The Role of Citizen Science in Meeting SDG Targets around Soil Health

Abstract

Healthy soils are vital for sustainable development, yet consistent soil monitoring is scarce, and soils are poorly represented in United Nations Sustainable Development Goals targets and indicators. There is a clear need for specific ambitions on soil health, accompanying metrics, and cost-effective monitoring methodologies. In this paper, we review citizen science methods and platforms which could compliment structured soil monitoring programmes and contribute to filling this knowledge gap. We focussed on soil structure, organic carbon, biodiversity, nutrients, and vegetation cover. Each method was classified as red, amber, or green (RAG) in terms of time requirements, cost, and data reliability. Toolkits were assessed in terms of cost and requirement for specialist kit. We found 32 methods across the five indicators. Three soil monitoring methods scored green on all criteria, and 20 (63%) scored green on two criteria. We found 13 toolkits appropriate for citizen science monitoring of soil health. Three of them are free, easy to use, and do not require specialist equipment. Our review revealed multiple citizen science methods and toolkits for each of the five soil health indicators. This should pave the way towards a cost-effective, joined-up approach on soil health, informing national and international policy and supporting the move towards farmer-led, data-driven decision-making.

Key gaps in soil monitoring during forest restoration in Colombia

“…SQAPP is an easy tool that gives access to global soil data and soil quality information; researchers can use it to compare different sites to get an overview of the variability of soil conditions or about potential soil quality scores (iSQAPER 2020). Recently, Head et al (2020) suggest 13 citizen‐science soil monitoring methods in their literature review, most of which could be appropriate for restoration projects. Another relevant initiative that offers funding as well as technical knowledge about sustainable soil management and soil indicators is the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) designed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (Baritz et al 2018).…”

Exploring Relationship between Perception Indicators and Mitigation Behaviors of Soil Erosion in Undergraduate Students in Sonora, Mexico

“…Most of the initiatives have focused on environmental monitoring and biodiversity conservation, however, initiatives regarding the monitoring of soil properties and their conservation are still scarce. It is essential to increase efforts to promote more citizen science projects, as these will allow participants to express their concerns, become familiar with scientific approaches, and improve the availability of knowledge, which increases the possibilities to facilitate collective action [59,60].…”

Soils, Science and Community ActioN (SoilSCAN): a citizen science tool to empower community-led land management change in East Africa

“…Our research was co-designed and trialled as a citizen science approach that could overcome these barriers to community-generated soil health data (Pocock et al 2018). Using our past experience, we also envisaged wider impacts through embedded citizen learning and development opportunities that these technologies might offer in future to integrate marginalised groups in agro-pastoral communities, such as women farmers and younger generations, into a shared community aspiration for evidence-based sustainable land management (Bonney et al 2009, Buytaert et al 2014, Mckinley et al 2017, Turrini et al 2018, Head et al 2020. Working in agro-pastoral landscapes of Tanzania, the aim of this study was to explore community-led solutions to soil degradation by developing and trialling citizen science protocols for community diagnosis of soil health using nutrient status, SOC content, cation exchange capacity (CEC), and soil textural class within erosion risk frameworks from prior research (Blake et al 2021).…”