S.A. Shahid et al. (eds.), Developments in Soil Salinity Assessment and Reclamation: Innovative Thinking and Use of Marginal Soil and Water Resources in Irrigated Agriculture, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5684-7_14, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract Geographical distribution of soil salinity, alkalinity, calcicity, soil texture, and organic matter (grid system-log distance of ...

The stability over time of the organic C stocked in soils under undisturbed ecosystems is poorly studied, despite being suitable for detecting changes related to climate fluctuations and global warming. Volcanic soils often show high organic C contents due to the stabilization of organic matter by short-range ordered minerals or Al-humus complexes. We investigated the dynamics of different orga...

The intensive use for over 100 years of copper sulfate (Bordeaux mixture) to fight against mildew in vineyard soils has led to an important, widespread accumulation of Cu (100 to 1500 mg Cu kg-1 soil). In Champagne vineyards, organic amendments are used currently to increase soil fertility and to limit soil erosion. Organic amendments may have a direct effect on the retention of Cu in the soil....

Environmental factors relating to soil pH are important regulators of bacterial taxonomic biodiversity, yet it remains unclear if such drivers affect community functional potential. To address this, we applied whole-genome metagenomics to eight geographically distributed soils at opposing ends of a landscape soil pH gradient (where "low-pH" is ~pH 4.3 and "high-pH" is ~pH 8.3) and evaluated fun...

The South African mining industry has been the backbone of the country’s economy for much of the past century. Mining has, however, often caused the degradation of productive soils. The amendment of these soils is often very expensive and often not sustainable. The University of Pretoria in cooperation with Eskom TSI, has over the past seven years conducted a series of trials. These trials have...

Wetlands function as buffers for nutrients loaded from terrestrial ecosystems through drainage and surface discharges. The objectives of our study were to (i) determine the P retention capacity of representative wetland soils being used for disposal of treated wastewater and (U) relate P retention characteristics to selected physicochemical properties to evaluate likely mechanisms of P removal ...

Many organic pollutants such as pesticides are chlorinated organics, and until recently these were thought to be purely the product of anthropogenic activities. However, some chlorinated phenolics are now known to be part of the natural chemical make up of “pristine” soils, defined as those that have not previously been directly exposed to anthropogenic inputs, except through atmospheric contam...

Barren high-altitude soils are among the most extreme terrestrial environments on Earth. The present study was undertaken to quantify broad-scale patterns of total microbial biomass in unvegetated soils in the subnival zone of the Colorado Front Range and the high Andes of Perú. In order to better understand the limiting factors and substrates used by this community, we measured microbial bioma...