Soil and Water Conservation Measures for Alternate Land Use Systems

Abstract

Land degradation is a major cause of productivity losses and soil erosion is the most serious one among the various factors affecting land degradation. Therefore soil conservation is of primary importance in any land development work. Also, in drylands, soil water (moisture) conservation is of vital importance for successful crop production. There are many time-tested technologies for soil and water conservation that can be adopted for Alternate Land Use Systems whether it is Horticulture, Agro-horti systems, Agro-forestry, Silvi-pasture system or any other. The type of soil and water conservation measure will depend on the size and shape of the areas to be developed for cropping, its location with in the watershed of which this area is a part, the kind of plantation being taken up etc. For small areas, in situ conservation practices such as formation of basins, or micro relief systems and agronomic conservation practices may suffice whereas for large plantations, watershed scale development work may have to be taken up.