The Impacts of Soil Degradation on Crop Yields in the Canadian Prairies: An Annotated Bibliography (1992)

Some documents are valuable no matter when they were written. Annotated bibliographies are an example of that. This document reviewed 242 references and made annotations on 85 of them. This is a comprehensive review of the literature on soil degradation affects on crop yields up to 1992. Significant findings from the literature are expressed in the summary. The ability to electronically search a PDF document will help the reader isolate areas of interest.

Preface

The Land Resource Division of the Centre for Land and Biological Resource Research conducts research on soil degradation, land use and land management practices in Canada. The Soil Quality Evaluation Project (SQEP) within the National Soil Conservation Program (NSCP), currently provides a focus for much of this research. The main objective of one of the SQEP sub-project was to collect information regarding the impacts of soil degradation on crop yields and to assess the completeness of this information.

The literature review and annotated bibliography contained in this report are the results of the first phase of information collection. The next phase of this soil degradation study involves gathering and interpreting expert opinions. The final step will integrate the literature review results and the expert opinions into a dynamic knowledge base.

This document is divided into three parts. The first part, the literature review, reports on significant findings of the annotated citations that examined the impact of soil degradation on crop yields that are relevant to the Canadian prairies. The results are divided by four degradation types: soil erosion (wind and water), compaction, salinization, and acidification. The annotated citations are found in the second part. These 85 citations were selected from 242 references based on their relevance to agricultural conditions in the Canadian prairies and are grouped by crop within degradation type. The final part of this report lists the 85 annotated citations and the remaining 157 references reviewed. Both lists are arranged by author rather than crop or degradation type.