Researchers discuss measures to conserve soil and water resources

Soil recovery and water management research findings were shared at a seminar co-hosted by FAPESP and the Bunge Foundation.

By Diego Freire 

Agência FAPESP – On September 29, FAPESP and the Bunge Foundation held an international seminar on rehabilitating degraded soil for agriculture, basic sanitation and water management, in which experts shared research findings and discussed the challenges for worldwide agricultural soil conservation and water security.

The seminar was part of the programming for the 60th Bunge Foundation Prizes and 36th Bunge Foundation Youth Prizes, awarded this year for research in agrarian, biological, ecological and health sciences, in acknowledgment of the choice of 2015 as the International Year of Soils by the United Nations.

According to Jacques Marcovitch, President of the Bunge Foundation, the purpose of the seminar was to assemble researchers from different areas linked to the event’s focus to exchange ideas on the relationships between soil rehabilitation, solid waste disposal and their direct effects on water supply.

“The idea was to share with the scientific community in São Paulo, through FAPESP, the research findings and career achievements of scientists who, despite different fields of study, have a future vision and are clear about the contributions they can make to society and the planet,” Marcovitch said.

Opening the seminar, FAPESP Vice President Eduardo Moacyr Krieger highlighted the two foundations’ common goals.

“There are more affinities between the Bunge Foundation and FAPESP than their similar ages, separated by only seven years,” Krieger said. “Both are committed to rewarding quality and developing the sciences, arts and letters – in short, every dimension of the human spirit and human intelligence.”

Marcovitch also stressed the foundations’ engagement in discussions of climate change.

“Both soil and water are at the heart of the sustainable development goals recently presented in New York at the UN General Assembly, which also established metrics to help cities, states and countries determine their current status in relation to the desirable thresholds,” he said. “In addition, this year sees the holding of COP21, the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in Paris. FAPESP is intensely involved in the discussions leading up to the conference, and this is yet another point of convergence with the Bunge Foundation.”

The sustainable development goals (SDGs), which will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the end of this year, include promoting sustainable agriculture and ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

For Dulce Buchala Bicca Rodrigues, a professor at the University of São Paulo’s São Carlos Engineering School (EESC-USP), climate uncertainty, population growth and the resulting rise in demand for potable water and food, among other factors, may represent a threat to water security both in Brazil and worldwide.

Rodrigues, who won a 2015 Bunge Foundation Prize in the Youth category, spoke to the seminar about her PhD research, supported by FAPESP, on a “New model of water demand management in watersheds: methodological bases for assessment and mitigation of water footprint”.

“To assess water security, we analyze the risks to acceptable interactions among hydrological conditions, ecosystem services and social requirements,” she said. “This means addressing multiple issues relating to water, from water resource management policy to specific hydrological conditions and their influence on society and ecosystems.”

Her research findings, she added, can provide data to assist water resource managers in decision-making, affecting not only water security but also soil conservation.

Rehabilitation vs. conservation

According to Marlene Cristina Alves from the Ilha Solteira campus of São Paulo State University’s Engineering School (FESI-UNESP), inadequate use of natural resources jeopardizes the formation of new sustainable ecosystems.

“Intensely and improperly used soil becomes degraded. Techniques to rehabilitate degraded soil have been investigated, but this is a costly process that could be avoided by the introduction of soil conservation techniques,” Alves said.

Alves won a 2015 Bunge Foundation prize in the Life & Work category. Since 1992, she has conducted research in areas adjoining Ilha Solteira, the largest dam in São Paulo, located in the northwest of the state. She is the principal investigator for, among her many research projects, a study of the “Physicochemical properties of a red latosol after 16 years of rehabilitation and spontaneous occurrence of native tree species”, conducted with support from FAPESP.

“The area is severely degraded and very large, ranging beyond UNESP’s experimental farm and including the areas around the cities of Ilha de Solteira in São Paulo and Selvíria in Mato Grosso,” Alves said. “This vast area has been monitored for over two decades. Native species typical of the cerrado, Brazil’s savanna-like biome, have been appearing spontaneously there since 2006.”

Today, the topsoil is in a similar condition to the natural cerrado, owing in part to continuous addition of compost and other organic matter. 

“This has increased the energy available to soil organisms,” she said. “The structure and conditions for aeration and water retention have been restored, boosting infiltration and reducing runoff so as to mitigate the risk of erosion. We’ve created an environment favorable to the growth of spontaneous species and enriched biodiversity in the area.”

Alves is now partnering with EESC-USP and Embrapa Instrumentation, a unit of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), on a soil microtomography project to obtain images of the area that prove that the soil is now in an even better state than natural conditions.

For Diego Antonio França de Freitas from the Federal University of Viçosa, another winner of a 2015 Bunge Foundation prize in the Youth category, soil conservation is important to avoid having to rehabilitate the soil.

“Soil conservation is more cost-effective than rehabilitation of degraded areas,” he said. “This entails following the basic principles of soil and water conservation: using the soil according to its capacity, respecting its agricultural aptitude, treating each soil class according to its needs, and managing soil and crops correctly.”

Other participants in the discussions included José Fernando Thomé Jucá from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), who also won a 2015 Bunge Foundation prize in the Life & Work category, and Martin Diaz Zorita from Argentina’s National Agricultural Technology Institute, who won a Youth prize in 2002, as well as representatives of EMBRAPA, the Campinas Agronomy Institute (IAC), the National Amazon Research Institute (INPA), the International Ecology Institute (IIE), the São Paulo State Federation of Industries’ Environmental Council (COSEMA), the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and the University of São Paulo’s Heart Institute (INCOR-USP).

In the afternoon, winners of several editions of Bunge Foundation prizes met at FAPESP to discuss new contributions to their research fields. The meeting was opened by FAPESP President José Goldemberg.