Abstract
Soil organic carbon is the third biggest carbon pool after oceanic and geological pools with estimated quantity of 1550 Pg of C. There is still a tremendous potential to further enhance the capacity of this pool for the safe storage of C in the soil. Climate change and global warming due to anthropogenic release of CO2 to the atmosphere is the biggest concern. All-out efforts to store and conserve large amounts of C as soil organic matter in the root zone of agricultural soils can help slow down the climate change impact and improve sustainability of production system and environmental safety. Conservation agricultural (CA) practices involving the retention of large amounts of crop residue on the surface and least soil disturbance through minimum tillage are the two important components which greatly help in storing more C in soil as soil organic matter. By restoring soil productivity, these practices help make food production system more sustainable by protecting the environment and making the production system more resilient to climate change. Over years of this practice, CA can ensure the stratification of organic matter near the soil surface, which increases the soil infiltration rate manyfold, resulting in the decrease in runoff losses of water and protecting the soil from erosion losses besides storing more rainwater in the soil profile. The impact of increased frequency of high-intensity rains and decrease in the number of rain days in the future can be greatly overcome with the adoption of CA practices. The importance of CA thus becomes more relevant in the changing climate. In the present chapter, we have discussed the importance of CA practice in relation to climate resilience and efficient agro-ecosystem to ensure global food security and environmental safety.
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Dheri, G.S., Pasricha, N.S. (2021). Carbon Dynamics Under Conservation Agriculture. In: Jayaraman, S., Dalal, R.C., Patra, A.K., Chaudhari, S.K. (eds) Conservation Agriculture: A Sustainable Approach for Soil Health and Food Security . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0827-8_15
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