Human activities are significantly modifying the natural global carbon (C) cycles, and concomitantly influence climate, ecosystems, and state and function of the Earth system. Ever increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) are added to the atmosphere by fossil fuel combustion but the biosphere is a potential C sink. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of C cycling in the biosphere is crucial for identifying and managing biospheric C sinks. Ecosystems with large C stocks which must be protected and sustainably managed are wetlands, peatlands, tropical rainforests, tropical savannas, grasslands, degraded/desertified lands, agricultural lands, and urban lands. However, land-based sinks require long-term management and a protection strategy because C stocks grow with a progressive improvement in ecosystem health.

This book explores the importance of soil health in croplands, rangelands, pasturelands, and gardens, and presents new methods and technologies for assessing soil dynamics and health in these different land types. Through perspectives of agriculture, soil management, and ecological sustainability, the book provides accurate and up-to-date information on soil health assessment and maintenance that is often missing from current literature on conservation and environmental management and preservation. The book is written in a clear and concise format, and will appeal to non-scientists interested in soil health, as well as professional farmers, ranchers and gardeners. The book begins by discussing soil health from a historical perspective, and in terms of how it is covered in the news currently. Then the author addresses the ecological implications of soil health in farming, ranching and gardening, and comprehensively details the physical, chemical and biological properties of soil as they apply in various land types. The book then examines soil health assessment using new diagnostic and analytic technologies, and how these new innovations will be necessary going forward to maintain and improve soil health.

Emerging from the scientific parameters underpinning REDD+ (including the measurement of carbon stocks, reporting and verification), Law, Tropical Forests and Carbon considers the crucial challenges for global and national governance and the legal rights and interests of indigenous people and local communities, all of which have fundamental implications for development and poverty alleviation. With contributions from leading experts in the fields of law, governance, science, development studies and geography, it sheds light on the complexity of REDD+ and offers perspectives on the extent to which REDD+ agreements can be enforced under international law and in concert with new private and public domestic institutions.

Ecological functions and human wellbeing depend on ecosystem services. Among the ecosystem services are provisional (food, feed, fuel, fiber), regulating (carbon sequestration, waste recycling, water cleansing), cultural (aesthetic, recreational, spiritual), and supporting services (soil formation, photosynthesis, nutrient cycling). Many relationships of various degree exist among ecosystem services. Thus, land use and soil management to enhance biospheric carbon sinks for carbon sequestration requires a comprehensive understanding on the effects on ecosystem services. Payments for ecosystem services including carbon pricing must address the relationship between carbon sequestration and ecosystem services to minimize risks of overshoot, and promote sustainable use of land-based carbon sinks for human wellbeing.

Forests are one of our most valuable resources, yet they are fast depleting with an impending ecological crisis in view. This new book explores the concept of sustainable forest management that involves the use of socially justifiable, economically viable, and ecologically sound strategies for sustainably managing forest resources for present and future generations without diminishing their value. It looks at sustainable forest management practices and highlights the aspects of forest resources, the importance of traditional knowledge, the need for conservation, the impact of climate change, and ecosystem services. It covers the scientific, technical, and socio-economical aspects of forests to further ensure the conservation of forest resources.

Biotechnology of Emerging Microbes: Prospects for Agriculture and Environment provides the latest developments of leading biotechnologists and bioengineers. The book covers various aspects of microbes mediated rhizosphere, biosphere, environmental, and ecosystem biotechnology, and focuses on the restoration and management of the rhizosphere, the biosphere, and the ecosystem with microbes for a sustainable future. It is designed to address various technical and application details of microorganisms and their products in biotechnology and bioengineering approaches. Users will find up-to-date knowledge that is beneficial to beginners, researchers, students, scientists, engineers, and industry stakeholders who can support the management of ecosystems through the use of microbes. Planet Earth is undergoing an accelerated process of change associated with a wide range of anthropogenic phenomena. The future of these changes is uncertain, but there is general agreement that this negative development might be detrimental to our own survival. Although different environmental engineering strategies have been developed, none of them seem to address carbon dioxide accumulation, biosphere, and ecosystem safety. The rapidly increasing potential for the development of living systems through the biotechnology and bioengineering of microbes is a sustainable alternative to address safety issues. - Addresses various technical and application details of microorganisms and their products for biotechnology and bioengineering approaches - Brings together the ideas and latest developments of leading biotechnologists and bioengineers - Covers various aspects of microbes mediated rhizosphere, biosphere, environmental, and ecosystem biotechnology

This book gives detailed information about how soil, water and wastes can be managed to overcome the various global issues via possible nexus thinking. The emphasis is on the environmental resource perspective of global climate change-related issues. It provides stepwise information on climate change and adaption strategies, urbanization and its impact and management strategies, environmental nexus approaches to cope with global challenges and recourses conservation and ecological approaches to restore the damaged ecosystem. Features: Compiles the possible nexus approaches that contribute to managing the atmospheric environmental variables in sustainable ways Focuses on environmental resources perspective of the global change Covers how soil, water and waste may be managed in a nexus Explains modern strategies to manage the present environmental situation that are feasible and safe to the environment Discusses environmental nexus for judicious resource management This book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in environmental sciences and engineering and sustainable development.

This book will collate, review and synthesize information on how Organic Agriculture (OA) practices affect and are affected by climate change, in comparison to the more widely used conventional agricultural practices. Pros and cons of OA practices will be discussed separately for croplands, pasture lands, mixed livestock cropping systems, vegetable fields, fruit and tree orchards, and vineyards. The book concludes with an overview on how conventional and OA practices can be prudently and discriminately combined to identify and adopt climate-resilient agro-ecosystems under site-specific conditions.

This book examines global environmental governance and how legal, institutional, and conceptual reform can facilitate a transformation to a new ‘natural-systems’ form of agriculture. Profound global climate disruption makes it essential that we replace our current agricultural system – described in this book as a fossil-carbon-dependent ‘modern extractive agriculture’ – with a natural-systems agriculture featuring perennial grains growing in polycultures, thereby mimicking the natural grassland and forest ecosystems that modern extractive agriculture has largely destroyed. After examining relevant international legal and conceptual foundations (sovereignty, federalism, global governance) and existing international organizations focusing on agriculture, the book explores legal and institutional opportunities to facilitate dramatic agricultural reform and ecological restoration. Among other things, it explains how innovative federalism structures around the world provide patterns for reorienting global environmental governance, including what the book calls eco-states that would, through exercise of pluralistic sovereignty, be responsible for agroecological management. Drawing from his experience working in international institutions, the author provides detailed global-governance proposals for facilitating the type of agricultural reform that can help avoid ecological collapse, especially through soil degradation and climate change. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of international law, agroecology, climate change, ecological restoration, sustainable development, and global governance, as well as policy-makers and practitioners working in these fields.

Over the last two decades, the topic of forest ecosystem services has attracted the attention of researchers, land managers, and policy makers around the globe. The services rendered by forest ecosystems range from intrinsic to anthropocentric benefits that are typically grouped as provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural. The research efforts, assessments, and attempts to manage forest ecosystems for their sustained services are now widely published in scientific literature. This volume focuses on broad-scale aspects of forest ecosystem services, beyond individual stands to large landscapes. In doing so, it illustrates the conceptual and practical opportunities as well as challenges involved with planning for forest ecosystem services across landscapes, regions, and nations. The goal here is to broaden the scope of land use planning through the adoption of a landscape-scale approach. Even though this approach is complex and involves multiple ecological, social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions, the landscape perspective appears to offer the best opportunity for a sustained provision of forest ecosystem services.