Soil Health and Sustainability in India
ACSESS Books
1. Edition July 2025
512 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
An in-depth resource that explores soil health issues in India
Soil Health and Sustainability in India delivers a comprehensive overview of the problems surrounding soil health in the different regions of India, The book documents both soil degradation and soil health improvements in agricultural systems. It looks at how to mitigate soil health hazards such as waterlogging, acidity, soil salinity, and soil compaction. It also discusses soil health constraints in different ecoregions and suggests potential solutions for enhancing environmental and socio-economic issues regarding soil in the sub-continent.
Past and current soil conservation programs in India are reviewed in detail to better understand how production and policy-related issues affect soil and water conservation. Incentives needed to address the most critical problems are also discussed. Encouraging results associated with watershed-scale soil and water conservation programs together with effective interventions to reduce land degradation and improve productivity are covered. Finally, pervasive physical, chemical, and biological soil health constraints present in different ecoregions are also discussed in detail.
Soil Health and Sustainability in India explores
* Deforestation and removal of natural vegetation through overgrazing and land use change
* Depletion of organic matter in soil, by excessive tillage, heavy machinery used for harvesting, and lack of adequate soil conservation measures
* Salt pollution from the textile, glass, rubber, animal hide processing, metal processing, and pharmaceutical industries
* Soil erosion by water, wind, and cyclonic storms, and different types of soil, including brown and red hill soils, alluvium-derived soils, lateritic soils, and podzolic soils
Soil Health and Sustainability in India is a timely resource on soil health in India. It is aimed at soil scientists, agronomists, industry professionals, and students of soil health, crop science, and agriculture seeking to understand India's soil conservation problems and find solutions to improve soil health in such a regionally diverse country.
Health Insights from India ix
Preface xi
1 Agricultural Ecoregions and Soil Health Challenges Within the Indian Sub-Continent 1
Shrila Das, Dibyendu Mukhopadhyay, and Ranjan Bhattacharyya
2 Soil Health in the Indian Himalayan Region 29
D. Mandal, P. Jha, Raman Jeet Singh, Rajesh Kaushal, M. Madhu, S. Barman, and Ranjan Bhattacharyya
3 Arid Eco-Region and Dryland Soil Health 70
Sumanta Kundu, Ch. Srinivasarao, V. K. Singh, and J. Naveen
4 Regional Soil Health Assessments: Central Semi-arid Region of India 112
Avijit Ghosh, Sukanya Misra, and Ranjan Bhattacharyya
5 Regional Soil Health Assessments: Eastern Sub-humid Soil Health in India 128
Dibyendu Chatterjee, Rajendiran Selladurai, Mohammad Shahid, Dibyendu Sarkar, and Saikat Ranjan Das
6 Coastal Region Soil Health: Problems and Perspectives from India 161
Uttam Kumar Mandal, V. Ramesh, Sudipa Mal, T. D. Lama, S. K. Sarangi, Sourav Mullick, Amit Ghosh, Dibyendu Bikas Nayak, and Dhiman Burman
7 Soil Health and Its Quality in Southern Peninsular India 189
K. S. Anil Kumar, M. Lalitha, K. M. Nair, Rajendra Hegde, and B. S. Dwivedi
8 Soil Health in Indian Vertisols 212
Pramod Jha, K. M. Hati, N. K. Lenka, B. L. Lakaria, M. V. Coumar, B. P. Meena, J. K. Thakur, A. K. Biswas, and A. K. Patra
9 Strategies for Restoring Soil Health in Indian Himalayan Region 243
Anup Das, Christi B. K. Sangma, Mahasweta Chakraborty, Saurav Saha, Amit Kumar, Bappa Das, Jaynata Layek, Subhash Babu, and Prashant Pandey
10 Strategies for Restoring and Enhancing Soil Health in India: Management Practices to Restore Soil Health in Arid, Semi-Arid, and Plateau Regions 320
Avijit Ghosh, Pramod Jha, Sukanya Misra, and Ranjan Bhattacharyya
11 Enhancing Soil Health by Mitigating Salinity in India 352
Ashim Datta, Nirmalendu Basak, Bholanath Saha, Piu Basak, Arvind Kumar Rai, and Rajender Kumar Yadav
12 Mitigating Soil Acidity and Waterlogging Impacts on Soil Health in India 385
Ruma Das, Samrat Ghosh, Khushboo Rani, Amit Phonglosa, and B. N. Ghosh
13 Conservation Agriculture Strategies for Enhancing Soil Health 423
Amit K. Dash, Abir Dey, Ranjan Bhattacharyya, T. K. Das, Arti Bhatia, and Shrila Das
14 Managing Crop Residue for Soil Health Improvement in India 451
Dibyendu Sarkar, Siddhartha Mukherjee, G. Pratibha, and Sumanta Kundu
15 Recommendations for Long-Term Soil Health Enhancement in India 487
Kuntal M. Hati, Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Pramod Jha, J. Somasundaram, B. N. Ghosh, Avijit Ghosh, and Douglas L. Karlen