Dear Colleagues,

Soil and water constitute two major natural resources of forest ecosystem and they directly affect the status, health and composition of the forest ecosystem. It is therefore obvious to make every effort for the conservation of soil and water to sustain the plants, animals and other resources of the forest ecosystem. Forests play a vital role in the water cycle. There has been a continuous depletion of soil and water resources due to various land degradation processes like soil erosion, large scale deforestation, unscientific mining activities, overgrazing, etc. These processes lead to degradation and deterioration of physical property of soils including loss of fertile soil thereby influencing largely the structure, productivity and regeneration of the forests. It is estimated that 600-1000 years are required by nature to form 1.0 inch of topsoil, but the same amount of soil gets eroded easily in 2-3 rainfall instances due to lack of proper measures of conservation and utilization of soil and land. The conservation of soil and water is the basis for environmental sustainability including forests. Predicting sediment yields and runoff in many nations is important in forest conservation. Rapid and effective solutions to soil and water conservation are necessary for long term sustainable management of forest ecosystems. There is an urgent need for the establishment of an Integrated Soil Information System so as to assess land evaluation and other ecological information and to generate geo-information on soils. There is an urgent need for sustainable management of soil and water for conservation and management of forest ecosystems, and environmental planning and policy. 

Prof. Dr. Govind Singh Rajwar
Guest Editors