behavior change. Farmers felt that existing programs at least implicitly overemphasized agriculture’s role in environmental problems and they noted that enrollment complexity, long timelines, and the requirement of upfront spending reduced participation. Toward improvement, interviewees felt private sector agricultural organizations can help facilitate program participation through direct engagement, that the communication of the environmental impact of farmers’ actions could be a participation incentive in itself, and that dairy producers could be better supported by programs that reward environmental achievements via paying more for their milk. These findings advance the existing social science literature on conservation program participation generally, while offering the detailed information about a specific farm type in a specific geography. Our results therefore afford insights that can contribute toward developing targeted engagement and implementation projects, while also offering foundational data toward future research and eventual policy innovation.
{"title":"Farmers’ participation in incentivized conservation programs: Exploring barriers and opportunities for innovative designs","authors":"M. Houser, B. Campbell, A. Jacobs, S. Fanok, S.E. Johnson","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2024.00122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2024.00122","url":null,"abstract":"Farmers must widely adopt conservation practices if the agricultural system is to become more sustainable. In the United States, federal, state, nonprofit, and private efforts focus on encouraging voluntary adoption through incentive programs. Toward increasing the adoption of conservation practices, it is critical to gain a better understanding of farmers’ past experiences with existing voluntary incentive programs and how they feel programs can be improved going froward to enable greater and more meaningful participation. To offer preliminary insight into these research needs, our study draws on interviews with 10 dairy farmers in the key agricultural county of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In focusing on this regional context and farming segment, our work offers needed insight into this population’s views on conservation programs and decision-making more generally. Farmers in our sample noted several challenges with current programs that limited wider participation. Programs were seen to enable, rather than directly motivate behavior change. Farmers felt that existing programs at least implicitly overemphasized agriculture’s role in environmental problems and they noted that enrollment complexity, long timelines, and the requirement of upfront spending reduced participation. Toward improvement, interviewees felt private sector agricultural organizations can help facilitate program participation through direct engagement, that the communication of the environmental impact of farmers’ actions could be a participation incentive in itself, and that dairy producers could be better supported by programs that reward environmental achievements via paying more for their milk. These findings advance the existing social science literature on conservation program participation generally, while offering the detailed information about a specific farm type in a specific geography. Our results therefore afford insights that can contribute toward developing targeted engagement and implementation projects, while also offering foundational data toward future research and eventual policy innovation.","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139423655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits ecosystems provide to society. These services grant the necessary conditions for sustaining life and influence human well-being in all dimensions, including providing basic needs, health, and freedom of choice and action (MEA 2005). ES include all contributions of nature to humans, and these are relative according to the context and the existence of alternatives (IPBES 2019). Ecosystem degradation jeopardizes the sustainable provision of these services. In this context, Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes arose as policy instruments that promote pro-environmental land use through financial incentives for actions that improve, maintain, or maximize the provision of ES (Kim et al. 2016). Since the late 1990s, PES schemes have spread worldwide, adopting different payment types, scales, and conservation objectives (Salzmann et al. 2018). Some incentivized activities are forest conservation, watershed protection, biodiversity conservation, and carbon (C) sequestration and storage. One central area for improvement of most PES is their need for ES measurement. Due to the technical difficulty and high cost of measuring and monitoring ES periodically, most PES only monitor land uses and practices granted under PES contracts. Overall, PES have been based on the premise that, by incentivizing forest conservation and reforestation of nonforest areas, the flow of ES of interest to society is maintained or increased. However, this presumed correlation may be nonlinear, asynchronous in time and space, could involve trade-offs among ES at the landscape scale, and, in the worst-case scenario, the …
{"title":"Alternatives for improving Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) effectiveness on water resources","authors":"Bárbara Viguera, Róger Madrigal-Ballestero, Eduardo Pacay, Gilmar Navarrete Chacón","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2024.1103a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2024.1103a","url":null,"abstract":"Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits ecosystems provide to society. These services grant the necessary conditions for sustaining life and influence human well-being in all dimensions, including providing basic needs, health, and freedom of choice and action (MEA 2005). ES include all contributions of nature to humans, and these are relative according to the context and the existence of alternatives (IPBES 2019). Ecosystem degradation jeopardizes the sustainable provision of these services. In this context, Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes arose as policy instruments that promote pro-environmental land use through financial incentives for actions that improve, maintain, or maximize the provision of ES (Kim et al. 2016). Since the late 1990s, PES schemes have spread worldwide, adopting different payment types, scales, and conservation objectives (Salzmann et al. 2018). Some incentivized activities are forest conservation, watershed protection, biodiversity conservation, and carbon (C) sequestration and storage. One central area for improvement of most PES is their need for ES measurement. Due to the technical difficulty and high cost of measuring and monitoring ES periodically, most PES only monitor land uses and practices granted under PES contracts. Overall, PES have been based on the premise that, by incentivizing forest conservation and reforestation of nonforest areas, the flow of ES of interest to society is maintained or increased. However, this presumed correlation may be nonlinear, asynchronous in time and space, could involve trade-offs among ES at the landscape scale, and, in the worst-case scenario, the …","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139411089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The association of no-tillage (NT) and legume cover crops has shown positive results to organic carbon (SOC) accumulation in subtropical soils. However, soil dynamics of powerful greenhouse gases (GHG) such as nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) are not fully understood at a microscale under these systems. Thus, our objective was to evaluate net cumulative emissions (NCE, in CO2 equivalent [eq.]) of GHG considering fluxes of N2O and CH4 and SOC accumulation in three soil aggregates classes. The soil was sampled in a 30-year experiment in a subtropical Acrisol under conventional tillage (CT) and NT, combined with cropping systems with or without legume cover crops. Large (9.51 to 2 mm) and small (2 to 0.25 mm) macroaggregates and microaggregates (<0.25 mm), obtained by wet sieving, were incubated under 400 g kg−1 (aerobic condition) and 700 g kg−1 (anaerobic condition) of volumetric water for six months. Under anaerobic conditions, NCE were positive due to the high emission of N2O and CH4, making all the soil aggregates a GHG source to the atmosphere. Under aerobic conditions, NT and legume cover crops greatly contributed to reducing NCE: for each kilogram of C accumulated in macroaggregates, greater C from the atmosphere was taken up by NT than CT (−69.4 versus 57.1 mg CO2eq. kg−1 SOC) and by cropping systems with than without legume cover crops (74.7 versus 51.8 mg CO2eq. kg−1 SOC). Management systems did not impact GHG emissions of soil microaggregates. By containing labile organic matter, soil macroaggregates acted as hotspots of soil GHG emission/mitigation. Despite favoring N2O emission, NT and legume cover crop lead to GHG mitigation by promoting CH4 uptake and C accumulation in soil macroaggregates.
{"title":"Soil macroaggregates: The hotspots driving emission or mitigation of greenhouse gases according to the management system adopted","authors":"M. Veloso, C. Deveautour, C. Bayer","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2024.00158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2024.00158","url":null,"abstract":"The association of no-tillage (NT) and legume cover crops has shown positive results to organic carbon (SOC) accumulation in subtropical soils. However, soil dynamics of powerful greenhouse gases (GHG) such as nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) are not fully understood at a microscale under these systems. Thus, our objective was to evaluate net cumulative emissions (NCE, in CO2 equivalent [eq.]) of GHG considering fluxes of N2O and CH4 and SOC accumulation in three soil aggregates classes. The soil was sampled in a 30-year experiment in a subtropical Acrisol under conventional tillage (CT) and NT, combined with cropping systems with or without legume cover crops. Large (9.51 to 2 mm) and small (2 to 0.25 mm) macroaggregates and microaggregates (<0.25 mm), obtained by wet sieving, were incubated under 400 g kg−1 (aerobic condition) and 700 g kg−1 (anaerobic condition) of volumetric water for six months. Under anaerobic conditions, NCE were positive due to the high emission of N2O and CH4, making all the soil aggregates a GHG source to the atmosphere. Under aerobic conditions, NT and legume cover crops greatly contributed to reducing NCE: for each kilogram of C accumulated in macroaggregates, greater C from the atmosphere was taken up by NT than CT (−69.4 versus 57.1 mg CO2eq. kg−1 SOC) and by cropping systems with than without legume cover crops (74.7 versus 51.8 mg CO2eq. kg−1 SOC). Management systems did not impact GHG emissions of soil microaggregates. By containing labile organic matter, soil macroaggregates acted as hotspots of soil GHG emission/mitigation. Despite favoring N2O emission, NT and legume cover crop lead to GHG mitigation by promoting CH4 uptake and C accumulation in soil macroaggregates.","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139411056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A Nutrient Reduction Index (NRI) was developed to assist investigators who wish to explore the impacts of interventions, individual difference factors, and farm characteristics on nutrient-focused conservation practices. Comparing the effectiveness of different interventions or understanding the effects of different farm and farmer characteristics can be difficult in the absence of a single and standardized measure of conservation practices ([Anderson 2020][1]; [Loken and Gelman 2017][2]; [Lilienfeld and Strother 2020][3]). Across two data sets ( N = 1,452), the continuous NRI was calculated by weighting several in-field practices (tillage, cover crops, and small grains in rotation) by their actual impact on nutrient reduction ([Iowa State University 2019][4]; [Ha et al. 2020][5]). The NRI was shown to have a smoother distribution than individual conservation behaviors, and convergent validity was demonstrated with conservation-related constructs like conservationist identity and use of filtering practices. The NRI also correlated with farm size, greater formal education, and lower farmer age, consistent with previous work regarding general conservation practices. This measure of nutrient reduction practices can help reduce error associated with dichotomization of practice adoption ([MacCallum et al. 2002][6]) and testing multiple measures ([Banerjee et al. 2009][7]; [Anderson 2020][1]), and its weighted nature better reflects the impact of practice adoption on actual nutrient reduction. [1]: #ref-1 [2]: #ref-22 [3]: #ref-20 [4]: #ref-17 [5]: #ref-13 [6]: #ref-26 [7]: #ref-3
{"title":"The Nutrient Reduction Index: A minimalist and continuous measure of conservation practice adoption among farmers","authors":"C.D. Shaffer-Morrison, R.S. Wilson","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2024.00129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2024.00129","url":null,"abstract":"A Nutrient Reduction Index (NRI) was developed to assist investigators who wish to explore the impacts of interventions, individual difference factors, and farm characteristics on nutrient-focused conservation practices. Comparing the effectiveness of different interventions or understanding the effects of different farm and farmer characteristics can be difficult in the absence of a single and standardized measure of conservation practices ([Anderson 2020][1]; [Loken and Gelman 2017][2]; [Lilienfeld and Strother 2020][3]). Across two data sets ( N = 1,452), the continuous NRI was calculated by weighting several in-field practices (tillage, cover crops, and small grains in rotation) by their actual impact on nutrient reduction ([Iowa State University 2019][4]; [Ha et al. 2020][5]). The NRI was shown to have a smoother distribution than individual conservation behaviors, and convergent validity was demonstrated with conservation-related constructs like conservationist identity and use of filtering practices. The NRI also correlated with farm size, greater formal education, and lower farmer age, consistent with previous work regarding general conservation practices. This measure of nutrient reduction practices can help reduce error associated with dichotomization of practice adoption ([MacCallum et al. 2002][6]) and testing multiple measures ([Banerjee et al. 2009][7]; [Anderson 2020][1]), and its weighted nature better reflects the impact of practice adoption on actual nutrient reduction. [1]: #ref-1 [2]: #ref-22 [3]: #ref-20 [4]: #ref-17 [5]: #ref-13 [6]: #ref-26 [7]: #ref-3","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139411180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Soil, the most basic among all natural resources and essential to provisioning of numerous ecosystem services (ESs) that are critical for human well-being and nature conservancy, is prone to degradation because of land misuse and soil mismanagement. The ever-increasing impact of anthropogenic activities has raised environmental concerns since the 1960s (Carson 1962; Peterson 2001; Plumwood 2001; Kureethadam 2017; Moore 2017). However, threats to the environment are not only the anthropogenic impacts, but also a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and the terrestrial system with far-reaching and unintentional impacts on natural and social processes (Moyses and Soares 2019), along with exacerbated risks of soil degradation (figure 1). Figure 1 Links between human population, environmental issues, food insecurity, and agricultural problems. It is argued that the finite soil resource is prone to risks of anthropogenic degradation, which are aggravated by the current and projected climate change (IPCC 2019). Human use directly affects 70% of the global ice-free land surface estimated at 1.31 × 108 km2 (5.057 × 107 mi2). About 30% of ice-free land or 3.93 × 107 km2 (1.517 × 107 mi2) may be affected by human-induced degradation and is undermining the well-being of two-fifths of humanity (~3.2 billion people), which may trigger mass human migration and increasing conflicts (IPCC 2019; IPBES 2018). Among principal causes of soil degradation are rapid expansion and unsustainable management of agroecosystems (e.g., crop lands and grazing lands). War extends beyond the confrontation between nations or communities—it decimates an often-overlooked third party, nature, encompassing soil, …
{"title":"Soil, soul, spirituality, and stewardship","authors":"Rattan Lal","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2024.1129a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2024.1129a","url":null,"abstract":"Soil, the most basic among all natural resources and essential to provisioning of numerous ecosystem services (ESs) that are critical for human well-being and nature conservancy, is prone to degradation because of land misuse and soil mismanagement. The ever-increasing impact of anthropogenic activities has raised environmental concerns since the 1960s (Carson 1962; Peterson 2001; Plumwood 2001; Kureethadam 2017; Moore 2017). However, threats to the environment are not only the anthropogenic impacts, but also a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and the terrestrial system with far-reaching and unintentional impacts on natural and social processes (Moyses and Soares 2019), along with exacerbated risks of soil degradation (figure 1). Figure 1 Links between human population, environmental issues, food insecurity, and agricultural problems. It is argued that the finite soil resource is prone to risks of anthropogenic degradation, which are aggravated by the current and projected climate change (IPCC 2019). Human use directly affects 70% of the global ice-free land surface estimated at 1.31 × 108 km2 (5.057 × 107 mi2). About 30% of ice-free land or 3.93 × 107 km2 (1.517 × 107 mi2) may be affected by human-induced degradation and is undermining the well-being of two-fifths of humanity (~3.2 billion people), which may trigger mass human migration and increasing conflicts (IPCC 2019; IPBES 2018). Among principal causes of soil degradation are rapid expansion and unsustainable management of agroecosystems (e.g., crop lands and grazing lands). War extends beyond the confrontation between nations or communities—it decimates an often-overlooked third party, nature, encompassing soil, …","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"67 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139420497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study analyzed lateritic red soils developed from sand shale and Quaternary red clay to investigate the relationship between aggregate stability and splash erosion characteristics under different land use modes in the South Subtropical Zone of China. The mean weight diameter (MWD) values of soils were ranked slow wetting (SW) > stirring after prewetting (WS) > fast wetting (FW) by the Le Bissonnais (LB) method, indicating that the soil aggregates were least stable under continuous simulated rainfall. The contents of clay, soil organic matter (SOM), and particulate organic carbon (POC) were highly significantly positively correlated with soil stability. There was a highly significant negative correlation between the aggregate splash erosion amounts and MWD values, and the erosion amounts of the orchard and cultivated land soils were 1.20 to 8.38 and 1.53 to 6.68 times those of the woodland soil, respectively. The splash erosion amounts were negatively exponentially correlated with the splash erosion distances, which were mostly distributed at the distance of 0 to 10 cm (accounting for 71.17% to 89.32% of the total splash erosion). The splash erosion amounts on the downhill side were 3.85 to 30.44 times those on the uphill side. The mean weight distance (MWS) values were negatively correlated with the stability of the soil aggregates under the different fragmentation mechanisms, and the correlation coefficients were 0.79, 0.65, and 0.73. During simulated rainfall, the splash erosion rates first increased, then decreased and tended to be stable after reaching the peak, and the rainfall duration to reach the peak decreased with increasing rainfall intensity. At the rainfall intensities of 30 to 60 mm h−1, the splash erosion rates peaked at 24 to 36 min. At the rainfall intensities of 90 to 120 mm h−1, the splash erosion rates peaked at 12 to 30 min. With increasing rainfall duration, the amounts of large aggregates in the splash transport increased. These results can provide a theoretical basis for the formulation of soil and water conservation measures in the South Subtropical Zone of China.
{"title":"Stability and splash erosion characteristics of lateritic red soil aggregates in the South Subtropical Zone of China","authors":"Juan Huang, Juhui Li, N. Leng, Y. Deng","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2023.00115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2023.00115","url":null,"abstract":"This study analyzed lateritic red soils developed from sand shale and Quaternary red clay to investigate the relationship between aggregate stability and splash erosion characteristics under different land use modes in the South Subtropical Zone of China. The mean weight diameter (MWD) values of soils were ranked slow wetting (SW) > stirring after prewetting (WS) > fast wetting (FW) by the Le Bissonnais (LB) method, indicating that the soil aggregates were least stable under continuous simulated rainfall. The contents of clay, soil organic matter (SOM), and particulate organic carbon (POC) were highly significantly positively correlated with soil stability. There was a highly significant negative correlation between the aggregate splash erosion amounts and MWD values, and the erosion amounts of the orchard and cultivated land soils were 1.20 to 8.38 and 1.53 to 6.68 times those of the woodland soil, respectively. The splash erosion amounts were negatively exponentially correlated with the splash erosion distances, which were mostly distributed at the distance of 0 to 10 cm (accounting for 71.17% to 89.32% of the total splash erosion). The splash erosion amounts on the downhill side were 3.85 to 30.44 times those on the uphill side. The mean weight distance (MWS) values were negatively correlated with the stability of the soil aggregates under the different fragmentation mechanisms, and the correlation coefficients were 0.79, 0.65, and 0.73. During simulated rainfall, the splash erosion rates first increased, then decreased and tended to be stable after reaching the peak, and the rainfall duration to reach the peak decreased with increasing rainfall intensity. At the rainfall intensities of 30 to 60 mm h−1, the splash erosion rates peaked at 24 to 36 min. At the rainfall intensities of 90 to 120 mm h−1, the splash erosion rates peaked at 12 to 30 min. With increasing rainfall duration, the amounts of large aggregates in the splash transport increased. These results can provide a theoretical basis for the formulation of soil and water conservation measures in the South Subtropical Zone of China.","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"5 1","pages":"440 - 453"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88840823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. N. Horton, S. Barrett, W. Aust, B. S. Hawks, M. Bolding
Mechanized forest harvesting and associated access networks can accelerate soil erosion. Forestry best management practices (BMPs) for water quality are used to minimize soil erosion from forest operations and to trap eroded materials on-site before stream entry. Sedimentation provides multiple threats to water quality, but research indicates that BMPs are generally effective at reducing erosion. However, BMP effectiveness for reducing sediment from specific operational features (skid trails, decks, harvest areas, stream crossings, and haul roads) and regions is insufficiently quantified. Sediment delivery ratios (SDRs) are needed to evaluate efficiencies and effects of BMPs. SDR is the ratio (or percentage) of eroded sediment that reaches streams. Soil erosion modeling and sediment trapping were applied to 183 operational features on 58 recent harvests across the Mountains, Piedmont, and Coastal Plain regions of Virginia and North Carolina to determine SDRs. For all regions combined, mean SDRs were highest for stream crossings (34%), followed by skid trails (21%), haul roads (16%), and decks (4%). Harvest areas, not including access features, had SDRs averaging 11%. SDR values were weighted by areas, and the highest weighted SDR was for the Coastal Plain (19%), followed by the Mountains (13%) and Piedmont (6%). The overall average SDR for all regions and operational features across the southeast was 12%, which corresponds with previously reported values. The highly variable SDRs were influenced by site conditions, climatic factors, and a wide range of BMP implementation across sites, yet reasonable estimates were developed. Major recommendations include additional emphases regarding stream crossing, skid trail, and Streamside Management Zone (SMZ) BMPs.
{"title":"Sediment delivery ratios from forest road networks and harvesting operational features by physiographic region in the southeastern United States","authors":"C. N. Horton, S. Barrett, W. Aust, B. S. Hawks, M. Bolding","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2023.00093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2023.00093","url":null,"abstract":"Mechanized forest harvesting and associated access networks can accelerate soil erosion. Forestry best management practices (BMPs) for water quality are used to minimize soil erosion from forest operations and to trap eroded materials on-site before stream entry. Sedimentation provides multiple threats to water quality, but research indicates that BMPs are generally effective at reducing erosion. However, BMP effectiveness for reducing sediment from specific operational features (skid trails, decks, harvest areas, stream crossings, and haul roads) and regions is insufficiently quantified. Sediment delivery ratios (SDRs) are needed to evaluate efficiencies and effects of BMPs. SDR is the ratio (or percentage) of eroded sediment that reaches streams. Soil erosion modeling and sediment trapping were applied to 183 operational features on 58 recent harvests across the Mountains, Piedmont, and Coastal Plain regions of Virginia and North Carolina to determine SDRs. For all regions combined, mean SDRs were highest for stream crossings (34%), followed by skid trails (21%), haul roads (16%), and decks (4%). Harvest areas, not including access features, had SDRs averaging 11%. SDR values were weighted by areas, and the highest weighted SDR was for the Coastal Plain (19%), followed by the Mountains (13%) and Piedmont (6%). The overall average SDR for all regions and operational features across the southeast was 12%, which corresponds with previously reported values. The highly variable SDRs were influenced by site conditions, climatic factors, and a wide range of BMP implementation across sites, yet reasonable estimates were developed. Major recommendations include additional emphases regarding stream crossing, skid trail, and Streamside Management Zone (SMZ) BMPs.","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"349 1","pages":"430 - 439"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82588854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yansong Wang, Yue Zhang, Education. Hongrui Chen, H. Chen, N. 127°0'E127°30'E
In recent years, gully erosion has caused soil loss, land degradation, and a large sediment yield in the Mollisols in northeastern China, threatening agricultural development and national food security. Moreover, the prediction of gully erosion remains a great challenge owing to the difficulty of determining suitable environmental indicators and identifying the best models for predicting gully erosion prone areas. Therefore, the objective of this study was to quantify the contributions of the main factors controlling gully erosion and to identify the best model for predicting areas susceptible to gully erosion in Hailun City, northeastern China. Initially, the spatial distribution of the gully erosion was investigated through visual interpretation of GaoFen-1 satellite images. The analyzed gullies were evenly distributed in the study region, and we selected 70% of the gullies as the training data set and the remaining 30% as the validation data set. Subsequently, 12 variables, including the elevation, slope, aspect, plan curvature, profile curvature, topographic wetness index (TWI), soil type, land use, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), precipitation, distance from rivers, and distance from existing gullies, were selected as the indicators of gully erosion. Then, multicollinearity analysis was conducted to determine the main indicators without linearity. Finally, the contributions of the indicators and the areas susceptible to gully erosion were determined using machine learning models, including support vector machine (SVM), multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN), random forest (RF), and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) models. The results revealed that there was no multicollinearity among the 12 indicators, so they were all employed in the machine learning models for the gully erosion susceptibility prediction. The XGBoost model had the highest R2 and lowest root mean square error (RMSE) values in the model validation stage (0.81 and 0.60, respectively), followed by the RF (0.78 and 0.61, respectively), MLPNN (0.65 and 0.70, respectively), and SVM (0.62 and 0.70, respectively). The gully distance had the largest relative importance score (>35%) for gully erosion, followed by the profile curvature, plan curvature, land use, elevation, and soil type, which had relative importance scores of 10% to 15%. The gully erosion susceptibility map revealed that the central part of the study area was more susceptible to gully erosion than the other regions. These results can help managers to identify the regions that are prone to gully erosion and to design soil conservation practices to slow down the soil erosion process.
{"title":"Gully erosion susceptibility prediction in Mollisols using machine learning models","authors":"Yansong Wang, Yue Zhang, Education. Hongrui Chen, H. Chen, N. 127°0'E127°30'E","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2023.00019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2023.00019","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, gully erosion has caused soil loss, land degradation, and a large sediment yield in the Mollisols in northeastern China, threatening agricultural development and national food security. Moreover, the prediction of gully erosion remains a great challenge owing to the difficulty of determining suitable environmental indicators and identifying the best models for predicting gully erosion prone areas. Therefore, the objective of this study was to quantify the contributions of the main factors controlling gully erosion and to identify the best model for predicting areas susceptible to gully erosion in Hailun City, northeastern China. Initially, the spatial distribution of the gully erosion was investigated through visual interpretation of GaoFen-1 satellite images. The analyzed gullies were evenly distributed in the study region, and we selected 70% of the gullies as the training data set and the remaining 30% as the validation data set. Subsequently, 12 variables, including the elevation, slope, aspect, plan curvature, profile curvature, topographic wetness index (TWI), soil type, land use, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), precipitation, distance from rivers, and distance from existing gullies, were selected as the indicators of gully erosion. Then, multicollinearity analysis was conducted to determine the main indicators without linearity. Finally, the contributions of the indicators and the areas susceptible to gully erosion were determined using machine learning models, including support vector machine (SVM), multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN), random forest (RF), and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) models. The results revealed that there was no multicollinearity among the 12 indicators, so they were all employed in the machine learning models for the gully erosion susceptibility prediction. The XGBoost model had the highest R2 and lowest root mean square error (RMSE) values in the model validation stage (0.81 and 0.60, respectively), followed by the RF (0.78 and 0.61, respectively), MLPNN (0.65 and 0.70, respectively), and SVM (0.62 and 0.70, respectively). The gully distance had the largest relative importance score (>35%) for gully erosion, followed by the profile curvature, plan curvature, land use, elevation, and soil type, which had relative importance scores of 10% to 15%. The gully erosion susceptibility map revealed that the central part of the study area was more susceptible to gully erosion than the other regions. These results can help managers to identify the regions that are prone to gully erosion and to design soil conservation practices to slow down the soil erosion process.","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"5 1","pages":"385 - 396"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87633776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Throughout the arid American West, agriculture is the dominant consumptive use of water, with farming operations dependent on finite groundwater resources or limited surface flows for necessary irrigation. This study makes use of climatic, economic, and remote-sensed land cover data to model those factors that contribute to farmers’ water use decisions in central Arizona. Growers’ water needs are met through a combination of groundwater, Colorado River water delivered via the Central Arizona Project, and additional surface flows. The modeling approach presented is applicable to a wide range of agricultural communities that are dependent on irrigation for agriculture. This study specifically examines water deliveries to and irrigation intensity within irrigation districts in central Arizona. Econometric analysis of integrated panel data finds that climate, the prices of December cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) futures, water costs, and fallowed land area have significant impacts on at least one of the two outcomes of interest. Understanding irrigators’ water use decisions is useful to those concerned with the impact of water availability on local economies, ecosystems, and aquifers.
{"title":"Effects of economic and climatic factors on agricultural water use in arid regions","authors":"B. McGreal, B. Colby","doi":"10.2489/jswc.2023.00130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2023.00130","url":null,"abstract":"Throughout the arid American West, agriculture is the dominant consumptive use of water, with farming operations dependent on finite groundwater resources or limited surface flows for necessary irrigation. This study makes use of climatic, economic, and remote-sensed land cover data to model those factors that contribute to farmers’ water use decisions in central Arizona. Growers’ water needs are met through a combination of groundwater, Colorado River water delivered via the Central Arizona Project, and additional surface flows. The modeling approach presented is applicable to a wide range of agricultural communities that are dependent on irrigation for agriculture. This study specifically examines water deliveries to and irrigation intensity within irrigation districts in central Arizona. Econometric analysis of integrated panel data finds that climate, the prices of December cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) futures, water costs, and fallowed land area have significant impacts on at least one of the two outcomes of interest. Understanding irrigators’ water use decisions is useful to those concerned with the impact of water availability on local economies, ecosystems, and aquifers.","PeriodicalId":50049,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Soil and Water Conservation","volume":"18 1","pages":"397 - 411"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90342999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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