Impact of Climate Change in Soils of Semi-Arid Tropics (SAT)

Abstract

The review o f research results on Indian major soil types under semi-arid tropics (SAT) indicates that climate change from humid to arid occurred in the Peninsular regions o f India during the Holocene period. This change is being realized in the rise in mean annual temperature (MAT) and decrease in mean annual rainfall (MAR). The prevailing arid climatic adversities favoured the sequestration o f inorganic carbon as CaC03 with concomitant development of soil sodicity in major soil types o f India, representing regressive pedogenesis. As a result, crop productivity in these soils often has reduced to less than 50%. Thus the regressive pedogenetic processes under SAT environments pose a threat to agriculture being an unfavourable natural endowment that will ever demand for extra resources for raising crops (especially the winter crops) by the resource poor farmers in the naturally degraded soils