North American Soil Degradation: Processes, Practices, and Mitigating Strategies

R. L. Baumhardt, B. A. Stewart and U. M. Sainju
Additional contact information
R. L. Baumhardt: USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Conservation and Production Research Lab., P.O. Drawer 10, Bushland, TX 79012, USA
B. A. Stewart: Dryland Agriculture Institute, West Texas A&M University, P.O. Box 60278, Canyon, TX 79016, USA
U. M. Sainju: USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Northern Plains Agricultural Research Lab., 1500 North Central Avenue, Sidney, MT 59270, USA

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 3, 1-25

Abstract: Soil can be degraded by several natural or human-mediated processes, including wind, water, or tillage erosion, and formation of undesirable physical, chemical, or biological properties due to industrialization or use of inappropriate farming practices. Soil degradation occurs whenever these processes supersede natural soil regeneration and, generally, reflects unsustainable resource management that is global in scope and compromises world food security. In North America, soil degradation preceded the catastrophic wind erosion associated with the dust bowl during the 1930s, but that event provided the impetus to improve management of soils degraded by both wind and water erosion. Chemical degradation due to site specific industrial processing and mine spoil contamination began to be addressed during the latter half of the 20th century primarily through point-source water quality concerns, but soil chemical degradation and contamination of surface and subsurface water due to on-farm non-point pesticide and nutrient management practices generally remains unresolved. Remediation or prevention of soil degradation requires integrated management solutions that, for agricultural soils, include using cover crops or crop residue management to reduce raindrop impact, maintain higher infiltration rates, increase soil water storage, and ultimately increase crop production. By increasing plant biomass, and potentially soil organic carbon (SOC) concentrations, soil degradation can be mitigated by stabilizing soil aggregates, improving soil structure, enhancing air and water exchange, increasing nutrient cycling, and promoting greater soil biological activity.

Keywords: soil erosion; compaction; salinization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/3/2936/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/3/2936/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:3:p:2936-2960:d:46664

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().