Applications of soil and plant analyses in identification and amelioration of land degradation
2000
Shaw, R. | Moody, P. | McGarry, D.
The raised consciousness of society to the condition of natural resources has increased the need to quantify the possible degradation of these resources due to resource use and management operations. A common expectation is that a test analysis is simple, conducted quickly at low cost and provides accurate and quantitative results for decision making. Often this expectation is not met due to the separation of analytical services from interpretative guidelines and the understanding of systems. The deciding factors for the continued use of analytical services in the future will be the meaningfulness of the analysis result, the cost and complexity of the analysis and the ability to provide useful interpretations of the data. Greater emphasis is now being placed on analytical results to assist the reversal of land degradation. Land degradation is taken to mean a reduction in the potential productivity of an area, or of a natural or modified ecosystem in relation to its natural or preferred state. Thus the meaning of land degradation is considered within an ecosystem context rather than a specific spatial or temporal value at one point or across a paddock. This paper discusses the meaning of land degradation and examines the weaknesses in a number of commonly used analyses for estimating and evaluating land degradation. We propose an ecosystem conceptual framework to evaluate the utility of analyses and the appropriate derivation of interpretive guidelines. A range of common analyses used for land degradation are evaluated against selected criteria using a multi-objective decision framework to rate the value of the analysis in identifying and monitoring land degradation.
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