Soil conservation in the 21st century: why we need smart agricultural intensification

Govers, Gerard; Merckx, Roel; van Wesemael, Bas; Van Oost, Kristof

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-3-45-2017

Articles | Volume 3, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-3-45-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Soil science in a changing world: contributions of soil science...

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-3-45-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 3, issue 1

Review article

| Highlight paper

|

01 Mar 2017

Review article | Highlight paper |

| 01 Mar 2017

Soil conservation in the 21st century: why we need smart agricultural intensification

Gerard Govers, Roel Merckx, Bas van Wesemael, and Kristof Van Oost

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Final revised paper (published on 01 Mar 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 28 Jul 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Referee Comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 26 Sep 2016
RC2: 'Review of Smart intensification paper', Martin van Ittersum, 07 Oct 2016
EC1: 'Revision after referee comments', Jakob Wallinga, 10 Oct 2016
AC1: 'Revision of "Soil Conservation in the 21st Century: Why we need Smart Agricultural Intensification"', Gerard Govers, 04 Dec 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (review by Editor) (20 Dec 2016) by Jakob Wallinga

AR by Gerard Govers on behalf of the Authors (04 Jan 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (09 Jan 2017) by Jakob Wallinga

ED: Publish as is (13 Jan 2017) by John Quinton (Executive editor)

AR by Gerard Govers on behalf of the Authors (28 Jan 2017) Manuscript

Short summary

We discuss pathways towards better soil protection in the 21st century. The efficacy of soil conservation technology is not a fundamental barrier for a more sustainable soil management. However, soil conservation is generally not directly beneficial to the farmer. We believe that the solution of this conundrum is a rapid, smart intensification of agriculture in the Global South. This will reduce the financial burden and will, at the same time, allow more effective conservation.