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Land Webinar | Challenges and Solutions for Sustainable Land: Soil Quality and Contamination
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Soil sustainability is the goal of soil management. A useful measure of soil sustainability is the maintenance of soil quality, as this assures the continued provision and regulation of soil ecosystem services, including agricultural productivity, continued forest growth, soil biodiversity, and water supply, among other aspects. One of the challenges that can hinder soil quality continuity is soil contamination. Such a contamination can come from the use of agricultural chemicals, the activities of industry, and—as we have seen in a recent submission—the outcome of war.
This Special Issue seeks the submission of research outcomes that outline the challenges that soil quality faces from all forms of contamination. We seek contributions that address soil degradation/contamination from human activity, how human activity affects soil sustainability, and what potential solutions there might be to allow for the maintenance of soil sustainability.
Date: 15 November 2024
Time: 12:00 pm CET | 6:00 am EST | 7:00 pm CST Asia
Webinar ID: 869 0570 1958
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Meet Our Speakers
Dr. Paola Grenni
Water Research Institute, National Research Council (IRSA-CNR);
Dr. Paola Grenni has a PhD in Environmental Science and is a Senior Researcher at the National Research Council of Italy, Water Research Institute (CNR-IRSA), Rome. ORCID: 0000-0002-7136-603X
Expert in microbial ecology of contaminated environments, in ecotoxicology and in bio-assisted remediation processes. Involved in national and international projects on ecosystem contamination (pharmaceuticals; antibiotics and resistance genes; pesticides, their transformation products and fertilizers; PCBs; anionic surfactants; metals; mixture of chemicals).
Member of the SETAC Europe, SETAC Italian Language Branch (SETAC ILB, President May 2015–May 2017); Co-chair 2018 SETAC EU Meeting in Rome (at La Nuvola); Steering Committee of GSIG (SETAC Global Soil Interest Group, 2020–present); member of SETAC group on Pharmaceuticals; member of WG2—NORMAN Network.
Editorial board, Specialty Chief Editor (Frontiers in Microbiology, Section—Terrestrial Microbiology) and Guest Editor (Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management) of various peer-review Journals.
Author of more than 200 publications (papers in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and meeting proceedings; total citations: 3633; h-index: 29; i10-index: 52. Google Scholar accessed 24/10/22).
Dr. Dongxue Zhao
Centre for Crop Science, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, the University of Queensland;
Dr Dongxue Zhao is a Research Fellow within the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research aims to contribute to sustainable gains in crop productivity by improving our understanding of how crop–soil interactions determine crop and root growth, water and nutrient uptake, and final yield. In her research, she combines innovative proximal and remote sensing techniques of crops, soils, and roots, with predictive modelling and artificial intelligence tools. These include integrating electromagnetic induction (EMI) techniques and drone and satellite imagery to monitor crop root growth and water use dynamics over time; 3D mapping of soil properties and sub-soil constraints to map resource constraints; time-lapse imaging of soil wetting and drying cycles for applications in irrigated cropping; developing new hyperspectral libraries for the rapid estimation of plant, crop and soil properties; data fusion and machine learning in the landscape mapping of soil carbon, plant water, and nutrient availability.
The webinar was hosted via Zoom and required registration to attend. The full recording can be found below. In order to learn about future webinars, you can sign up to our newsletter by clicking “Subscribe” at the top of the page.
Challenges and Solutions for Sustainable Land: Soil Quality and Contamination
Edited by: Prof. Dr. Nicholas B. Comerford, Dr. Paola Grenni, and Dr. Dongxue Zhao
Deadline for manuscript submission: 30 June 2025