Date of Award

12-11-2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

Department

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

First Advisor

Resham Thapa

Abstract

Cover cropping has emerged as a climate adaptation strategy in sustainable agriculture to enhance agroecosystem resilience against weather extremes such as floods, droughts, and erratic rainfall patterns. But how well cover crops (CCs) can buffer crop yields against weather variability depends on their ability to regulate improvements in soil hydrology. Through a global meta-analysis of 1007 pairwise observations from 146 studies spanning across 34 countries, we investigated the overall effects of CCs on six key soil hydraulic properties and further examined how environmental and management factors moderate these overall responses. Results showed that CCs significantly improved total porosity by 7.7%, infiltration rate by 44.5%, saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) by 66.3%, water retention at field capacity (FC) by 6.4%, and water retention at permanent wilting points (PWP) by 7.9%. Only legume CCs significantly improved available water holding capacity (AWHC) by 11.4%. Among all factors considered, CC functional groups or types and shoot biomass emerged as significant moderators influencing the overall CC response. Legumes and CC mixtures improved soil hydraulic properties more consistently, and sometimes, exhibited significantly greater improvements than the others. Similarly, higher CC biomass, CC residue retention following termination, and temperate climates are associated with significantly greater improvements in some or most of these properties. These findings underscore the promising opportunity to optimize CC management strategies for improved soil hydraulic properties associated with water movement, retention, and availability and hence, enhance agricultural sustainability and resilience in weather extremes.

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