Re-vegetation is an important practice for eco-environmental rebuilding of degraded environments. Accordingly, re-vegetation has been widely used to reduce erosion and protect soils against degradation in the Loess Plateau. However, little research has been conducted to study the effects of long-term re-vegetation on soil properties, which is essential to reveal corresponding changes in soil qu...

The Arctic environment is very vulnerable and sensitive to hydrocarbon pollutants. Soil bioremediation is attracting interest as a promising and cost-effective clean-up and soil decontamination technology in the Arctic regions. However, remoteness, lack of appropriate infrastructure, the harsh climatic conditions in the Arctic and some physical and chemical properties of Arctic soils may reduce...

In arable cropping systems, reduced or conservation tillage practices are linked with improved soil quality, C retention and higher microbial biomass, but most long-term studies rarely focus on depths greater than 15 cm nor allow comparison of microbial community responses to agricultural practices. We investigated microbial community structure in a long-term field trial (12-years, Lincoln, New...

The study was conducted to evaluate hydraulic conductivity functions in relation to some soil chemical properties in an oxisols of the tropics. Field and laboratory studies were carried out and data collected, subjected to statistical analytical procedure for computing coefficient of variability and correlation among soil properties. Results of the study showed that hydraulic conductivity funct...

In permanent agricultural systems, soil fertility is maintained through applications of manure, other organic materials, inorganic fertilizers, lime, the inclusion of legumes in the cropping systems, or a combination of these. In many parts of the world the availability, use, and profitability of inorganic fertilizers have been low whereas there has been an intensification of land-use and an ex...

Phosphogypsum (PG) is produced as a solid waste from phosphatic fertilizer plants. The waste slurry is disposed off in settling ponds or in heaps. This solid waste is now increasingly being used as a calcium supplement in agriculture. This study reports the effectof PG amendmenton soil physico chemical properties, bacterial and fungal count and activities of soil enzymes such as invertase, cell...

Sorption-desorption interactions of pesticides with soil determine the availability of pesticides in soil for transport, plant uptake and microbial degradation. These interactions are affected by the physical and chemical properties of the pesticide and soil and, for some pesticides, their residence time in the soil. While sorption-desorption of many herbicides has been characterised, very litt...

Biochar is a solid material of biological origin obtained from the biomass carbonization, designed as a mean to reduce greenhouse gases emission and carbon sequestration in soils for a long time. Biochar has a wide spectrum of practical utilization and is applied as a promising soil improver or fertilizer in agriculture, or as a medium for soil or water remediation. Preparations of biochar incr...

Soil physic-chemical properties differ at different depths; however, differences in afforestation-induced temporal changes at different soil depths are seldom reported. By examining 19 parameters, the temporal changes and their interactions with soil depth in a large chronosequence dataset (159 plots; 636 profiles; 2544 samples) of larch plantations were checked by multivariate analysis of cova...

A new class of compounds, called as ionic liquids, has recently emerged as potential substitute for volatile organic solvents. Ionic liquids possess certain special physico-chemical characteristics that render them very useful in different areas of research and development. In this review, the physico-chemical properties and the applications of ionic liquids in chemical processes are critically...