Sustainable Use of Shallow Soils of India in the Context of Global Climate Change

摘要

Climate change has been viewed as a single most abiotic threat to food security in world. The climate change induced rainfall aberrations resulted in decrease the number of rainy days and increase in the frequency of high intensity rainfall has immediate impact on crop productivity and the indirect and long term impact on productivity potential of shallow soils which are prone to high erosion due to their occurrence on the slopes and the vulnerability is manifested by short duration high intensity rainfall induced soil loss. The objective of the present paper is to assess the vulnerable shallow soil area in different agro-ecological sub regions (AESRs) of India and conservation for enhancing food and fodder security on sustainable basis. The study reveals that the shallow soils cover 81.0 million hectares (24.6% of TGA of India), covering forty-eight agro-ecological sub regions (AESRs). The maximum concentrations of shallow soils are occurring in semi -arid agro-ecosystem (45.1 million hectares, 13% of TGA) followed by subhumid agro-ecosystem (20.1 million hectares, 6.1% of TGA). There are 9 AESRs where shallow soils area is more than 40% of TGA of respective AESR, mostly belongs to semi arid climatic type which occur in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and MP, where fodder along with multi-purpose tree species (MPTS), horticulture and bio fuel production can be intensified through incentive to the farmers and development of livestock based farming system to landless and marginal farmers to enhance the livelihood security. Cultivating them will not only help to arrest the soil erosion but also helps in improving the carbon sequestration. The shallow soils on sloping land may be used for silvi-pastoral, silvi-horticulture or agri-horticultural system along with inter or mixed cropping by trenching, contour cultivation, strip cropping, graded farrows / ridge and to increase of the crop yield. The study also explores the agro-climatic suitable grasses, MPTS, horticultural crops and bio fuel potential for different agro- ecological region (AEE). The area distribution of shallow soils in different AESRs opens the scope for development of location specific agro technology for their sustainable use.