Editing Test:SRCCL/Chapter-1 (section)

== 1.3.2.1 Agricultural, forest and soil management ==

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Sustainable land management (SLM) describes “the stewardship and use of land resources, including soils, water, animals and plants, to meet changing human needs while simultaneously assuring the long-term productive potential of these resources and the maintenance of their environmental functions” (Alemu 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r704|704]]</sup> ; Altieri and Nicholls 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r705|705]]</sup> ) (e.g., Section 4.1.5), and includes ecological, technological and governance aspects.

The choice of SLM strategy is a function of regional context and land-use types, with ''high agreement'' on (a combination of) choices such as agroecology (including agroforestry), conservation agriculture and forestry practices, crop and forest species diversity, appropriate crop and forest rotations, organic farming, integrated pest management, the preservation and protection of pollination services, rainwater harvesting, range and pasture management, and precision agriculture systems (Stockmann et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r706|706]]</sup> ; Ebert, 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r707|707]]</sup> ; Schulte et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r708|708]]</sup> ; Zhang et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r709|709]]</sup> ; Sunil and Pandravada 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r710|710]]</sup> ; Poeplau and Don 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r711|711]]</sup> ; Agus et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r712|712]]</sup> ; Keenan 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r713|713]]</sup> ; MacDicken et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r714|714]]</sup> ; Abberton et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r715|715]]</sup> ). Conservation agriculture and forestry uses management practices with minimal soil disturbance such as no tillage or minimum tillage, permanent soil cover with mulch, combined with rotations to ensure a permanent soil surface, or rapid regeneration of forest following harvest (Hobbs et al. 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r716|716]]</sup> ; Friedrich et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r717|717]]</sup> ). Vegetation and soils in forests and woodland ecosystems play a crucial role in regulating critical ecosystem processes, therefore reduced deforestation together with sustainable forest management are integral to SLM (FAO 2015b <sup>[[#fn:r718|718]]</sup> ) (Section 4.8). In some circumstances, increased demand for forest products can also lead to increased management of carbon storage in forests (Favero and Mendelsohn 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r719|719]]</sup> ). Precision agriculture is characterised by a “management system that is information and technology based, is site specific and uses one or more of the following sources of data: soils, crops, nutrients, pests, moisture, or yield, for optimum profitability, sustainability, and protection of the environment” (USDA 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r720|720]]</sup> ) (Cross-Chapter Box 6 in Chapter 5). The management of protected areas that reduce deforestation also plays an important role in climate change mitigation and adaptation while delivering numerous ecosystem services and sustainable development benefits (Bebber and Butt 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r721|721]]</sup> ). Similarly, when managed in an integrated and sustainable way, peatlands are also known to provide numerous ecosystem services, as well as socio-economic and mitigation and adaptation benefits (Ziadat et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r722|722]]</sup> ).

Biochar is an organic compound used as soil amendment and is believed to be potentially an important global resource for mitigation. Enhancing the carbon content of soil and/or use of biochar (Chapter 4) have become increasingly important as a climate change mitigation option with possibly large co-benefits for other ecosystem services. Enhancing soil carbon storage and the addition of biochar can be practiced with limited competition for land, provided no productivity/ yield loss and abundant unused biomass, but evidence is limited and impacts of large scale application of biochar on the full GHG balance of soils, or human health are yet to be explored (Gurwick et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r723|723]]</sup> ; Lorenz and Lal 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r724|724]]</sup> ; Smith 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r725|725]]</sup> ).

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