Agricultural soils form the foundation of sustainable food production and play a critical role in maintaining ecosystem functions, regulating water and nutrient cycles, supporting biodiversity, and influencing the global carbon balance. However, increasing climatic variability, intensive agricultural practices, land degradation, nutrient depletion, declining soil organic matter, salinisation, erosion, and other environmental pressures are adversely affecting soil health and the long-term productivity of agroecosystems. Addressing these challenges requires an integrated understanding of soil processes and their responses to a rapidly changing climate.
This volume provides a broad and contemporary overview of the physical, chemical, and biological dimensions of agricultural soil science. It explores key concepts related to soil health, soil organic carbon storage and turnover, nutrient transformations, plant–soil interactions, microbial processes, and the influence of climatic factors on soil functioning. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding how temperature changes, altered rainfall patterns, drought, flooding, and other climate-related stresses affect soil fertility, carbon cycling, nutrient availability, and crop performance.
The volume also examines sustainable and climate-resilient soil management strategies, including conservation agriculture, integrated nutrient management, organic amendments, biochar application, cover cropping, crop diversification, precision farming, and biological approaches for improving soil quality. Emerging tools and technologies for soil assessment, monitoring, and decision-making are also considered.
Designed for students, researchers, academicians, agricultural professionals, policymakers, and land managers, this volume integrates fundamental principles with current advances in soil and agroecosystem science. It aims to support the development of practical and scientifically informed approaches for restoring degraded soils, improving nutrient- and water-use efficiency, enhancing carbon sequestration, sustaining crop productivity, and strengthening the resilience of agricultural systems under changing climatic conditions.
