A systemic approach for modeling soil functions

Vogel, Hans‐Jörg; Bartke, Stephan; Daedlow, Katrin; Helming, Katharina; Kögel‐Knabner, Ingrid; Lang, Birgit; Rabot, Éva; Russell, David J.; Stößel, Bastian; Weller, Ulrich; Wiesmeier, Martin; Wollschläger, Ute

doi:10.5194/soil-4-83-2018

Cited by 141 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Future developments are of a particular interest (Bouma & Montanarella, ). For example, the BonaRes initiative in Germany (http://www.bonares.de) aims at evaluating the effects of drivers on soil functions on the basis of the DPSIR framework (Vogel et al, ).…”

Section: Addressing Soc In the Monitoring Framework Towards Achievingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil organic carbon stock as an indicator for monitoring land and soil degradation in relation to United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

2019

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Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015 aim to end hunger and poverty, to protect the Planet, and to ensure peace and prosperity for all. The soil organic carbon (SOC) stock is a major planetary resource supporting many critically important ecosystem services (ESs) and underpins realization of some of the SDGs at the national level. Thus, decrease in the SOC stock is among the significant universal indicators for land and soil degradation and compromises efforts to achieve the SDGs especially those with reference to food, health, water, climate, and land management. However, there is currently no well‐established relationship (i.e., quantitative evidence) between the SOC stock and the level of ESs attributable to it. Further, basic soil data and monitoring systems including those of SOC stock and its changes are not available for many regions and nations. This uncertainty affects the suitability of using the SOC stock as absolute indicator to monitor changes in land and soil degradation and, particularly, in relation to the SDG monitoring framework. Thus, although the SOC stock is arguably an important indicator for land and soil degradation among others, more research and data on a national level are needed to establish the relationship between the SOC stock and the targets to monitor progress towards achieving the SDGs with reference to food, health, water, climate, and land management. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review on the suitability of the SOC stock as an indicator for monitoring land and soil degradation with regard to the SDG framework.

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Section: Addressing Soc In the Monitoring Framework Towards Achievingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil organic carbon stock as an indicator for monitoring land and soil degradation in relation to United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

2019

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“…While we are fully aware that the distinction between soil-provided and soil-related ecosystem services is challenging in practice, this distinction might help to better understand the relationships between soils and ecosystem services. Furthermore, an additional complication enters if we include soil functions [21] in the discussion, as they are the prerequisites for both soil-provided and soil-related ecosystem services. In the following, we focus on soil ecosystem services, which we use as a generic term encompassing both soil-provided and soil-related ecosystem services, and refer to this distinction explicitly only when it is relevant.…”

Section: Soils and Ecosystem Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In an ecosystem service management concept, while acknowledging the character of soil-inherent properties, it is the manageable properties that deserve specific attention, as they provide entry points for farmers, agronomists, land managers, and other stakeholders to influence soils and their qualities and, thus, the ecosystem services that flow from soils [11]. In a similar vein, Vogel et al [21] argue to focus on "functional soil characteristics", which are a result of internal soil processes and interactions (physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of soils) in response to soil management at a timescale of days to months. Contrarily, "inherent soil properties" represent rather stable soil formation characteristics (e.g., mineral composition, texture, layering, depth) which cannot be affected by soil management at a timescale of less than decades.…”

Section: Soils and Ecosystem Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional Economics of Agricultural Soil Ecosystem Services

et al. 2018

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Who owns the soils? What seems to be a straightforward legal issue actually opens up a debate about the ecosystem services that can be derived from soils and the distribution of benefits and responsibilities for sustaining functioning and healthy soils. In particular, agricultural land use may be constrained by a lack of properly defined property rights. Using the new institutional economics perspective, we show that multifunctionality of soils and an attribute-based property rights perspective substantiate the intuition that land property implies special obligations towards the common good. The concept of ecosystem services can illustrate the variety of beneficiaries of multifaceted soil ecosystem services. This allows identification of reasons for unsustainable soil management that result from imperfections in the definition of property rights. We suggest implications for improved governance of agricultural soils using two case studies in the EU context: the EU Common Agricultural Policy and the use of planning instruments to steer agricultural soil use in Germany. Thus, we contribute to achieving the societal goals of more sustainable land use by detecting causes of shortcomings in current land regulation and by suggesting governance approaches to support a more sustainable management of agricultural soils.

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“…Examples are water capacity, aggregate stability, macropores, organic matter, and functional group diversity. The typical range of such functional characteristics depends on the soil type and the inherent soil properties that are considered to be stable at the time scale of decades (Vogel et al, 2018). They in turn influence state variables (e.g., water content, biological activity, and temperature) that change very quickly within days.…”

Section: Soil Processes and Functionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although there is comprehensive, albeit not well systemized, evidence about the impacts of soil management on soil processes (Vogel et al, 2018), the linkage to targets set by society has only recently emerged in scientific and policy debate. Here, two partly interlinked assessment concepts stand out: ecosystem services and resource use efficiency.…”

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confidence: 99%

Managing soil functions for a sustainable bioeconomy—Assessment framework and state of the art

et al. 2018

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Bioeconomy strategies have been adopted in many countries around the world. Their sustainable implementation requires a management of soils that maintains soil functions and avoids land degradation. Only then, ecosystem services can be maintained and resources used efficiently. We present an analytical framework for impact assessment that links policy and technology driving forces for soil management decisions to soil processes, soil functional changes, and their impacts on ecosystem services and resource use efficiency, both being targets that have been set by society and are anchored in bioeconomy policy strategies and sustainable development goals. Although the resource use efficiency concept has a long-term tradition, most studies of agricultural management do not address the role of soils in their efficiency assessment. The concept of ecosystem services has received increasing attention over the last years; however, its link to soil functions and soil management practices is still not well established. This study is the first to conceptually link the socioeconomic processes of external drivers for soil management with the natural processes of soil functions and connect them back to impacts on the social system. Application of the framework helps strengthen the science-policy interface and to systemically assess and compare the opportunities and threats of soil management practices from the perspective of goals set by society at different spatial and temporal scales. Insights gained in this way can be applied in stakeholder decisionmaking processes and used to inform the design of governance instruments aimed at sustainable soil management within a bioeconomy. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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A systemic approach for modeling soil functions

Abstract: Abstract. The central importance of soil for the functioning of terrestrial systems is increasingly recognized.

Cited by 141 publications

References 44 publications

Soil organic carbon stock as an indicator for monitoring land and soil degradation in relation to United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

Soil organic carbon stock as an indicator for monitoring land and soil degradation in relation to United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

Institutional Economics of Agricultural Soil Ecosystem Services

Managing soil functions for a sustainable bioeconomy—Assessment framework and state of the art

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