Using a systems modeling approach to improve soil management and soil quality

摘要

Soils provide the structural support, water andnutrients for plants in nature and are considered to be thefoundation of agriculture production. Improving soilquality and soil health has been advocated as the goal ofsoil management toward sustainable agricultural intensifi-cation. There have been renewed efforts to define andquantify soil quality and soil health but establishing aconsensus on the key indicators remains difficult. It isargued that such difficulties are due to the former ways ofthinking in soil management which largely focus on soilproperties alone. A systems approach that treats soils as akey component of agricultural production systems ispromoted. It is argued that soil quality must be quantifiedin terms of crop productivity and impacts on ecosystemsservices that are also strongly driven by climate andmanagement interventions. A systems modeling approachcaptures the interactions among climate, soil, crops andmanagement, and their impacts on system performance,thus helping to quantify the value and quality of soils.Here, three examples are presented to demonstrate this. Inthis systems context, soil management must be an integralpart of systems management practices that also includemanaging the crops and cropping systems under specificclimatic conditions, with cognizance of future climatechange.