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Soils play a vital role in the health of ecosystems in the world. Soils connect with air, water, rocks and organisms and are responsible for a multitude of functions in the global ecosystem services. These functions include providing habitat for most living things, air composition and quality, temperature regulation, carbon and nutrient cycling, water cycling and quality, and natural waste recycling. Mankind cannot survive without these soil functions.

30.1. Habitat

Soils are the environment in which plants grow. They provide heat, nutrients and water to nurture plants to maturity. These plants, together with other plants and organisms, create ecosystems. These plants then provide valuable habitat and food sources for animals, bacteria and other things. Ecosystems depend on the soil and soils determine the nature and kind of ecosystems.

LAND VERSUS SOIL

Land is a part of Earth’s surface that is not covered by water. It is used for agriculture, building houses, of?ce buildings, schools, hospitals, roads, railroads and even water canals. Land is measured by area [length (l) × width (w)] and the units are square meters (m²), square centimeters (cm²) etc. On the other hand, soil is Earth’s crust, which could vary from a few centimeters to a few meters in thickness (depth), needs a measure of volume [length (l) × width (w) × depth (d)] and the units are cubic meters (m³), cubic centimeters (cm³) etc. Soil is thus a three-dimensional natural body on Earth’s surface that provides anchorage to growing plants/ trees and shelter to soil biota and is responsible for the storage of water and plant nutrients, which are essential for crop production. In addition, it helps in the biodegradation of soil pollutants and puri?cation of ground water, the major source of drinking water in the world. Soil feeds all living beings on Earth and its degradation is one of the reasons for inadequate human nutrition

The arid region in India is spread over in 38.7 million hectare land. Out of the total 31.7 m hectare lies in hot arid region and remaining 7 m hectare comes under cold arid region. The hot arid region occupies major part of northwestern India (28.7 m ha) and a small pocket (3.13 mha) in southern India. The north western arid region occurs between 22°30’ and 32°05’ N latitude and 68°05’ to 75°45’ E, covering western part of Rajasthan, north western Gujarat and south western parts of Haryana and Punjab. About 62% area of arid region falls in western Rajasthan and 20% in Gujarat. Haryana and Punjab together constitute 7% area of arid region. The state wise distribution of arid region is shown in Table 3.1. Further our discussion is based on the majority area of arid region, belonging to Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana.

Geographic location of India is in Northern hemisphers and located between 80 4' & 370 6' N latitude and 640 7' & 970 25' E longitude. Extent of area is 329 M Ha or 329 x 104 Sq.Km or 3.29 MSq.Km. The physiography of India can be broadly grouped into triangular plateau, mountains, Indo-gangetic plains and islands. India is divided into twenty agro ecological regions and sixty five agro ecological sub regions as per NBSS and LUP. Agro ecological regions( AER) is referred to identification and demarcation of land units having comparable landform, soils, bioclimatic conditions and the length of growing period (LGP).

India is endowed with varied types of soils and this could be attributed varied relief features, landforms, climatic realms and vegetation types in the subcontinent. In ancient times, soils used to be classified in India into fertile and sterile soils. Later, the inherent characteristics and external features of soils such as texture and colour, were used to classify the soils. Based on texture, soil types were identified as sandy, clayey, loam, etc. In terms of colour, they were red, yellow, black, etc.

Scientific surveys of soils in India have been conducted by various agencies since independence. All India Soil Survey Organization, established in 1956, carried out detailed soil surveys in the catchment areas of major river valley projects like the Damodar Valley. Later, the National Bureau of Soil Survey and the Land Use Planning (NBSSLUP) ofthe Indian Council of Agricultural Research, established in 1976, made extensive studies on Indian soils and classified them as per the USDA SoilTaxonomy

Soil is generally defined as the upper layer of earth in which plants grow. It is regarded as a source of nourishment to all animals, moving or static. From agriculture or crop production point of view, soil is loose earth surface that supports vegetation, its quality, type and density. It is generally treated as a dynamic living entity and its physic-biochemical properties are responsible for its nutritional index. Precision production technology with suitable management is the key factors for its longer sustainability.

1.1. Definition

Soil: Thin layer of earth’s crust made up of disintegrated and decomposed rocks, complex mineral compound, organic matter, water/air and living organism like bacteria, fungi, insects and worms and serves as the natural medium of growth of plants.

Provides nutrients, moisture, anchorage (support) and air to plants.

Parent materials are igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks.

Soil Science: Science dealing with soil (Natural resource) on the surface of the earth, including pedology (Soil genesis, classification and mapping), physical, chemical, biological and fertility properties and their relation to management for crop production.

Soil is defined as the thin layer of earth’s crust made up of disintegrated and decomposed rocks, complex mineral compound, organic matter, water/air and living organism like bacteria, fungi, insects and worms and serves as the natural medium of growth of plants.

• It provides nutrients, moisture, anchorage (support) and provides air to root system.
• There are different soil groups found in varied regions of India.
• Each group differs from other in physical and chemical properties.
• The variation in behaviour is mainly due to the nature of the parent material from which the soils are formed.
• Parent materials are Igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks.
• Physical properties like structure, texture, colour, water holding capacity, depth etc. are to be noted. Chemical properties like the presence of various plant elements, pH, EC, CEC, acidic or alkaline, etc. are considered.

Introduction

Cooking accounts for a major share of energy consumption in developing countries. Fifty per cent of the total energy consumed in India is for cooking (Fritz 1981). Most of the cooking energy requirement is met by non-commercial fuels such as firewood (75%), agricultural waste and cow dung cake (25%) in rural areas. The fuel wood requirement is 0.4 tons per person per year in India. In rural areas firewood crisis is far graver than that caused by a rise in oil prices. Marginal villagers have to forage 8 to 10 hours a day in search of firewood as compared to 1 to 2 hours ten years ago. One third of India’s fertilizer consumption can be met if cow dung is not burnt for cooking and instead is used as manure. The cutting of firewood causes deforestation that leads to desertification. Fortunately, India is blessed with abundant solar radiation (IMD, 1985). The arid parts of India receive maximum radiation i.e. 7600-8000 MJ m^-2 per annum, followed by semi-arid parts, 7200-7600 MJm^-2, per annum and least on hilly areas where solar radiation is still appreciable i.e. 6000 MJm^-2 per annum. Therefore, solar cookers seem to be a good substitute for cooking with firewood.

Principle of cooking

The different methods of cooking of food are boiling, frying, roasting, and baking. For boiling of rice, lentils etc. the temperature of food being cooked is about 100° C while for other methods, high temperatures are required. Heat is supplied at the bottom of the vessel for frying and boiling purposes in conventional cooking. Roasting and baking is generally performed on open fire or in ovens, wherein food is surrounded by hot surfaces and heat is transferred to the food by radiation and convection.

Introduction

Considering the accountable post-harvest losses which is approximately 30-35 percent, food processing becomes an extremely important sector for preventing the losses and feeding the growing population. The Indian food industry is poised for huge growth, as currently valued at US$ 1.3 billion with compound annual growth rate of 20 per cent per year, increasing its contribution to world food trade every year. In India, the food sector has emerged as a high-growth and high-profit sector due to its immense potential for value addition, particularly within the food processing industry. Increasing population of the country and high cost of fuels have also created a demand for new alternate sources of energies for post-harvest processing of foods. Solar food processing technologies may become a viable option that provides good quality foods at low or no additional fuel costs. The energy policy of the developing countries now focuses on the clean renewable energy to create a further reduction of the petroleum import and to alter the utilization of petroleum energy toward the utilization of solar energy. It is an interesting fact that most of the developing countries fall in the climatic zone where the insolation is considerably higher than the world average of 3.82 kWh m-2 (Majumdar 2015). The daily horizontal insolation of India is approximately 5.80 kWh m-2 (Visavale 2009, Visavale et al. 2011). Solar dyers are an alternative to traditional drying technique and a contribution towards the solution of the problems of the open sun drying from perspective of renewable and clean energy. The International Energy Agency (IEA) declared in its 2011 solar energy perspectives executive summary (SEP 2011): “Solar energy offers a clean, climate-friendly, very abundant and inexhaustible energy resource to mankind, relatively wellspread over the globe. Its availability is greater in warm and sunny countries that will experience most of the world’s population and economic growth over the next decades.

6.1. Introduction

Solar crop drying has been demonstrated to be cost effective and an effective alternative to traditional and mechanical drying systems, especially in location with god sunshine during the harvest season. Considerable energy savings can be made with open sun drying since the source of energy is free and sustainable. However, this method of drying is extremely weather dependent and has the problems of contamination, infestation, microbial attacks, etc., thus affecting the product quality. Additionally, the drying time required for a given commodity can be quite long and results in post-harvest losses. Solar drying of agricultural products in enclosed structures by natural convection is an attractive way of reducing post harvest losses and low quality of dried products associated with traditional sun-drying methods. The crop is vulnerable to damage due to hostile weather conditions. The crop is also susceptible to re-absorption of moisture, if it is kept on the ground during periods of no sun, which reduces its quality. This type of problem can be solved by solar dryer. Many dryers have been developed and used to dry agricultural product in order to improve shelf life .Most of these either use expensive sources of energy such as electricity or combination of solar energy and some other form of energy which is not cost effective and dependent on regular supply of fuel.

Principally, drying requires temperature for removing moisture from product, air flow rate to remove moisture from drying chamber and optimum relative humidity within the drying chamber to allow fast drying. These all three requirements for drying can easily be achieved from solar energy. Solar drying is one of the direct applications of solar heat, which involves removal of moisture from the products through the application of solar energy. The removal of moisture requires only low temperature heating, which can be met easily by absorbing solar energy by the surface. This increases the temperature of the air inside the dryer. The moisture produced from the drying product is usually carried out along with the exhaust air. The characteristic of solar energy is good for the drying at low temperature i.e. high flow rates with low temperature rise. The intermittent nature of solar radiation can not affect the drying performance at low temperature. Further, solar energy is available at the site of use and saves transportation cost.

Solar energy is the energy emitted by the sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation. It is the most abundant, renewable, and sustainable energy resource available on Earth. Every hour, the Earth receives more energy from the sun than the entire human population consumes in a year. This makes solar energy a key candidate for solving the world’s growing energy needs while addressing environmental concerns. The solar energy reaching Earth can be harnessed and converted into useful forms of energy
Solar Photovoltaic Fencing
Solar photovoltaic fencing utilizes solar energy to provide an effective security solution, using high-voltage electric pulses to deter intruders or animals. The system operates by converting solar energy into electricity, which is then stored in a battery for later use. The battery powers an energizer that sends high-voltage pulses along the fence, creating an electric shock when an intruder touches the live wire.
System Components and Working
1. Solar Module: Converts sunlight into direct current (DC) electricity, which charges the battery.
2. Battery: Stores the energy generated by the solar panel. The 12V/100AH battery allows the system to operate even at night or during cloudy days.
3. Energizer: The energizer is the heart of the system, generating high-voltage pulses. It works by sending electrical pulses at regular intervals (usually one pulse per second) through the fence. The energizer is powered by the battery.

3.1 Introduction

The sun emits electromagnetic radiation, which is referred to as solar radiation. Every location on the Earth’s surface receives some sunlight during the course of the year, but the amount of solar radiation varies. On a daily basis, we see much less energy from the sun than it emits and incident upon the earth. In an hour and a half, the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface of the earth is enough to provide enough energy for an entire year. 

7.1 Introduction

A greenhouse is quasi-permanent structure, covered with a transparent or translucent material, ranging from simple homemade designs to sophisticated pre-g\fabricated structures, wherein the environment could be modified suitable for propagation or growing of plants. Materials used to construct a greenhouse frame may be wood, bamboo and steel or even aluminum. Covering can be glass or various rigid or flexible plastic materials. Depending on the covering material, different terminology have been used in the context of greenhouse structures as mentioned below:

Glasshouse: A greenhouse with glass as the covering material is called glasshouse

Polyhouse: It is a greenhouse with polyethylene as the covering material.

9.1 Introduction

Basically, for heating or cooling the space using solar energy, the solar energy is to be collected, stored and distributed properly in the space to be heated or removed from the space to be cooled. There are two basic approaches for solar houses, there are:

(a)Active solar house technology

(b)Passive solar house technology

In active approach, the solar energy is collected and stored in some separate solar energy collector and then energy is distributed in the space where heating is to be done using electrically operated pumps and fans coupled with radiator etc. The storage of solar energy in active solar house may be in the form of storage as sensible heat or storage as latent heat or chemical heat storage. As per requirement of heating the size of solar collector and storage system be decided. Generally, the active concepts of solar houses are used for heating purpose. Active concept can also be used for space cooling applications. Solar vapor compression and absorption system can be used for this purpose, essentially, this includes incorporation of solar heat collectors, thermal storage system, auxiliary heat supply system (to compensate intermittent nature of sun energy) and control systems. Further, there are three ways of solar space heating i.e. solar air systems, solar liquid systems and solar heat pump systems.

Introduction

In Indian Thar desert regions, excessive heat is the major problem that causes human and animal thermal discomfort. Space cooling is, therefore, the most desirable factor for the inhabitants. Various examples of dwellings responsive to climatic constraints are found in vernacular architecture throughout the world. Compact cellular layout with minimum external surface exposure to the sun, whitewashed surfaces to reduce absorptivity, blind external facades, courtyards, vegetation to provide humidity and shade, and heavy buildings constructed from high thermal capacity materials are common passive features in most of the arid regions. Wind towers for cooling ventilation are well known in Iranian and Middle East architecture, which along with cooling of the air by earth and water evaporation keep the building comfortable in hot periods. Building underground to take advantage of the large thermal storage capacity of the earth is also used in Tunisia and central Turkey.

9.1 Introduction

Solar energy can be directly converted into electrical energy through photovoltaic route. Energy conversion devices which are used to convert sun light into electricity by use of the photovoltaic effect are called solar cells. The advantages of solar cells are:

1. They are reliable, convenient and durable.
2. It is green, sustainable and pollution free technology.
3. Directly solar radiation can be converted into electricity (conversion of global solar light by flat plate photovoltaic).
4. Maintenance cost is quite low therefore suitable even in isolated and remote area, since no moving parts are involved.
5. Solar cells are quite compatible with almost all environments, respond instantaneously with solar radiation.
6. Considerable expected lifetime i.e. 20 years or even more.
7. No distribution system is required, because they are decentralized source of energy and located at the place of use.

8.1 Introduction

Solar energy can be directly converted into electrical energy. Energy conversion devices which are used to convert sun light into electricity by use of the photovoltaic effect are called solar cells. The advantages of solar cells are:

1.They are reliable, convenient and durable.

2.It is green, sustainable and pollution free technology.

3.Directly solar radiation can be converted into electricity (conversion of global solar light by flat plate photovoltaic).

4.Maintenance cost is quite low therefore suitable even in isolated and remote area, since no moving parts are involved.

5.Solar cells are quite compatible with almost all environments, respond instantaneously with solar radiation.

6.Considerable expected lifetime i.e. 20 years or even more.

Introduction

Agriculture has been the back bone of Indian economy and culture and it will be continued to remain as such for a long time in future. Parallel to this, energy security of a country is also very important and efforts have been given on renewable energy utilization since the fossil fuel based energy is depleting at a very fast rate. In agricultural fields, considerable amount of energy is used to do different field activities e.g. ploughing, irrigation through pumps, intercultural operations, spraying of agricultural chemicals for plant protection, harvesting, post-harvest processing etc. Therefore, there is also need to replace the conventional energy source with renewable sources to operate above mentioned agricultural activities.

Approximately, 35% of the crop production is damaged if pest and diseases are not controlled at right time. Uniform spraying of liquid formulations throughout the crop field is very important for effective control of pest and diseases. Using sprayer, liquid pesticide formulations are generally broken down to minute droplets of effective size for uniform distribution over a large surface area. Different types of sprayers are used in agricultural field based on different requirements.

Introduction

Water is the primary source of life for mankind and one of the most basic necessities for crop production. The demand for water to irrigate the crops is increasing. For sustainable production from agricultural farms, irrigating the crops at right stages is highly important. Even in rainfed situation, lifesaving irrigation during long dry spell has also been found beneficial for crop survival and to obtain the targeted yield. Considering the depletion of groundwater below the critical zone in most part of the country, energy intensive pumping for irrigation is not a viable option. Therefore utilization of available runoff water through surface storage systems followed by pumping may be a potential solution to achieve the set goal of ‘crop per drop’ mission. In this connection, micro-irrigation system including drippers and sprinklers is of great importance. However, ensured power supply is essential to operate the micro-irrigation system even in remote areas. Reliable solar photovoltaic (PV) pumps are now emerging in the market and are rapidly becoming more attractive than the traditional power sources. These technologies, powered by renewable energy sources, are especially useful in remote locations where a steady fuel supply or electricity supply is problematic. About 16 million electric pumps and 7 million diesel pumps are in operations in the country for irrigation purpose; however they are highly energy intensive. Moreover, diesel operated and electrified pumps directly or indirectly emit large amount of CO₂ gas in atmosphere and hence are not environment friendly. To meet the energy demand for irrigation, solar PV pumps have been introduced under the off-grid power generation category of National Solar Mission (NSM) with a target of 1000 MW by the end of phase II (2013-2017). The target has been revised in 2015 to a total grid connected solar power generation of 1,00,000 MW comprising 40,000 MW roof top generation and 60,000 MW grid connected solar power plants (Resolution of MNRE, Govt of India, No. 30/80/2014-15/ NSM dated 1^st July 2015).