Soil Plant And Water

This textbook presents the concepts and processes involved in the soil-plant-atmosphere system as well as its applications in the water cycle in agriculture. Although reaching the frontier of our knowledge in several subjects, each chapter starts at the graduation level and proceeds to the post-doctoral level.

An increasing population has put tremendous pressure on agricultural productivity to fulfill the demands of human consumption. Numerous agricultural activities and techniques have been developed to raise annual crop production globally. While agriculture has succeeded in enhancing the yearly crop productivity, this achievement is at the cost of environmental degradation by applying synthetic persistent substances, such as industrial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc.

An increasing population has put tremendous pressure on agricultural productivity to fulfill the demands of human consumption. Numerous agricultural activities and techniques have been developed to raise annual crop production globally. While agriculture has succeeded in enhancing the yearly crop productivity, this achievement is at the cost of environmental degradation by applying synthetic persistent substances, such as industrial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc.

This book will outline valuable scientific contributions to the new desalination and water treatment technologies to obtain high quality water with low negative environmental impacts and cost.

Soil is a complex system of inorganic and organic materials, living organisms, water, and air. It is home to more than one trillion species of microorganisms. Soil also plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. Because plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere, convert it to plant tissue, and return it to the soil as plant residue, soils globally act as the world’s largest sink of active carbon. Soil has role to play in food production and safety. Soil contamination undermined by modern agricultural practices that deplete soil carbon stocks. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have been raising recorded temperatures since the Industrial Revolution. Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, forestry, and fisheries have almost doubled in the last 50 years and will increase by 30% by 2050 given the current trend. The primacy of arresting climate change is nowhere more evident than the adoption of 195 countries of the first legally binding global climate deal at the Paris Climate Conference in 2015. With atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) reaching 400 parts per million in 2016, soils can be an ally in bringing the CO2 level down to a sustainable level if protected for regeneration. Soil protection and regeneration is a technique that involves the conservative rehabilitation of soil ecosystem and farmland.

This book explores the impact of soil water deficiency on various aspects of physiological processes in plants. The book explains the effects under soil water deficit condition such as lowering of plant water content, disturbance in carbon metabolism such in photosynthesis, photorespiration and respiration as well as effects of soil water deficit on nitrogen metabolism.