Soil & environment как инструмент для оценки экологических функций почв

Quantitative Assessment of Environmental Soil Functions in Volcanic Zones from Mexico Using S&E Software

“…The software provides an evaluation, on a scale of 1-5, where five represents a very high soil aptitude to perform the environmental function, four refers a high aptitude, three is an intermediate aptitude, two represents a low aptitude, and one is a very low aptitude [16]. The soil function scenarios that can be modeled are: (1) human habitats, in which sites suitable for human settlements are identified; (2) decomposition of organic compounds, which allows the capacity of microorganisms to maintain the cycling of nutrients to be evaluated; (3) the natural archive, which allows the history of soils to be evaluated through pedological or geological features in the subsoil; (4) the cultural archive, which considers elements related to ancient populations such as artifacts; (5) naturalness of the soil, which evaluates the importance of the soil as a reservoir of diversity of animals and plants; (6) aquifer recharge, which evaluates the importance of soils for the water purification and recharge of aquifers; (7) retention of nutrients, which analyses soil fertility in order to plan soil management practices; (8) agricultural quality, which evaluates the capacity of soils for food production; (9) soil organic carbon content, which estimates the soil organic carbon content by horizon and profile; and (10) absorption and adsorption of heavy metals, which evaluates the capacity of soils to adsorb contaminants such as heavy metals [16,17].…”

“…The Soil and Environment software evaluates the environmental soil functions through the analysis of quantitative and semi-quantitative parameters determined in the laboratory and field, respectively [17]. For example, heavy metal sorption is estimated using the following equations [8]:…”

“…1 1 1 2 4 5 5 3 5 4 Cherán-002 4 4 5 1 1 5 3 5 4 3 5 3 Cherán-003 1 4 4 5 1 4 3 5 5 4 5 3 Cherán-004 4 4 1 1 1 2 3 5 5 3 5 3 Zacapu-002 4 4 4 5 1 3 3 5 5 4 3 1 Quiroga-002 3 4 5 1 1 5 3 5 5 3 5 3 Zacapu-001 4 4 1 1 1 2 4 3 5 3 3 2 Quiroga-001 5 4 4 1 1 2 5 3 5 4 3 2 Zacapu-003 5 4 4 5 1 2 4 3 5 3 3 The human habitat function allowed us to identify soils suitable for human settlements. For this function, the presence of contaminants and the generation of dust and humidity in the environment were evaluated, which are factors that can have negative repercussions on human health [17]. The Eutric Skeletic Mollic Silandic Andosol (Loamic) had medium aptitude levels with respect to its ability to perform this function is a result of its weak aggregate stability, causing dust formation, which can potentially cause gastric or pulmonary diseases [18].…”

“…On the other hand, the value of the environmental functions of soils has been recognized in recent years [8][9][10][11], but only qualitative models have been developed for evaluating these functions [12][13][14]. There are a few examples of quantitative models that consider the environmental soil functions, but the complete soil profile has never been included in these evaluations [15][16][17][18][19]. The first quantitative models for evaluating the environmental soil functions considering the complete soil profile were made by [8,20].…”

“…The first quantitative models for evaluating the environmental soil functions considering the complete soil profile were made by [8,20]. These models were later modified and improved for the development of algorithms [15] and a commercial multiplatform and multilingual software called Soil & Environment [16,17].…”