How to link Soil Quality, Soil Health, Soil-based Ecosystem Services, and Soil Threats? The SERENA conceptual framework
Year: 2024
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: To reach the EU ambitious objective of 70% of healthy soils by 2030, we need to evaluate sustainable management practices dedicated to the restoration of degraded soils. It is then of prime importance to define what means “healthy soils”, especially regarding the older concept of “soil quality”, and the usual concept of “soil threats”; the links between these soil-related concepts remain partly unclear and may limit our ability to evaluate some management practices. In the context of the EJP SOIL programme, the SERENA consortium has proposed a framework to interconnect the key concepts like Soil Quality, Soil Health and Soil Ecosystem Services, and Soil Threats. Some definitions of these concepts have first been browsed from the literature, from which new or modified definitions have been ranked by the SERENA participants. The conceptual framework of the SIREN project has then been modified: it is mainly based on 2 interlinked boxes, representing the agricultural and socio-economic systems. Ecosystem Services (ES) are here considered i) either as a supply from the ecosystem, or ii) as a use by the socio-economic system; the latter is the part of the ES supply directly or indirectly used or experienced by the society. The latter is responsible for the pressures on the whole system: it can either increase threats on soils (through the increase of cultivated land areas or intensification of agricultural practices, for example), or improve Soil Quality, Soil Natural Capital, and ES supply (thanks to agricultural practices increasing soil carbon stocks, for example). In this framework, Soil Quality and Soil Threats are conceptualised at the interface between the ecosystem and the socio-economic system, and a Soil Health threshold – considered as a critical level of Soil Quality – helps defining whether soils are healthy or unhealthy. We hope such a framework would enhance scientific research about soil-based ecosystem services, and favor a good communication with the policy-makers and the public.
Source: HAL
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Life on land, Zero hunger
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7208597428