ABSTRACT
Climate change affects soil properties and soil processes. Therefore, identifying these effects and the ways to adapt them needs an insight about the interaction between soil and climate and how the variation in climate will alter the soil properties. The changes in mean temperature and precipitation patterns affect soil organic matter which in turn influences soil properties like soil structure, bulk density, hydraulic properties, cation exchange capacity, nutrient availability, microbial biomass, enzyme activity, soil respiration, microbial composition. The gaseous exchange rates of CO2 are generally greater in magnitude than N2O and CH4 exchange which may be the reason that flux of N2O and CH4 in terrestrial ecosystems has not been studied extensively. Soil microbes have the potential to respond to global change by influencing soil carbon dynamics and nutrient cycling. In this chapter we summarized results from studies which assessed influence of climate change on soil ecosystems emphasizing principally on soil properties and microbial processes.
