Chencho Norbu

This paper is the results of a Soil Fertility Management (SFM) survey conducted in 1999 to determine the status and trends in soil fertility management and associated soil conditions in Bhutan in the face socio-economic development of the last four decades. While the traditional SFM systems based on the use of animal manures still dominate, the ability to maintain and sustain these indigenous systems is being undermined by socio-economic factors. Households have been increasingly depending on fertilizer, especially urea, to increase soil fertility and maintain crop yields, and this trend is predicted to continue. Generally, soil nutrient status is poor. The major concerns are a low pH and nitrogen, phosphate status and imbalanced base nutrition. Since sustainable development is a key government development objective, the survey results were examined to determine the sustainability of existing SFM practices and soil use for crop production. In most situations sustainability is being ...

The concept of physiography integrates all of the main components of the natural environment, such as bedrock, surface drift deposits, landform, soils, climate, water, and plants and animals. This paper summarizes the provisional physiographic zonation of Bhutan, based on soil survey fieldwork by the National Soil Services Centre, with some material incorporated from other environmental disciplines. The main influence in shaping the landscape of Bhutan has been the uplift of the Himalayas following the collision of the Indian and Asian continental plates. This has given rise to the basic topographic structure of the country with the High Himalaya in the north from which long ranges formed of metamorphic rocks run southwards and then descend steeply to the duars. The main valleys follow more or less northsouth course, but show considerable variation in their longitudinal profiles. They all have narrow gorge-like sections in the South but vary in the sections upstream. In western and ...

There is a growing global awareness that land degradation is as much a threat to environmental well–being as more obvious forms of damage, such as air and water pollution (e.g. Greenland & Szalbocs, 1994; Conacher, 2001). Although the source of land degradation is usually local, its effects often stretch for considerable distances from the source site. It can impact large areas and many people. Governments, NGO’s and community groups therefore have the right and duty to be concerned, and to intervene and assist where needed.

There is a growing global awareness that land degradation isas much a threat to environmental well–being as moreobvious forms of damage, such as air and water pollution (egGreenland & Szalbocs, 1994; Conacher, 2001). Although thesource of land degradation is usually ...

... Rupert Bäumler1*, Thomas Caspari2, Kai U. Totsche2, Tshering Dorji3, Chencho Norbu3, and Ian C. Baillie4 1 Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Alexander ... 110°C), and K+ (air-dried and stepwise heated to 560°C). Radiocarbon analyses of soil organic matter (SOM) of subsoil ...

... The steep and rugged terrain in combination with monsoonal rains, frequent earthquakes and sporadic glacier lake outbursts provides rather unfavourable ... undisturbed with no major terrain constrictions or even segmentations of the valley to the south of Gangtey Goempa (Fig. ...