**1. Introduction**

Regenerative agriculture is a farming and land management concept based on several principles and techniques that strengthen and restore ecosystem functions and health. Long-term usage of regenerative agriculture has shown many benefits in terms of quality and profitability for farmers, as well as improving the environment and contributing to the maintenance of a healthy agricultural landscape. Given that it is not always very clear how each action contributes to better agricultural management and drought mitigation, this chapter aims to recall the key elements that farmers must consider in regenerative agriculture in order to have the best results. It should be noted that there is more than one approach that may differ depending on local circumstances, however, the elements described in this chapter serve as a starting point for practitioners and academics who wish to learn more or deepen one of the related domains.

The existence of life is largely dependent on the richness and health of soils, which is why soil structure, together with water availability are the most valuable resources for humanity. The annual degradation of the agricultural lands puts even more pressure on farmers, forcing them to use more chemical inputs and these practices may eventually lead to extreme phenomena such as drought, floods, and eventually soil abandonment [1]. However, both farmers and policymakers continue to be neglecting the need for soil health preservation and they do not take firm restoration measures even when the situation becomes concerning.

Water, minerals, and organic matter combine to make the soil in a natural process. Soil minerals are produced in the process of natural erosion, while the organic matter is formed by the decomposition of plants and other organisms that have died. Many scientists consider soiling a finite resource that cannot be renewed during a human lifespan. We propose, in the present chapter, several techniques used and validated for faster restoration of soil properties, which may help recovery in very shorter time periods, depending on the degree of soil impairment.

Degraded soil is described as a change in the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics that results in a reduced capacity to support plant growth. The most common phenomena that usually occur are related to the fact that soil loses the capacity to deliver nutrients and water, while toxic compounds restrict plant growth, topsoil lacks of organic matter content, subsoil resources are insufficient to support plant roots, the compaction rate is substantially increased, drainage occurs with difficulty, and many of the needed microorganisms are absent.

In most common cases, the quality of the soil decreases as a result of the anthropogenic intervention, while some natural causes are aggravating the circumstances, often leading to erosion. Human activity is the most frequent cause of agricultural soil degradation and for accelerating natural soil erosion. Agriculture has deteriorated the Earth's soils during the last 100 years, with disastrous consequences, David R. Montgomery [2] estimates that humanity is losing 0.3% of our global food production each year due to soil erosion and degradation. Soil degradation and loss has been a problem since the beginning of agriculture and played a major role in the demise of past civilization including Mesopotamia, Antic Greece, and the Rome Empire. The element that contributes probably the most to the negative damage to the soil, more important even than deforestation is the plowing activity. Stanford University in a study from 2015 estimated the degradation rate of topsoil worldwide at a rate of 70%, with margins between 54% in Africa and 74% in North America [3]. At this time, there is no allotted restoration period, since we are eroding soil 20 times faster than we are regenerating it.

Degraded soils have a poor health state, reducing the ecosystem's ability to provide water and nutrients to plants, and affecting the soil nutrient web. Degraded soils have a weak structure attributable to a lack of soil biodiversity, which causes flooding,
