ABSTRACT

The renewed interest in understanding and improving soil health has placed greater emphasis on the ways soil health can be measured. has been a wealth of research on developing better lab analytical techniques, in-situ and remote sensing technologies to achieve these goals. This collection reviews these developments and their implications for better monitoring and management of farm soils. This volume begins with a review of advances in measuring soil biological activity. Chapters cover developments in molecular techniques such as next-generation sequencing as well as improvements in measuring fauna such as earthworms, microbial and fungal communities Part 2 surveys developments in measuring soil physical properties. The book discusses advances in visual, imaging and geophysical techniques as well as ways of assessing key properties such as erodibiity. Part 3 summarises advances in measuring soil chemical properties using spectral and other techniques. The collection concludes by reviewing soil health indicators and decision support systems for improving soil management.

part 2|218 pages

Measuring soil physical and chemical properties