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The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization factors of plant-derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI). The stabilization factor quantifies the degree to which easy-to-degrade components accumulate during early-stage decomposition (e.g. by environmental limitations). However, agriculture and an interaction between moisture and temperature led to a decoupling between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization, notably in colder locations. Using TBI improved mass-loss estimates of natural litter compared to models that ignored stabilization. Ignoring the transformation of dead plant material to more recalcitrant substances during early-stage decomposition, and the environmental control of this transformation, could overestimate carbon losses during early decomposition in carbon cycle models.

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization factors of plant-derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI). The stabilization factor quantifies the degree to which easy-to-degrade components accumulate during early-stage decomposition (e.g. by environmental limitations). However, agriculture and an interaction between moisture and temperature led to a decoupling between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization, notably in colder locations. Using TBI improved mass-loss estimates of natural litter compared to models that ignored stabilization. Ignoring the transformation of dead plant material to more recalcitrant substances during early-stage decomposition, and the environmental control of this transformation, could overestimate carbon losses during early decomposition in carbon cycle models.

Preventing and reversing soil degradation is essential to maintaining the ecosystem services provided by soils and guaranteeing food security. In addition to the scientific community, it is critical to engage multiple stakeholders to assess the degree of soil degradation and mitigation strategies' impact and meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, and other national and international goals. A semi‐structured questionnaire was distributed across countries participating in the EU Horizon‐2020 “Transforming Unsustainable management of soils in key agricultural systems in E.U. and China. Developing an integrated platform of alternatives to reverse soil degradation (TUdi).” Using farmers' associations and educational institutions as an intermediate to distribute the questionnaires was an effective strategy for gathering a high number of responses. Results from 456 responses to the questionnaire showed that farm country, size, type of agriculture, and educational level of farm managers were significantly associated with the farmers' perception of soil degradation issues. Farm size and type of agriculture were also correlated with applying a nutrient management plan. The implications of the results for soil conservation measures are discussed. Additionally, we highlight the potential of projects such as TUdi for creating collaboration networks to drive widespread adoption by farmers of technologies to reverse the degradation of agricultural soils.

Preventing and reversing soil degradation is essential to maintaining the ecosystem services provided by soils and guaranteeing food security. In addition to the scientific community, it is critical to engage multiple stakeholders to assess the degree of soil degradation and mitigation strategies' impact and meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, and other national and international goals. A semi-structured questionnaire was distributed across countries participating in the EU Horizon-2020 “Transforming Unsustainable management of soils in key agricultural systems in E.U. and China. Developing an integrated platform of alternatives to reverse soil degradation (TUdi).” Using farmers' associations and educational institutions as an intermediate to distribute the questionnaires was an effective strategy for gathering a high number of responses. Results from 456 responses to the questionnaire showed that farm country, size, type of agriculture, and educational level of farm managers were significantly associated with the farmers' perception of soil degradation issues. Farm size and type of agriculture were also correlated with applying a nutrient management plan. The implications of the results for soil conservation measures are discussed. Additionally, we highlight the potential of projects such as TUdi for creating collaboration networks to drive widespread adoption by farmers of technologies to reverse the degradation of agricultural soils.

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization factors of plant-derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI). The stabilization factor quantifies the degree to which easy-to-degrade components accumulate during early-stage decomposition (e.g. by environmental limitations). However, agriculture and an interaction between moisture and temperature led to a decoupling between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization, notably in colder locations. Using TBI improved mass-loss estimates of natural litter compared to models that ignored stabilization. Ignoring the transformation of dead plant material to more recalcitrant substances during early-stage decomposition, and the environmental control of this transformation, could overestimate carbon losses during early decomposition in carbon cycle models.

[EN] This data set was collected in 16 vineyards belonging to the DO Montilla-Moriles to determine the decomposition rate of plant material through the tea bag index (TBI) with different soil cover management (bare soil and cover crop)., [ES] Este conjunto de datos se recogió en 16 viñedos pertenecientes a la DO Montilla-Moriles para determinar la tasa de descomposición del material vegetal a través del índice de la bolsa de té (TBI) con diferentes manejos de la cobertura del suelo (suelo desnudo y cubierta vegetal).

El uso de cubiertas vegetales de especies autóctonas es un tema de creciente interés en el olivar, en especial en relación a la provisión de diferentes servicios ecosistémicos (p.ej., aumento de la biodiversidad, secuestro de carbono, reciclado de nutrientes, …) que se añaden a su papel clave en la protección del suelo frente a la erosión hídrica. Sin embargo, en muchas situaciones su implementación presenta serios obstáculos de tipo práctico. Entre estos, la dificultad de establecer una cubierta vegetal efectiva en zonas con alta densidad de conejos y/o en suelos muy degradados, donde el banco de semillas es prácticamente inexistente. La elección de las especies, junto a la incertidumbre acerca de su desarrollo fenológico en zonas con diferencias en el régimen térmico, y en la distribución de lluvia, también es un aspecto clave, sobre todo en el caso del olivar de secano, donde la cubierta vegetal puede competir con el olivo, en primavera, por el agua del suelo. El consumo de agua por la cubierta vegetal, que podría penalizar el rendimiento del olivar, es una cuestión clave para muchos agricultores escépticos sobre su uso., El objetivo de este trabajo fue la implantación de un ensayo de demostración de diversas especies herbáceas autóctonas para su uso como cubierta vegetal temporal, mono y multiespecífica, en una parcela de olivar con suelo muy degradado y gran abundancia de conejos, localizada dentro del marco de la DOP Estepa.

Nondestructive volume magnetic susceptibility measurements (MS) from the surface do not provide information about the depth distribution of a magnetic material or about the amount of magnetic material. We have developed a model that can be used to predict the volume magnetic susceptibility from the surface for a given (known or hypothesized) stratification of the magnetic layers in the soil profile. The measurements were performed with the MS2D Bartington sensor. The antenna signal from the MS2D probe decreases rapidly with depth. We show that the relative decrease in MS depends not only on the concentration of the magnetic tracer, but also on the distribution of the magnetic tracer in the soil profile. The decrease in sensitivity was fitted with a double exponential function. The function was implemented in a newly developed MagHut model. The MagHut model is a tool that can be used for forward modeling of the volume magnetic susceptibility when the tracer distribution in the soil profile is known. The model was successfully calibrated and validated with the measured data and with data from the literature. The Nash–Sutcliffe coefficients for goodness of fit were above 0.99 in all cases. MagHut can help interpret MS mapping results or it can be used to optimize amount and placement of the magnetic tracer for soil erosion experiments. However, the MagHut tool is only limited to the top 10 cm of the soil profile and cannot replace, but only complement, the standard procedure of occasional soil profile sampling and laboratory mass MS measurements.

La agricultura afronta el doble reto de producir alimentos con los mayores niveles de calidad para una población creciente y hacerlo mediante un uso sostenible de los recursos naturales, en especial el suelo y el agua, y con un impacto mínimo sobre otros elementos clave para la sostenibilidad de un ecosistema, como es la biodiversidad. Este es el contexto amplio en el que deberían de entenderse actualmente las denominadas Mejores Prácticas de Manejo (MPM) en agricultura. Las MPM son un concepto que se viene empleando desde hace mucho tiempo en agricultura aunque eso sí, bajo diferentes nombres. Así, todos los tratados clásicos de agricultura, desde la Roma Clásica hasta el Renacimiento, referían una serie de prácticas orientadas a la consecución de una cosecha exitosa. Con la sistematización del conocimiento a partir de la Ilustración, estas MPM empiezan a codificarse, y es a partir del siglo XX cuando se utilizan como una herramienta en los servicios de formación y extensión agraria para mejorar las prácticas agrícolas. Debido a esta larga trayectoria en la que diferentes instituciones y entidades han desarrollado MPM durante un dilatado periodo de tiempo para situaciones muy diferentes, existen numerosos ejemplos de las mismas, pero en muchos casos dispersa, con diferente terminología y en ocasiones, aparentemente o en realidad, ofreciendo indicaciones contradictorias. Esta situación supone una barrera para la difusión y entendimiento de las MPM en agricultura, incluidas las orientadas a un uso sostenible de suelo y agua, fuera del ámbito especializado. Así, el agricultor o técnico agrícola que aborda este tema por primera vez encuentra mucha dificultad para encontrar conocimiento actualizado y recibir orientación en su consulta, de manera que pueda entender cuál o cuáles de ellas son las más apropiadas para sus circunstancias o conocimientos. Incluso entre especialistas, esta falta de consistencia entre MPM es una barrera para la cooperación, en especial cuando s

[ES] Contiene la política de privacidad de la herramienta web OptCheck. OptCheck ayuda a los agricultores y propietarios a decidir la opción más rentable de diques de contención para controlar la erosión producida por cárcavas en sus explotaciones. Con esta herramienta puede determinar el número y la distribución óptima de diques de contención para el control de cárcavas, así como su coste estimado. Es una forma sencilla de comparar el coste estimado de diferentes alternativas de diques de contención. Esta herramienta ha sido diseñada por el «Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible y la Universidad de Córdoba» para proporcionar a los agricultores un instrumento sencillo y claro para planificar el control de cárcavas en sus explotaciones., [EN] Contains the privacy policy of the OptCheck web tool. OptCheck helps farmers and landowners to decide the most cost-effective check dam option to control gully erosion in their farms. Using this tool, you can determine the optimum number and distribution of check dams for gully control, as well as their estimated cost. It is an easy way to compare the estimated cost of different alternatives of check dams. This tool has been designed by “Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and the University of Cordoba” to provide farmers with a plain and simple instrument for planning gully control in their farms.

Orchards have a high potential for carbon sequestration. However, little research is available on the spatial variability at catchment scale and on the difference between the tree area and the lanes. We analyzed theik spatial variability of soil organic carbon stock, SOCstock at 90 cm depth in an 8-ha catchment in Southern Spain with olives on a vertic soil. Results showed higher soil organic carbon concentration, SOC, in the tree area as compared to the lane up to 60 cm depth, but its impact on SOCstock was negligible since it was compensated by the higher soil bulk density in the lane. SOC at different depths was correlated with that in the top 0–5 cm. The overall SOCstock of the orchard was 4.14 kg m−2, ranging between 1.8 and 6.0 kg m−2. This SOCstock is in the mid-lower range of values reported for olive orchards, measured at smaller scale, and similar to those other intensive field crops and agroforestry under comparable rainfall conditions. The spatial variability in SOCstock was correlated to several geomorphological variables: elevation, cumulative upstream area, topographic wetness index, sediment transport index, and tillage erosion. Differences in SOC and SOCstock are driven by the sediment redistribution downslope, mainly by tillage erosion, and higher soil water availability in lower areas allowing higher biomass production. These topographic indexes and the correlation between SOC in the topsoil and SOCstock up to 90 cm should be further explored in other typology of olive orchards for facilitating the mapping of SOCstock.

This communication presents the current results of an ongoing cooperative project with olive farmers of the Protected Appellation of Origin Estepa (hereafter DOP Estepa), in Southern Spain, encompassing approximately 40,000 ha of olives under different soil management systems, from bare soil using tillage or herbicides to temporary cover crops. The purpose of this project is to evaluate water erosion risk at the farm plot unit using freely available information and RUSLE methodology, to detect areas with greater risk of soil erosion, and contribute to the improvement of soil conservation in the DOP Estepa. For this, a GIS was set up using QGIS v.3.4.11. This GIS was used to aggregate spatial information to apply RUSLE (Dabney et al., 2012). The key layers of spatial information were: a raster DEM at 25m x 25m grid spacing from the Spanish National Center for Geographic Information, a vector map containing farm plot boundaries, land use and tree density from Common Agricultural Policy (hereafter SIGPAC), a vector soil map classification from the Andalusian Repository of Environmental Information (hereafter REDIAM), a raster map of annual rainfall erosivity also derived from REDIAM, and Sentinel-2-L-2A images (EOS, 2020). All this information was used, as follows, to develop a raster map at a 25m x 25m grid spacing of the different RUSLE parameters. The LS factor was obtained using the algorithms accessible from QGIS based on Desmet and Govers (1996), the K factor was determined based on the soil classification using the calibration for these soil types made by Gómez et al. (2014), and R was directly taken from the map provided by REDIAM. The C factor was calculated for the most common bare soil and cover crop management techniques implemented in the area (previously identified through questionnaires to farmers; Gómez et al., 2021) using the ORUSCAL tool (Biddoccu et al., 2020). The use of bare soil or temporary cover crop at the plot level was identified comparing di

Uno de los problemas más urgentes que debemos solucionar es la muerte y pérdida de fertilidad de nuestros suelos. Para ello, debemos aprender a aplicar las técnicas apropiadas para su conservación y regeneración.

The Chinese Loess Plateau has experienced large-scale land use changes in the past few decades. Understanding how land use change affects soil erosion is critical in the region's ecological construction and land management. In this study, the Beiluo River Basin in the core area of the Loess Plateau was selected to investigate the effects of land use changes on soil loss rates over the last 50 years. Results show that the land use has changed considerably, mainly reflected in the upper reaches. From 1970 to 2020, cropland in the upper reaches decreased by 54 %, directly leading to a 9.1-fold increase in forested land. Landsat-NDVI shows vegetation coverage increased from 21.1 % to 69.9 % over time. The Chinese Soil Loss Equation (CSLE) was used and confirmed to be satisfactory with a high coefficient of determination (R2, 0.89) and a strong Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (0.72), although an underestimation exists. The specific soil loss simulated in the upper reaches maintained a high rate of around 8,000 t·km−2·yr−1 from the 1970s to the 1990s, dramatically dropping to 3,058 t·km−2·yr−1 in the 2000s, then attenuated to 1,321 t·km−2·yr−1 in the 2020s. For the entire basin, soil loss rates dropped from 4,090 to 1,848 and 890 t·km−2·yr−1 from the 1970s to the 2000s and 2020s, respectively. Attribution analysis showed that the dominant factor of the change in soil loss rates in the 1980s and 1990s relative to the 1970s was the change in rainfall erosivity for the entire watershed. However, vegetation restoration rapidly converted to the dominant factor contributing 78.3 % to soil loss decrease in the 2000s. The shift is evident in each reach of the basin except the terrain-plain area with the majority of farmland. The findings are helpful for sustainable land use planning and socio-economic development on the Loess Plateau and in similar areas.

Non-destructive volume magnetic susceptibility measurements (MS) from the surface do not provide information about the depth distribution of a magnetic material or about the amount of magnetic material. We have developed a model that can be used to predict the volume magnetic susceptibility at the surface for a given (known or hypothesized) stratification of the magnetic layers in the soil profile. We show that the relative decrease in MS depends not only on the concentration of the magnetic tracer, but also on the distribution of the magnetic tracer in the soil profile. The decrease in sensitivity was fitted with a double exponential function. The function was implemented in a newly-developed MagHut model. The MagHut model is a tool that can be used for forward modeling of the volume magnetic susceptibility when the tracer distribution in the soil profile is known.

Temporary cover crops are a well stablished erosion control tool in Mediterranean tree crops such as olives or vines. Short-term (3-4 years) studies have stablished their beneficial effect in term of reducing runoff and soil losses (e.g. Gómez et al. 2009) at hillslope scale. There are few studies which have measured their hydrologic impact in the long-term. Gómez et al. (2021) in a long-term study of runoff and soil losses at hillslope scale in an olive orchard on a vertic soil noted how the reduction of runoff losses using temporary cover crops as compared to a bare soil was less than expected. Santa Marta is a commercial olive orchard located nearby Seville, Southern Spain, with a mean slope of 11 %, with a sandy-loam textural class, and an average annual precipitation of 534 mm. In 2003, two closed runoff plots (60 long, 480 m2) where regular machine traffic during farm operations was allowed. Four additional plots where stablished in 2005. Since then, runoff and sediment have been collected to determine soil erosion rates, with more details in Gómez et al. (2009). In two of these plots a bare soil management, CT, implemented with regular passes (1 to 3 a year) of chisel has been maintained, while in the other four plots temporary covers controlled by mowing had been used. In 2005 and 2006 two of these plots were seeded with a mix of species, CCm, to enhanced biodiversity, while the other two plots have since the start of the experiment regularly seeded with short-term cycle annual grasses. During the period 2003-2020 the experiment received an average annual, from 269 to 859 mm, and an average rainfall erosivity of 830 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1, from 268 to 1750. Average annual runoff and soil losses for the CT treatment were 57.5 mm and 22.9 t ha-1. For the CCg treatment the average losses were 33.8 mm 2.6 t ha-1 and for the CCm 33.7 mm 2.6 t ha-1 without statistically significant differences, at p<0.05 using a Kruskall-Wallis test, in runoff or soil losses between

Dataset includes measured data of the volume magnetic susceptibility of 36 artificial soil profiles with various distribution of magnetic tracer. The monitoring was done with Bartington MS2D field probe.

Water erosion measurement has been widely studied under different conditions using traditional approaches such as erosion collectors and more innovative ones such as sediment tracers. La Conchuela is a commercial olive orchard located in Southern Spain. In 2008, six closed runoff plots, where regular machine traffic during farm operations was allowed, were established. Runoff water was channeled from the plots and collected by tipping-bucket gauges with 5-min resolution. This was completed with a sediment trap located upstream of the tipping buckets and a device to collect an integrated sample of the runoff downstream of the tipping buckets (Gómez & Guzmán, 2021). In two of these plots ground cover was controlled with tillage during the whole year while the rest keep a temporary cover crop during fall and winter. In two of the plots (one with bare soil and other with temporary cover crop), the top 5 cm of the inter tree rows soil were tagged with magnetite. During the following years, three soil sampling campaigns (2008, 2010, 2016) were performed to measure variations of magnetic susceptibility within the soil surface and profile. Seventy locations at both plots were sampled at three depth intervals (0-1, 1-8, 8-12 cm in 2008 and 2010). A third sampling was carried out at 0-2, 2-10, 10-20 cm in 2016 at the same locations. Furthermore, twenty additional samples from 20-30, 30-40, 40-50, 50-60 cm were taken to check if tagged soil went deeper into the soil profile. In all these samplings, tree and inter tree rows were distinguished. Background susceptibility and bulk density at each depth, were characterised at the three sampling campaigns (Guzmán & Gómez, 2017). During the period 2008-2019 there were not statistically significant differences between managements, bare soil vs temporary cover crops, in runoff or soil losses. Nevertheless, average runoff and soil losses had a trend to lower values for the cover crop treatment (142.9 mm and 16.5 t ha-1) as compared to b