Soil Security: Solving the Global Soil Crisis
Andrea Koch,Alex B. McBratney,Mark A. Adams,Damien J. Field,Robert Hill,John W. Crawford,Budiman Minasny,Rattan Lal,Lynette Abbott,Anthony G. O'Donnell,Denis A. Angers,Jeff Baldock,Edward B. Barbier,Dan Binkley,William J. Parton,Diana H. Wall,Michael I. Bird,Johan Bouma,Claire Chenu,Cornelia Butler Flora,Keith Goulding,Sabine Grunwald,Jon Hempel,Julie D. Jastrow,Johannes Lehmann,Klaus Lorenz,Cristine L.S. Morgan,Charles W. Rice,David Whitehead,Iain M. Young,Michael Zimmermann +30 more
TLDR
In this article, the concept of soil security is proposed to bridge the gap between what the science tells us about soil and its role in underpinning ecological and human sustainable development, and existing policy instruments for sustainable development.Abstract:
Soil degradation is a critical and growing global problem. As the world population increases, pressure on soil also increases and the natural capital of soil faces continuing decline. International policy makers have recognized this and a range of initiatives to address it have emerged over recent years. However, a gap remains between what the science tells us about soil and its role in underpinning ecological and human sustainable development, and existing policy instruments for sustainable development. Functioning soil is necessary for ecosystem service delivery, climate change abatement, food and fiber production and fresh water storage. Yet key policy instruments and initiatives for sustainable development have under-recognized the role of soil in addressing major challenges including food and water security, biodiversity loss, climate change and energy sustainability. Soil science has not been sufficiently translated to policy for sustainable development. Two underlying reasons for this are explored and the new concept of soil security is proposed to bridge the science-policy divide. Soil security is explored as a conceptual framework that could be used as the basis for a soil policy framework with soil carbon as an exemplar indicator.read more
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Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on planetary health
Sarah Whitmee,Andy Haines,Chris Beyrer,Frederick Boltz,Anthony Capon,Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias,Alex Ezeh,Howard Frumkin,Peng Gong,Peter Head,Richard Horton,Georgina M. Mace,Robert Marten,Robert Marten,Samuel S. Myers,Sania Nishtar,Steven A. Osofsky,Subhrendu K. Pattanayak,Montira J Pongsiri,Cristina Romanelli,Agnes Soucat,Jeanette Vega,Derek Yach +22 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify three categories of challenges that have to be addressed to maintain and enhance human health in the face of increasingly harmful environmental trends: conceptual and empathy failures (imagination challenges), such as an overreliance on gross domestic product as a measure of human progress, the failure to account for future health and environmental harms over present day gains, and the disproportionate eff ect of those harms on the poor and those in developing nations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Soil and human security in the 21st century
Ronald Amundson,Asmeret Asefaw Berhe,Jan W. Hopmans,Carolyn Olson,A. Ester Sztein,Donald L. Sparks +5 more
TL;DR: Recent advances in understanding global soil resources, including how carbon stored in soil responds to anthropogenic warming are reviewed, reveal the severity of soil-related issues at stake for the remainder of this century and the need to rapidly regain a balance to the physical and biological processes that drive and maintain soil properties.
Journal ArticleDOI
Soil carbon debt of 12,000 years of human land use
TL;DR: A machine learning-based model was fitted using a global compilation of SOC data and the History Database of the Global Environment land use data in combination with climatic, landform and lithology covariates, demonstrating that there are identifiable regions which can be targeted for SOC restoration efforts.
Journal ArticleDOI
The dimensions of soil security
TL;DR: Soil security, an overarching concept of soil motivated by sustainable development, is concerned with the maintenance and improvement of the global soil resource to produce food, fibre and fresh water, contribute to energy and climate sustainability, and to maintain the biodiversity and the overall protection of the ecosystem as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
The concept and future prospects of soil health.
TL;DR: Soil health is the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals and humans, and connects agricultural and soil science to policy, stakeholder needs and sustainable supply-chain management as discussed by the authors.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security.
TL;DR: In this article, the carbon sink capacity of the world’s agricultural and degraded soils is 50 to 66% of the historic carbon loss of 42 to 78 gigatons of carbon.
Journal ArticleDOI
Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity
Johan Rockström,Johan Rockström,Will Steffen,Will Steffen,Kevin J. Noone,Åsa Persson,Åsa Persson,F. Stuart Chapin,Eric F. Lambin,Timothy M. Lenton,Marten Scheffer,Carl Folke,Carl Folke,Hans Joachim Schellnhuber,Hans Joachim Schellnhuber,Björn Nykvist,Björn Nykvist,Cynthia A. de Wit,Terry P. Hughes,Sander van der Leeuw,Henning Rodhe,Sverker Sörlin,Sverker Sörlin,Peter K. Snyder,Robert Costanza,Robert Costanza,Uno Svedin,Malin Falkenmark,Malin Falkenmark,Louise Karlberg,Louise Karlberg,Robert W. Corell,Victoria J. Fabry,James Hansen,Brian Walker,Brian Walker,Diana Liverman,Katherine Richardson,Paul J. Crutzen,Jonathan A. Foley +39 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a new approach to global sustainability in which they define planetary boundaries within which they expect that humanity can operate safely. But the proposed concept of "planetary boundaries" lays the groundwork for shifting our approach to governance and management, away from the essentially sectoral analyses of limits to growth aimed at minimizing negative externalities, toward the estimation of the safe space for human development.
Journal ArticleDOI
Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property
Michael W. I. Schmidt,Margaret S. Torn,Margaret S. Torn,Samuel Abiven,Thorsten Dittmar,Thorsten Dittmar,Georg Guggenberger,Ivan A. Janssens,Markus Kleber,Ingrid Kögel-Knabner,Johannes Lehmann,David A. C. Manning,Paolo Nannipieri,Daniel P. Rasse,Steve Weiner,Susan E. Trumbore +15 more
TL;DR: In this article, a new generation of experiments and soil carbon models were proposed to predict the SOM response to global warming, and they showed that molecular structure alone alone does not control SOM stability.