Soil Conservation

The Great Depression coincided with a wave of natural disasters, including the Dust Bowl and devastating floods of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Recovering from these calamities–and preventing their reoccurrence–was a major goal of the New Deal.
In Nature's New Deal, Neil M. Maher examines the history of one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's boldest and most successful experiments, the Civilian Conservation Corps, describing it as a turning point both in national politics and in the emergence of modern environmentalism. Indeed, Roosevelt addressed both the economic and environmental crises by putting Americans to work at conserving natural resources, through the Soil Conservation Service, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Civilian Conservation Corps (or CCC). The CCC created public landscapes–natural terrain altered by federal work projects–that helped environmentalism blossom after World War II, Maher notes. Millions of Americans devoted themselves to a new vision of conservation, one that went beyond the old model of simply maximizing the efficient use of natural resources, to include the promotion of human health through outdoor recreation, wilderness preservation, and ecological balance. And yet, as Maher explores the rise and development of the CCC, he also shows how the critique of its campgrounds, picnic areas, hiking trails, and motor roads frames the debate over environmentalism to this day.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was one of the most popular programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Over the nine years of the program, from 1933 to 1942, over two and one-half million unemployed young men found work on conservation projects across Depression-stricken America. "Roosevelt’s Tree Army," as the CCC men were sometimes called, planted billions of trees, fought forest fires, did historic preservation work, and constructed recreational facilities in state and national parks. At Work in Penn’s Woods offers a rich and compelling portrait of Pennsylvania’s CCC program.

This book is the first comprehensive guideline for the beryllium-7 (Be-7) technique that can be applied to evaluate short-term patterns and budgets of soil redistribution in agricultural landscapes. While covering the fundamental and basic concepts of the approach, this book distinguishes itself from other publications by offering step-by-step instructions on how to use this isotopic technique effectively.

Advances in Soil and Water Conservation provides an in-depth, scholarly treatment of the most important developments and influences shaping soil and water conservation in the last 50 years.

This book addresses the impact of soil and water quality on food production, and explores soil and water conservation measures to be applied at farm level for agricultural sustainability. Divided into 8 chapters, the book covers topics such as soil properties responsible for soil loss, the impact of climate change, water and biological factors on soil chemistry, the effect of soil on the quality of water including sustaining aquaculture productivity and environment of wetlands, soil and water qualities necessary for irrigation, management of soil organic carbon, and the importance of soil moisture conservation including agroforestry for food production. Particular attention is given to the management of soil organic carbon in sustainable crop cultivation as well as reducing soil erosion and nutrient loss from soil from cultivated lands. The book concludes with a chapter that integrates soil and water conservation with sustainable food production and food safety.

by Rattan Lal (Editor), B. A. Stewart (Editor)
Climate is a soil-forming factor and soil can mitigate climate change through a reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases and sequestration of atmospheric CO2