*Global CA-CoP* *CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE*

*for sustainable agriculture and land management*

Dear Subscribers,

Please see herebelow that latest *European Soil Data Centre Newsletter
No.123 (Jul - Aug 2020).*

Apologies for any cross-posting.

*Amir Kassam *

*Moderator*

*Global CA-CoP*

e-mail: [log in to unmask]

URL: http://www.fao.org/conservation-agriculture


*Conservation Agriculture is an ecosystem approach to regenerative
sustainable agriculture and land management based on the practical
application of context-specific and locally adapted three interlinked
principles of: (i) Continuous no or minimum mechanical soil disturbance
(no-till seeding/planting and weeding, and minimum soil disturbance with
all other farm operations including harvesting);  (ii) permanent
maintenance of soil mulch cover (crop biomass, stubble and cover crops);
and (iii) diversification of cropping system (economically, environmentally
and socially adapted rotations and/or sequences and/or associations
involving annuals and/or perennials, including legumes and cover
crops).* *These
practices are complemented with other good agricultural production and land
management practices.*
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: PANAGOS Panos (JRC-ISPRA) <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 at 08:14
Subject: European Soil Data Centre Newsletter No.123 (Jul - Aug 2020) -
https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/public_path/newsletter/202003.pdf
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>


ESDAC: http://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu     ESDAC Newsletter No *123* (July -
August 2020)

Projections of Global soil erosion by water
<https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/themes/global-soil-erosion-future-projections>
(2015-2070)

We use the latest projections of climate and land use change to assess
potential global soil erosion rates by water to address policy questions.
Three alternative (2.6, 4.5, and 8.5) RCP scenarios were used and resulted
in a potential increase of global soil erosion rate by 30-66% by 2070. The
Global South is estimated to bear the brunt of the erosion. Rich countries
with high fertiliser use and moderate climates can expect erosion at a
low­er rate. Current conservation agriculture practices will only reduce
the projected soil ero­sion rate by 5%.  The study
<https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2001403117> has published
recently in PNAS. Data are available in ESDAC.

https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/global-soil-erosion-water-2070

Carbon mitigation potential and radiative agricultural land management
<https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/carbon-mitigation-potential-and-radiative-agricultural-land-management>

To reach the Paris climate targets, the mitigation capacity needs to be
maximized across all components of the Earth system, especially land.
Mitigation actions through land management, such as cover crops in
agricultural soils, are often evaluated in terms of their carbon
sequestra­tion potential, while radiative forcing related to surface albedo
changes is often ignored. The aim of this study was to assess the
mitigation potential of cover crops, both as changes in bio­genic
greenhouse gas fluxes (CO2 and N2O) and albedo-driven radiative forcing at
the top of the atmosphere. To achieve this, we have integrated a
biogeochemistry model framework running on approximately 8,000 locations
across the European Union with detailed soil data, supple­mented with time
series of albedo measurements derived from satellite remote sensing.

https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/carbon-mitigation-potential-and-radiative-agricultural-land-management

Global phosphorus losses due to soil erosion
<https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/themes/global-phosphorus>

The world’s food production depends directly on phosphorus. We combine
spatially distrib­uted global soil erosion estimates (only considering
sheet and rill erosion by water) with spatially distributed global P
content for cropland soils to assess global soil P loss. The world’s soils
are currently being depleted in P in spite of high chemical fertilizer
input. Afri­ca , South America and Eastern Europe have the highest P
depletion rates. Agricultural soils worldwide will be depleted by between
4–19 kg ha−1 yr−1, with average losses of P due to erosion by water
contributing over 50% of total P losses. The study
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18326-7> has published in
Nature Communications and the data are available in ESDAC.

https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/global-phosphorus-losses-due-soil-erosion

Sustainable soil management within the European Green Deal
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837720304257>

The new European Green Deal has the ambition to make the European Union the
first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The European Commission presented
an ambitious package of measures within the Biodiversity Strategy 2030, the
Farm to Fork and the European Climate Law including ac­tions to protect our
soils. The Farm to Fork strategy addresses soil pollution with 50%
reduction in use of chemical pesticides by 2030 and aims 20% reduction in
fertilizer use plus a decrease of nutri­ent losses by at least 50%. The
Biodiversity Strategy has the ambition to set a minimum of 30% of the EU’s
land area as protected areas, limit urban sprawl, reduce the pesticides
risk, bring back at least 10% of agricultural area under high-diversity
landscape features, put forward the 25% of the EU’s agricultural land as
organically farmed, progress in the remediation of contaminated sites,
re­duce land degradation and plant more than three billion new trees. The
maintenance of wetlands and the enhancement of soil organic carbon are also
addressed in the European Climate Law.

*More Details*

*Download the ESDAC Newsletter*: PDF Format
<http://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/public_path/newsletter/202003.pdf>.
*Feedback*: [log in to unmask]

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