The agricultual practice of fertilization was developed long ago to increase crop production and maintain a certain soil use. For millennia, cultivated soils have been ammended with materials of various origins (feces, vegetable waste, stones, charcoal, ash, compost, phosphogypsum, etc.) to enhance their physical, chemical, or biological properties. The formation of the plaggen horizon or the terra preta are examples of soil change induced by the addition of materials. Similarly, anthropogenic changes in climatic soil variables such as floodwater control, desertification of overgrazed lands, and the use of albedo-minimizing mulches have the potential to alter soil ecology and biodegradation. In the last few decades, concurrent with the addition of fertilizers, cultivated soils have received waste materials from a wide variety of anthropogenic activities. While the reuse of waste materials is a noble practice, it can also pose threats to environmental quality if not properly implemented. In many cases, simple characterization of the materials themselves may lead to false assumptions concerning the safe use and disposal of waste materials in cultivated soils. To better understand the dynamics of soil fertilty, food/crop quality, and how they are impacted by waste materials used as soil ammendments, profound study on the impact to soils is warranted.

This special issue will evaluate the impact of several types of waste materials on (1) soil physical, chemical, and biological changes induced by the addition of soil ammendments, (2) the effects those practices have on the quality and quantity of crops, and (3) the eventual modification of factors controlling agro-ecosystems (soil, water, air, wild plants, and animals). Potential topics include, but are not limited to, waste materials coming from several types of anthropogenic activities:

• Industry
• Mining
• Agronomic production (cultivated crops)
• Confined animal feeding operations (cattle, poultry, sheep, goat, and other)
• Agroindustry
• Fur farming
• Production of vegetable biomass of various sources
• Slaughterhouse waste
• Fish processing (including products derived from aquaculture, marineculture, fish farming, and marine algae)
• Treatment of sewage sludge and urbane waste
• Production of fly ash
• Pulp (paper) production
• Composting
• Combinations of the foregoing features

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/aess/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: