Description

ABOUT THE BOOK

Soil and water are two important natural resources for sustaining agricultural productivity. Soil and water management is the key to development of sustainable agriculture. These two natural resources are vital for ensuring agricultural and environmental safety. Soil and water resource status and management is a holistic approach to agriculture that can play an important role in addressing the challenges for sustainable agriculture. The ‘Handbook of soil health and water management’  has comprehensive coverage on status, fundamental concepts and advances in soil health and water resource management for sustainable development and is expected to provide a valuable resource text book for scholars and researchers, as well as guide book for development agencies. Contents in the book are organized in 32 chapters, which includes introductory or basic concepts in soil and water management as well as advanced resource conservation and management techniques in agricultural production technologies e.g. formation and development of soil; soil fertility and fertilizers; plant nutrition; organic amendments; green manuring; soil health management; resource conservation technologies; management of degraded, salt affected and acid soils; soil biodiversity; land capability and utilization; soil and water quality; irrigation water management and climate resilient agriculture, etc. The interpretation of the subject matter in each chapter has been carefully and systematically designed based on the requirements at the University level education as per the curricula of UG and PG courses. The vast field of soil and water management has been covered in a simple and concise form. The text is adequately illustrated with tables, figures and photographs to bring out the significant findings. This is a form of text book that provides cutting edge scientific knowledge as well as solid background information that are accessible for those who have a strong interest in soil health and conservation and management of water resources and want to learn more on the challenges faced by global agricultural systems. Authors have tried to compile valuable information emanated from queries of students during University teaching and researches across the country in the field of soil and water management for crop production. It is hoped that this book is a treasure of knowledge and students, teachers, researchers, development managers, extension workers and policy makers of agricultural and allied disciplines find this publication informative and useful.

CONTENT

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dr. Sanjay Arora is an active researcher in the field of Natural Resource Management mainly focusing on reclamation and management of salt affected soils and soil and water resource management in fragile ecosystems in foothills of Himalayas. He is presently working as Principal Scientist (Soil Science) in ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Regional Research Station, Lucknow (UP) and has more than 17 years experience in the field of soil and water resource conservation and management. He worked as Assistant Professor (Soil Science) and was involved in teaching UG and PG courses in Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology, Jammu before he joined as Senior Scientist at CSSRI, Bharuch (Gujarat) and later at RRS, Lucknow. He is interested to understand sustainable rural livelihood through scientific interventions for soil and water management on watershed basis. He is active member of various academic and professional societies/associations. He is author of 144 peer-reviewed research articles that has been published in various national and international journals. He has edited eleven books, contributed various chapters in 35 books and more than 25 semi-technical popular articles in periodicals. He has guided thirteen M.Sc. students and two Ph.D. scholars for research related to soil management. He has experience of handling 11 externally funded research/ consultancy projects and he is recipient of Young Scientist Award, SCSI Leadership Award, Gold Medal Award, Fellow, Soil Conservation Society of India, National Academy of Biological Sciences. He has visited Thailand, Israel and Italy for different scientific assignments and presentations.

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Dr. Rajan Bhatt, is specialized in soil and water management from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana and has been working as Scientist (Soil Science) in the same University at Regional Research Station, Kapurthala. He had a good experience of dealing with farmers and with the current required research. He had worked as incharge of Soil and water testing lab and Front Line Demonstration project for about five and half years. He has experience of 14 years in soil and water conservation and resource conservation techniques for reducing the water and carbon footprints. He has published more than 68 research papers (national and international) and more than 73 Technical articles in Leading magazines, newspapers and contributed 16 chapters (national and international) in books on various aspects of Soil and Water Management. At present he is handling two projects in sugarcane crop as PI. He is active member of World Association of Soil and Water Conservation, China and Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, New Delhi and recognized as the first to delineate the soil moisture dynamics during intervening periods of differently established rice-wheat cropping sequence. He had presented his research findings in many workshops and conferences. He visited Nepal (twice) and ICRISAT, heyderbad (onces) as invited by IRRI, Phillipines to attend different trainings regarding performance of different resource conservation technologies in the indo-genetic plains for improving the water productivities in the region. He received many awards viz. Best Publication Award-2013, Student Incentive Award-2015, Young Scientist Award-2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019, Leadership Award-2017, Achiever award-2018 etc and reviewed around 40 research papers on invitation basis. Presently, he is working for judicious use of fertilizers viz. potash, polyhalites etc. for improving both quality and quantity of sugarcane.

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Dr. L.L. Somani, Retired Director Resident Instructions, MPUAT, Udaipur has over 400 papers published in national and International Journals/Symposia proccedings, etc. and fifteen dizens of books to his credit in different disciplines of agriculture. He held different position in MPUAT and has spreaded highly innovative ideas and programmes for the development of agriculture.

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]