Current Science

S. K. Ray ¹, T. Bhattacharyya ¹, K. R. Reddy ², D. K. Pal ³, P. Chandran ¹, P. Tiwary ¹, D. K. Mandal ¹, C. Mandal ¹, J. Prasad ¹, D. Sarkar ¹, M. V. Venugopalan ⁴, K. Velmourougane ⁴, G. S. Sidhu ⁵, K. M. Nair ⁶, A. K. Sahoo ⁷, T. H. Das ⁷, R. S. Singh ⁸, R. Srivastava ¹, T. K. Sen ¹, S. Chatterji ¹, N. G. Patil ¹, G. P. Obireddy ¹, S. K. Mahapatra ⁵, K. S. Anil Kumar ⁶, K. Das ⁷, S. K. Reza ⁹, D. Dutta ⁹, S. Srinivas ⁶, K. Karthikeyan ¹, A. Srivastava ¹⁰, M. Raychaudhuri ¹¹, D. K. Kundu ¹¹, V. T. Dongare ¹, D. Balbuddhe ¹, N. G. Bansod ¹, K. Wadhai ¹, M. Lokhande ¹, A. Kolhe ¹, H. Kuchankar ¹, S. L. Durge ¹, G. K. Kamble ¹, M. S. Gaikwad ¹, A. M. Nimkar ¹, S. V. Bobade ¹, S. G. Anantwar ¹, S. Patil ¹, V. T. Sahu ¹, S. Sheikh ¹, D. Dasgupta ¹, B. A. Telpande ¹, A. M. Nimje ¹, C. Likhar ¹, S. Thakre ¹, K. G. Mandal ¹⁰, G. Kar ¹⁰, K. M. Gaikwad ¹, H. Bhondwe ¹, S. S. Dohtre ¹, S. Gharami ¹, S. G. Khapekar ¹, A. Koyal ⁴, Sujatha ⁴, B. M. N. Reddy ⁴, P. Sreekumar ⁴, D. P. Dutta ⁷, L. Gogoi ⁷, V. N. Parhad ¹, A. S. Halder ⁵, R. Basu ⁵, R. Singh ⁶, B. L. Jat ⁶, D. L. Oad ⁶, N. R. Ola ⁶, A. Hukare ¹, J. Khuspure ¹, B. P. Sunitha ⁴, B. Mohanty ³, D. Hazarika ⁷, S. Majumdar ⁵, R. S. Garhwal ⁶, A. Sahu ⁸, S. Mahapatra ¹¹, S. Puspamitra ¹¹, A. Kumar ⁹, N. Gautam ¹

Affiliations
1 Regional Centre, National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Nagpur 440 033, IN
2 Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Soil and Water Science Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, US
3 International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru 502 324, IN
4 Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur 440 010, IN
5 Regional Centre, National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, New Delhi 110 012, IN
6 Regional Centre, National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Bangalore 560 024, IN
7 Regional Centre, National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Kolkata 700 091, IN
8 Regional Centre, National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Udaipur 313 001, IN
9 Regional Centre, National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Jorhat 785 004, IN
10 National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms, Mau 275 101, IN
11 Directorate of Water Management, Bhubaneswar 751 023, IN

Abstract

Sustaining soil and land quality under intensive land use and fast economic development is a major challenge for improving crop productivity in the developing world. Assessment of soil and land quality indicators is necessary to evaluate the degradation status and changing trends of different land use and management interventions. During the last four decades, the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) which covers an area of about 52.01 m ha has been the major food producing region of the country. However at present, the yield of crops in IGP has stagnated; one of the major reasons being deterioration of soil and land quality. The present article deals with the estimation of soil and land quality indicators of IGP, so that, proper soil and land management measures can be taken up to restore and improve the soil health. Use of principal component analysis is detailed to derive the minimum dataset or indicators for soil quality. The article also describes spatial distribution of soil and land quality with respect to major crops of IGP.

Keywords

Land Quality Index, Principal Component Analysis, Soil Quality and Health.

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