Browsing by Author "Nahid Khan"

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Agroecology Towards Environmental Sustainability
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Shailesh Kumar Yadav; Arnab Banerjee; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Abhishek Raj; Nahid Khan; Ram Swaroop Meena; Sandeep Kumar
Agroecology refers to the process based on ecological principles to be applied in the agroecosystem for effective soil management and gain sustainable yield. The scientific application leads to a diversified agroecosystem which addresses the issue of environmental sustainability. It also focuses on various ecosystemservices in the form of maintaining soil fertility, proper biogeochemical cycling, and proper nutrient exchange between crop and soil ecosystem. The process ncludes an integrated approach with diversified crops and animal husbandry practices all at a time. Thus, it would be successful to address the issue of food security, crisis, and help to build up climate-resilient agroecosystem. Agroecosystem is also helpful in terms of maintaining a daily livelihood, production of fuel, fodder, food for rural stakeholders, and socioeconomic well-being of people across the globe. Thus, agroecological addresses the sustainable agriculture practice on a large scale to promote eco-friendly, self-sustaining agriculture practices. The aim of this article is to reflect an all-round aspect of agroecologyn along with its roadmap towards environmental sustainability. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Agroecosystem Service Management and Environmental Sustainability
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Abhishek Raj; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Arnab Banerjee; Nahid Khan; Ram Swaroop Meena; Prabhat Ranjan Oraon; Shailesh Kumar Yadav
Agroecosystem means improving the agricultural ecosystem by human-induced management of trees, crops, and livestock in any land use system. Resource conservations, soil health management, minimizing environmental footprints, and climate change mitigation are key services through a healthy agroecosystem. Food demands due to burgeoning populations necessitated agricultural land expansion and intensive agricultural practices. Conversion of forest and other land use systems into agricultural land induces land degradation and leads to an increase in environmental footprints. Deforestation and other unsustainable land use practices ensure soil degradation and environmental pollutions. These unscientific and intensive agroecosystem practices lead to GHG emissions into the atmosphere causes carbon footprints. Thus, strategies for enhancing food production along with maintaining environmental health and quality are a smart choice of the modern day. High synthetic inputs and heavy mechanizations ensure higher production but at the cost of environmental health. Agroecosystem land expansionand practices affect other land use systems and related ecological services. These harsh and unscientific practices affect soil-food-climate security at a global scale. Thus, applying ecology-oriented sustainable agroecosystem practices ensures environmental sustainability and ecological stability. A sustainable modeling of agroecosystem will enhance biodiversity that intensifies uncountable ecosystem services. Agriculture, agroforestry, forestry, rangeland, etc. are different land use practices that build our sustainable environment. Applying eco-modeling and sustainable agroecosystem practices ensure higher production and profitability along with a healthy ecosystem. Climate-resilient agroecosystem practices and their ecological modeling enhance plant biomass productivity and soil health maintenance. These practices ensure soil fertility, higher SOC pools, healthy rhizosphere biology, and microbial populations on which entire biodiversitydepends. Thus, maintaining a healthy and productive agroecosystem is the pillar of a sustainable environment that ensure a healthier world. In lieu of the above, this chapter represents the potential, perspective, and management of the agroecosystem. A principle and practices of sustainable-based agroecosystem are also discussed. A rigorous discussion is also made on climate-resilient agroecosystem practices and modeling for minimizing carbon footprint to ensure environmental sustainability at a global scale. A bit of discussion on soil-foodclimate security through agroecosystem management makes this chapter more informative for policy makers worldwide. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Agroforestry a model for ecological sustainability
(Elsevier, 2021) Abhishek Raj; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Arnab Banerjee; Ram Swaroop Meena; Sharad Nema; Nahid Khan; Shailesh Kumar Yadav; Gourisankar Pradhan
The success stories of agroforestry systems (AFS) are prevalent in the tropical regions due to its multifarious ecosystem services that resulted into climate and food security along with socioeconomic development of poor farmers. The existence and progressive development of AFS is quite linked with scientific-based practices and management of different models in the varying regions and localities that tells a story about tree crop interaction and makes synergies among soil nutrients loads, perennial trees, herbaceous crops, and livestocks. Overall, a healthy relationship among various components of agroforestry models will be helpful for farmers both in terms of economic benefits along with better ecosystem structure and its services. No doubt, agroforestry practices (AFP) is socially acceptable, economically viable and ecologically sound but their scientific-based management practices are still required for making the consistency of models for long term basis in future that is directly linked with farmers rejoice. However, the scope and potential of AFS are inevitable due to its wide adoptability and spreading capacity in various regions of the tropics such as Asia, Africa, and European countries. Carbon (C) storage and sequestration by tree in agroforestry are the greatest phenomenon that helps in mitigating changing climate and global warming that promotes environmental security and ecological sustainability along with enhancing wood biomass for satisfying people’s basic need and national demand. World Agroforestry (ICRAF) mentioned that tropical AFS has a capacity to sequestered between 12 and 228 Mg/ha of C and according to this approximate 1.1-2.2 Pg C could be stored in terrestrial ecosystems up to coming 50 years by the AFS in areas of 585-1215 × 106 ha of the total earth surface. Thus, sustainable practices of agroforestry model not only help in enhancing the forest cover in the current era of ongoing forest degradation but also promote better ecosystem by enhancing soil fertility, efficient nutrient cycling, balancing C between environment and different models, and promoting biodiversity along with food and environmental security. In this context, this chapter presents the potential of agroforestry and its ecosystem services that help in maintaining ecological sustainability at global level. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
Agroforestry and Its Services for Soil Management and Sustainability
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Nahid Khan; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Abhishek Raj; Arnab Banerjee; Ram Swaroop Meena; Surendra Singh Bargali; Shailesh Kumar Yadav; Anita Kumawat
Agroforestry systems (AFs) ensure greater biodiversity that intensifies ecosystem services in tangible and intangible ways. Accounting ecosystem services through well-managed agroforestry systems are other important aspects of scientificstudies nowadays. AFs are an integration of trees with crops, and it also includes animal farming with the intensive land management system. In the twenty-first century, land management is one of the major challenges, and AFs have the vast potential to address and recognize these challenges as well as facilitate various services in a sustainable manner. Soil is the largest natural resource that sustains billions of life and supports a variety of flora and fauna. Agroforestry (AF) plays important role in soil health management that ensures ecological stability and environmental sustainability. In AFs interaction between aboveground and belowground components takes place which helps in improving the soil quality and provides shelter to many biota and soil organisms. Through AF soil management and conservation can be done and also the protection of agroecosystem at the regional and local level. The practices of sustainable soil management (SSM)make the pave for achieving the goal of sustainability. Thus, scientific AFs promise the SSM that enhances biodiversity through intensification of ecosystem services at the global scale. Soil fertility enhancement, better nutrient cycling, and higher resource use efficiency along with carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation are important services provided by AFs. AF also reduces carbon and environmental footprints by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and its sequestration and storage into both plants and soils. Thus, an effective policy and good governance are more important in achieving sustainability through adopting better scientific AFs in the tropical world. A future roadmap must be laid onadopting location-specific AF models for maintaining soil health and quality for a better sustainable world. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Climate Change Vulnerability and Agroecosystem Services
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Arnab Banerjee; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Shailesh Kumar Yadav; Nahid Khan; Abhishek Raj; Ram Swaroop Meena; Taher Mechergui
The mega event of climatic perturbations has its severe impact on human health and also on the well-being of the global ecosystem. The major issue of changingclimate has affected various ecosystems globally in terms of acidification of oceans followed by elevated level of carbon dioxide. It has its severe impacts in various forms of habitat degeneration leading to huge loss of biodiversity. Therefore, there is an urgent need to inventory the climatic risks and its vulnerability issues and their subsequent management for developing ecosystem resiliencytoward climate change. Mitigating the changes in the climate solution based upon natural systems needs to be scientifically explored. The present chapter is an attempt to understand the climatic risks and vulnerabilities of ecosystem along with suitable strategies for the effective management of ecosystem change. The chapter concludes by finding the challenging opportunities and research initiatives toward the issue of nexus between climatic changes and ecosystem vulnerability and risks. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Eco-Designing for Soil Health and Services
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Abhishek Raj; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Nahid Khan; Arnab Banerjee; Poonam; Ram Swaroop Meena; Shish Ram Jakhar
Soil health and quality are key aspects upon which various ecosystem processes depend. Ongoing series of land degradations, deforestation, intensive agricultural practices, etc. affects the soil health. These deleterious unsustainable practicesdeprive soil fertility and affect overall ecosystem services (ES). Depleting nature of soil affects tree-crop productivity that is not fruitful for satisfying global hunger populations. Healthy soil promises food-income-climate security and maintains overall environmental sustainability and ecological stability. Human and livestock’s health are entirely dependent upon soil quality. Therefore, the query “how does soil maintain plant-human-animal health and productivity?” arises. This indicates toward synergistic concept between soil and living organisms. However, adopting eco-model in varying land use (agriculture, forestry, agroforestry, and other farming practices) helps to minimize the soil degradation and ensures higher productivity. But the main problem is that “how does eco-designing of varying land use systems ensure healthy and quality soil?”. Climate-smart agriculture, conservation agriculture, zero-tillage practices, use of cover crop, mulching, and soil water conservation practices are intrinsic parts of eco-designing or eco-models. These practices ensure healthy and productive ecosystem that makes a pathway for sustainable development (SD). Eco-designing for sustainable soil management practices promotes the storage and sequestration of carbon (C) as soil organic C pools which leads to C balance. Above- and belowground biomass productions, rhizosphere biology, microbial populations, earthworm and other organisms, etc. modify soil health and productivity. Higher nutrient use efficiency, C cycling, water regulation and purification, erosion control, higher biomass and C stocks, food and nutritional security, and higher economy of farmers can be ensured through healthy eco-models. Therefore, eco-designing of different land use systems ensures a healthy ecosystem and environment. Eco-modeling modifies ES in more sustainable ways without disturbing our environment. Thus, adopting eco-designing models in soils promises higher productivity and profitability and ensures SD of the world. In this context, a government and public policy will strengthen the ecosystem health by adopting a sustainable soil-based eco-model. A scientific-based research and design add another effort to drive these eco-design practices in more efficient and productive way to ensure the global SD. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Eco-Designing for Sustainability
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Nahid Khan; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Abhishek Raj; Arnab Banerjee; Ram Swaroop Meena
Concept of sustainable development (SD) has forced the society and many industries to rethink about the way of development as environmental degradation is the global problem. Higher environmental degradation leads to depletion of resources, causes environmental pollutions, reduces the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and overall has its impact on sustainability. In every sector green approach is the requirement for sustenance of human civilization. Green designing, eco-labelling, green marketing, green consumerism are the essential requirement for addressing sustainability through eco-designing. Adopting eco-designing would generate CSR, green consumerism, energy intensive behaviour, green growth and would lead to formulation of suitable policies for SD. It would also help to reduce environmental footprint, address social and economical aspects of sustainability, promote sustainable management policies in various developmental sectors as well as combat the mega event of climate change. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Eco-restoration of bauxite mining: An ecological approach
(Elsevier, 2021) Shailesh Kumar Yadav; Arnab Banerjee; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Ram Swaroop Meena; Nahid Khan; Abhishek Raj
Bauxite [Al(OH)3] is a mineral that is used for the extraction of aluminum through surface mining or opencast mining. Different forms of bauxite such as mixed bauxite, karst bauxite and European type usually occur in nature. Global estimate of bauxite deposit lies between 55 and 75 billion tones with major contribution from Africa (32%). India (7.5%) holds seventh position in terms of bauxite deposition. The total land area under bauxite mining is 30 km2 across the globe per annum. Bauxite mining has got severe negative consequences in terms of air, water and soil pollution followed by forest degradation, and change in land use is a major issue. Mainpat area of Northern Chhattisgarh is one of the areas having high bauxite store of the country. Various forms of biological reclamation technologies were adopted for eco-restoration of bauxite mined wasteland. Mixed native species support the succession. This chapter is focused on the eco-restoration practices such as natural regeneration and adoption of seeding technique on large-scale basis, and plantation of fast-growing species at micro scale level is a need for eco-restoration. Species such as Prosopis juilifllora, Pongamia pinnata and Acacia nilotica were used for eco-restoration of bauxite mined wasteland. Success of restoration depends upon continuous monitoring after post mining. Maintenance of heterogeneity is the key factor of restoration. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
Ecological Intensification for Sustainable Development
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Abhishek Raj; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Nahid Khan; Arnab Banerjee; Ram Swaroop Meena
The extent and quantity of natural resources (NRs) are going to degrade day by day due to overexploitation, misuse, unscientific management and some other anthropogenic deleterious activity in addition to climate change. NRs are nature’s properties that not only sustain life but also maintain ecosystem structure and its services to humankinds. Resources like agriculture, forest, animals, soils and water are global treasure and their extent of utilization must be in optimum, i.e. without overlooking the environment. Agriculture, forestry, animals are integrated unit and linked with each other that deliver various multifarious tangible and intangible products which can be modified by varying level of resources like soil, water and other environmental factors that affect the performance of agriculture and forestry at global level. Today, due to huge application of fertilizers in farm, intensive agricultural practices, illicit felling, deforestation, intensive grazing are affecting the soil health, water purity and its availability that leads to depletion of other NRs which are directly and indirectly linked with food and nutrition security, human and animal health, soil and environmental security. Therefore, the terms ecological intensification (EI) and sustainable intensification (SI) have proven to be a good strategy and play a significant role in conserving and managing these resources without affecting our environment health. FAO has defined the term EI and according to them, EI requires a knowledge intensive process that intensifies the ecosystem services (ES) of NRs by enhancing biodiversity which resulted in higher tree–crop–soil productivity through less use of synthetic inputs. This helps in maintaining food, health and climate security at global scale. However, intensification in agriculture and forestry must be promoted in lieu of maintaining food and nutritional security (FNS) of burgeoning 9.8 billion population along with minimizing global hunger and health issues of people. Therefore, EI in agricultural and forestry not only make sustainable production but also promote other ES, enhance other resource use efficiency (RUE), promote efficient nutrient cycling, maintain soil fertility along with ecological sustainability. However, there is lack of farmer’s knowledge regarding EI and SI in agriculture and forestry, effective policies should be framed at government level in relation to knowledge communication among peoples. Lack of scientific oriented research and development (RandD), etc. becomes constraints behind adoption, promotion and application of a better EI in these NRs without affecting our environment. In this context, this chapter gives a framework and outlines the concept and prospects of EI, its utility in various NRs (agriculture and forestry, etc.), its role in ES, RUE, climate change mitigation along with discussions on ongoing trends of hurdles and constraint behind its adoption, related RandD and future roadmap for better applicability of EI in NRs for better environment with sustainable production systems at global scale. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Ecological wisdom for natural resources management and sustainability
(Elsevier, 2021) Abhishek Raj; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Arnab Banerjee; Ram Swaroop Meena; Nahid Khan; Shailesh Kumar Yadav
Infinitive natural resources (NRs) are wealth of the global system to sustain the nurture and lives on the earth. NRs play a key role to maintain the structure and functions of the ecosystem and services. Sustainable management of NRs is a collective term, which represents as an essentiality to the ecosystem management, and its resilience that links with the human and animals (livestock’s) well-being, and related NR viz., forest, agriculture, agroforestry, soil quality and health, water quality and its readiness along with efficient nutrient availability and its recycling through better farming management practices. Among the all, forests itself represent as a largest NR, harboring valuable flora and fauna including many other micro- and macro-organisms, improving soil quality and health through fertility improvement, mitigating climate change, and global warming through the active absorption of carbon (C) into both vegetation and soils, respectively. Similarly, soil and water are the most important resources that are very essential for the maintaining structure and function along with yield attributes of both agricultural and agroforestry systems. For the perspective of its management, the practices of both scientific management and location specific farming practices can’t be denied and necessitate for the proper and effective utilization of resources like soil, water, nutrients, etc. Similarly, the water availability and its regulation play a key role in availability of essential nutrients to plants and maintain the soil structure and fertility through the provision of home to bacteria, fungi, protozoa, earthworms, etc. Ecological wisdom-based farming system helps in managing NR along with quality production and environmental conservation. Moreover, optimum utilization of cultivatable and forestry land helps in achieving the sustainability concept. To maximize land utilization for agriculture and its outputs that may support sustainability may be mediated by tuneful knowledge exchange among local community stakeholders towards awareness and knowledge generation from ecological perspectives among farmers and forest fringe people. Therefore, a transition from anthropocentric view towards ecology-based views must be prioritized that entails the sound partnership between nature and people through nature provides living conditions for humans by several crops, associated products, timber and nontimber forest products (NTFPs) and in turn human works for sustainability, and eco-harmony to achieve ecological wisdom. Thus, effective policies and its implementation with good governance, scientific research and development, and building effective roadmap for future strategies and ecological and local wisdom-based scientific research are effective tools for sustainable natural resource management (NRM). This chapter reviews highlighted importance of NR and its uncountable benefits to biodiversity. This chapter also highlights the ecological and environmental wisdom-based scientific practices in maintenance and sustainability of NRM through eco-friendly approaches. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
Ecomodelling Towards Natural Resource Management and Sustainability
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Arnab Banerjee; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Nahid Khan; Abhishek Raj; Ram Swaroop Meena
Resource depletion is a mega event that is hampering the prosperity and well-being of human kind. Technological growth has increased the demand of resources considerably and as a result there is overuse and abuse of resources. Natural resource management is the major aspect in terms of adressing environmental sustainibility. In this direction ecomodelling is a tool that is helpful for proper decision making and screen the sustainable practices of resource excavation. Various models were used to assess the situation of various forms of natural resources and these models were used as decision making tool for sustainable management of resources. The present chapter has attempted to explore the role of ecomodelling towards natural resource management and addressing sustainability. It has also critically analysed the future perspectives of ecomodelling towards resource conservation and management. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Energy and Climate Footprint Towards the Environmental Sustainability
(Springer Singapore, 2020) Arnab Banerjee; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Abhishek Raj; Dhiraj Kumar Yadav; Nahid Khan; Ram Swaroop Meena
Agriculture has a share of 5% energy use globally. Most of the source is not from the renewable sources leading huge amount of GHG (greenhouse gases) emission. As per the Paris agreement on the use of climate change the major emphasis should be given for reducing GHG emission. Therefore, the process of agriculture needs a modification. It was observed that the various forms of ecological footprint are very important for environmental sustainability of agroecosystem. Energy footprint estimation is a key issue in the era of energy crisis. Improved technology and processes has improved the lifestyle of common man and as a consequence of that the energy consumption has given at tremendous rise. The non-renewable energy sources are declining at a fast rate and therefore, emphasizing switching over to renewable alternatives. Moreover, the energy demand and footprint is increasing day by day. In the agroecosystem with improved agrotechnology and mechanization of the agriculture practices the energy requirement is gradually increasing day by day. It is leading to release of huge amount of GHG emission from the agroecosystem leading to increase in energy subsidy in agriculture sector. Energy footprint estimation in cropping system is therefore most needed aspect at the present time. Further emission of huge amount of GHG from the agroecosystem is creating the problem of climate change and global warming. Therefore, the climate footprint of the earth ecosystem is also reflecting changing pattern. It is also hampering the agricultural productivity and production. Proper management of agriculture through organic farming, crop rotation and other indigenous technologies under changing climate has become the biggest challenge on the earth surface. The concept of energy footprint is associated with the level of GHG emission that is taking place from various sectors of agroecosystem. Addressing environmental sustainability in the field of agriculture requires sustainable and integrated management of resources along with emission reduction of GHGs. This would help to reduce the energy footprint of the agroecosystem and subsequently help in combating climate change. The pattern of climate footprint needs to be conserved in order to avoid the hazards of the changing climate that is challenging the issue of environmental sustainability. Therefore, analysing climate and energy footprint is a key issue from agroecosystem point of view in order to attain environmental sustainability of the agriculture sector. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Environmental education for sustainable development
(Elsevier, 2021) Shailesh Kumar Yadav; Arnab Banerjee; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Ram Swaroop Meena; Abhishek Raj; Nahid Khan; Sandeep Kumar; Seema Sheoran
Environmental degradation is an alarming issue in the planet. The main reasons behind the problem are industrial revolution and population explosion and high demand of luxury items in the life. Presently, lack of proper education, awareness, knowledge and approach of people towards environment degrades the nature and its resources. Thus, sustainable development appears to be a doom stay approach for various countries across the globe. There is a need of hour to develop a strong environmental education (EE) system with the responsiveness of human towards the nature for sustainability and environmental security. United Nation and various countries are taking active steps in this aspect to develop collaboration with the society. Various initiatives in the form of awareness campaigning and community development programmes are running across various countries of the globe in this connection. This chapter focusses on the major emphasis of EE programmes towards sustainability to develop the awareness and perception on the environmental issues among the students, researcher, policymakers and society. However, success stories rely on the concept of public participation, awareness and knowledge to gain environmental security. Proper policy and planning in-terms of locality and sector-specific approaches are required very much at the present moment. Further the potential role of women along with recognizing traditional culture needs to be recognized for successful implementation of EE on the earth. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
Intensification for Agroecosystem Services
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Abhishek Raj; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Nahid Khan; Arnab Banerjee; P.R. Paikra; Ram Swaroop Meena; Sandeep Kumar
Agroecosystem itself represents a managed ecosystem in agricultural land by human-managed crops and livestock’s integration that are highly productive, profitable, and ecologically sustainable. Growing populations and related food demands necessitate intensive practices in agriculture systems. Deforestation and other anthropogenic factors promote forest land conversion into arable lands. Intensive agroecosystem ensures higher crop productions but at the cost of ecosystem and environmental health. High intensive inputs of chemical fertilizers and heavy mechanizations resulted in land degradation and poor soil health. Intensive agroecosystem practices further destroy soil and environmental quality along with poor ecosystem services. In this context, applying sustainable practices in agroecosystem is based on ecological concept that enhances cropsoil productivity in sustainable ways without destroying our environment. Sustainableintensification in agroecosystem enhances biodiversity that intensifies ecosystem services in both tangible (direct) and intangible (indirect) ways. Production services (tangible) include the timber biomass, fuelwood, food products, and several non-wood forest products that are delivered directly from the agroecosystem. Climate change mitigation, soil fertility improvement, watershed management, pest disease control, water regulation, food and nutritional security, etc. come under the protection services. Sustainable intensificationbased agroecosystem enhances climate-resilient and soil health management. Climate-resilient agroecosystem ensures less emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and makes sustainable ecosystem. Conservation agriculture, use of cover crops, and no-tillage practices are key drivers that promote sustainable agroecosystem. An effective policy for scientific research and design must be included to promote sustainable agroecosystem practices that promise food-soilclimate security at global scale. This chapter discusses about ecosystem services through sustainable-based agroecosystem rather than intensive practices. A rigorous discussion is also made on theoretical models of agroecosystem, significance of sustainable agroecosystem, and drivers for sustainable intensification in agroecosystem. Climate- and soil-resilient agroecosystem makes this chapter more comprehensive and informative for academicians, policy makers, and researchers worldwide. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Land Footprint Management and Policies
(Springer Singapore, 2020) Arnab Banerjee; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Abhishek Raj; Yadav Dhiraj Kumar; Nahid Khan; Ram Swaroop Meena
There would be significant rise in production of animal products as well as food products due to higher demand across the globe. This would lead to generation of competition for the cultivable land which would be regulated by array of factors along with population explosion, alternation in consumption pattern of food as well as production of biofuel. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the inter-relationship between the agricultural land use and the pattern of consumption by the human. Various methodologies and modeling approach are available for calculation of land footprint. As per requirement, land footprint may be extended by considering environmental impacts on spatio-temporal scale to evaluate the embedded land under land footprint. Weightage on land area, land quality was given for estimation of land footprint for various types of land uses in the form of cropland, deforestation, and grassland ecosystem. Reducing land footprint requires awareness regarding the issue and control over the growth of economy across the globe which alters the consumption pattern as well as the pressure on natural land resources. Further research and extensive studies are required to generate suitable database for effective screening of suitable land use systems for reducing the land footprint. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Legumes for eco-friendly weed management in agroecosystem
(Elsevier, 2022) Gourisankar Pradhan; Ram Swaroop Meena; Sandeep Kumar; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Nahid Khan; Uma Nath Shukla; Ambuj Kumar Singh; Sindhu Sheoran
Food and nutritional security, environmental sustainability, mitigating climatic vulnerability, shifting of weed flora, weed developed resistance against the herbicide, high capital investment through manual weed management, and increasing the requirement for energy input in the agriculture sector are the major issues in crop production in the coming years. It is no doubt that the introduction of herbicide in the agriculture sector increases the income of farmers, which boost the economy of the nation, but its improper uses create several problems. The consumption of herbicide in the world during 2018 was 1.30Mt. The excess uses of herbicide in agriculture pose several consequences such as environmental pollution, increasing demand for energy in the industrial sector, increase resistance in different weed species, appearing novel weed flora in the cropping system, and incurred higher cost of cultivation in crop production. Sustainable food production is one of the important tools in maintaining ecological balance and soil health. In this circumstance, integrating legumes into cropping systems provides several ecosystem services which fulfill the objectives of ecological weed management. Sustainable intensification is fulfilling the demand for food and ensuring nutritional security in a sustainable manner while maintaining biodiversity and providing many ecosystem services. In a cropping system or single crop production weeds are poses a serious loss by reducing crop growth, yield, quality, depletes fertility status of soil, and act as an alternate host for several insects, pest, and diseases. The yields reduction in direct-seeded rice due to weeds was reported up to 90%. Globally, more than US$ 100 billion was a loss due to infestation of weed in annual crops. The weed seed of Argemone mexicana crushed mustard seed and the oil feed by human beings causes glaucoma or dropsy. The weed green Amaranthus (Amaranthus viridis) can accumulate about 3% N in its biomass and causes severe depletion of nitrogen (N) economy in soil. The three solanaceous weeds such as Solanum nigrum, Datura stramonium, and Datura ferox are act as an alternate host for tomato leaf minor. The application of herbicides during the crop production causes adverse effects on the environment, soil ecosystem, pollute ground water, damage ecological diversity, and affects human health. Besides, the use of herbicide for weed management incurred about US$ 25 billion annually across the globe. Therefore, to tackle such issues of weed the integration of legumes in the different crop production systems as cover crop, relay crop, green manure crop, brown manuring crop play a key role in providing many ecosystem services such as suppressing weed species by smothering or by allelopathy effect, break the life cycle of disease and pest, increasing carbon (C) and N pool in soil, enhancing soil organic matter content, enhance soil health by improving physical, chemical and biological properties of soil. In intercropping system, legumes have better suppression on weed flora by reducing their density and biomass. Further, legumes fulfill the requirement of N of the component crop. Legumes in the crop rotation system break the infestation of frequently occurrence weeds due to its allelopathic effects or smothering effects on the weed seed bank. Based on the diverse benefits of legumes, it is ensured that legumes either in the cropping system or alone as crop residue plays a key role in driving sustainable intensification. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Recent strategies for pulse biofortification to combat malnutrition
(Elsevier, 2022) Uma Nath Shukla; Manju Lata Mishra; Ram Swaroop Meena; Sandeep Kumar; Seema Sheoran; Sandeep Bedwal; Chetan Kumar Jangir; Nahid Khan; Sindhu Sheoran
Malnutrition is a major challenge for the world to develop a think-tank to alleviate and provide the right access to food globally and also secure them nutritionally. Among various factors, these micronutrients, namely, zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), iodine (I), and selenium (Se) played important role in human health which is most deficient in the diet in developing countries including African and Asian Continent. According to WHO (2020), Asia stands top in the case of undernourished people (381 million), followed by Africa (250 million) and last Latin America and the Caribbean (48 million). In case of child malnutrition, approximately 191 million children of less than 5-year age were stunted and wasted during 2019, whereas 38 million children under less than 5 years were overweight. Although, there is more option to improve dietary foods with essential micronutrient and this can only be possible through food fortification, supplementation, dietary diversification, and biofortification. Among, biofortification with essential micronutrients in the targeted crop can be achieved through breeding, agronomic, genetic engineering, and microorganism approaches. These approaches can be employed in the pulse crops to exploit essential micronutrients. Few pulse crops like pigeon pea, chickpea, and lentils showed great potential to overcome micronutrient deficiencies prevalent among the vulnerable group. This chapter is dedicated to the importance of pulse crops along with their nutritive values and bioavailability of micronutrients in human beings’ vis-a-vis enrichment of pulse grains through biofortification involving various approaches. Also enlighten the role of pulse biofortification in providing opportunities, challenges, and future strategies to alleviate malnutrition across the world. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Abhishek Raj; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Nahid Khan; Arnab Banerjee; Poonam; Ram Swaroop Meena; Kavita Rani
Resources sustain the ecosystem, but its depletions are the major concern of the present times. Natural resources such as agriculture, forestry, agroforestry, soils, animals, etc. enhance the biodiversity which intensify ecosystem services intangible and intangible ways and regulate ecosystem processes. These ecosystem services not only maintain soil-food-climate security but also make a door for achieving the goal of sustainable development. However, overexploitation, deforestation, faulty land use practices, unsustainable land management, intensive agriculture, high synthetic inputs, etc. disturb our pathway of natural ecosystemby affecting resources and its depletions. The FAO mentioned that every year around 6.5 Mha (million hectare) areas of tropical forest are converted into agricultural land due to rising populations and human needs that affects the natural resources by depriving health, quality, and quantity of other resources such as forest trees, wild animals, soil quality, etc. Soil is another importantnatural resource which is degraded up to 147.0 Mha in Indian land areas. Among this, water erosion, acidification, flooding, wind erosion, and salinity contributed 94, 16, 14, 9, and 6 Mha of land, whereas combination of other factors affects 7.0 Mha, respectively. This resource supports human and livestock by 18 and 15% of the global population, whereas different land use systems like agriculture, forestry, and fishery systems contribute to GDP (gross domestic product) and employment generations by 17 and 50%, respectively. Therefore, resource conservation and its management are having prime importance duse to their uncountable contributions in national and international sustainable-based development along with addressing environmental sustainability. In this context, the practicesof ecology-oriented and sustainable intensification become good strategies for the conservation and management of natural resources. Contrary to intensive agriculture, the characteristics, principles, and practices of both ecological and sustainable intensification are much clear. These practices will ensure soil-foodclimate security along with the maintenance of environmental sustainability and ecological stability. Thus, these practices must approach the further research and development through better methods and technology for promising resourceconservation and sustainable development. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Riparian conservation and restoration for ecological sustainability
(Elsevier, 2021) Nahid Khan; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Arnab Banerjee; Ram Swaroop Meena; Abhishek Raj; Shailesh Kumar Yadav
Ecosystem is under the threat of rapid degeneration across the globe. Earth is bestowed with diverse ecosystem services. Among them, some are very unique in nature and also much fragile, and leads to various types of degradation on the earth. Riparian ecosystem is one of the unique examples that sustain diverse life form and various modes of ecological services. Research reports reveal diverse ecosystem services of the riparian ecosystem that includes flood control, habitat for biodiversity, mitigation and adaptation towards climate change, as well as social and its cultural values. Considering these diversified services in the riparian ecosystem has gained sufficient importance on the earth to sustain the life. If the degradation of the earth continues, it will be harmful to the future humankind. Thus, there is need of the riparian system that will have major impacts on the hydrology and biodiversity. This chapter focuses on the issues related to worldwide initiatives towards protection and conservation of these valuable assets of nature. It is covering proper strategies and policies implementation in relation to awareness, sustainable use, as well as protection from anthropogenic encroachment that needs to be done with immediate effect. The continuous monitoring and inventorization of riparian system across the world should be centralized for future research on riparian system. The riparian systems should be on top priority for conservation and restoration of ecological sustainability. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
Soil Carbon Stock and Sequestration: Implications for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Nahid Khan; Manoj Kumar Jhariya; Abhishek Raj; Arnab Banerjee; Ram Swaroop Meena
The land resource and other natural resources are degrading day by day due to human greed of development and unsustainable management. These will not only affect the ecosystem structure and related services but also disturb environmental sustainability and overall ecological stability at global scale. Today, climate change becomes most highlighted and burning issue among policy makers, stakeholders, scientists, and academicians across various national and international platforms. However, the climate change and other perturbation have altered the natural balance of different ecosystems resulting into poor ecosystem services. This will not only affect yield and productivity but also affect ecosystem health in many dimensions. In this context, capturing of carbon (C) through the process of C sequestration will increase C values in vegetation and soil as soil organic carbon (SOC) pools that directly or indirectly link with food-soil-climate security. Soil organic matter (SOM) and C are the key management strategies for managing land resources wisely. Updated and advance technologies of soil C-friendly management are the major mitigatory strategy for different ecosystems. Soil C management requires the practices which add C inputs in soil instead removing the soil C and nutrients reserve. The land-use systems must be eco-friendly and sustainable one to stop the land degradation and deterioration. Sustained research and developmental activities are needed to generate C dynamics knowledge base which subsequently helps to visualize the changes in soil C quantity and impact on the atmospheric C. Moreover, this information supports for terrestrial C management and climate change adaptation and mitigation. In the view of the above, a rigorous and comprehensive discussion has been made on soil C sequestrations in varying land use practices (forest, agroforestry, and fruits based land use system, etc.) and its role in climate change mitigation to achieve the goal of sustainable environment and maintaining overall ecological stability. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.