Soil sealing for urban and infrastructure development constitutes the most intense form of land degradation and affects all ecosystem services. Researchers and policy makers have become aware of this fact and call for limiting development and compensating for new soil sealing with unsealing measures. In a literature review, we found that the state of research about the impacts of soil sealing is far more advanced than about the potential and prerequisites of unsealing. In practice, soil restoration after mining and construction activities as well as redevelopment or renaturation of abandoned industrial sites are increasingly important issues, but systematic research on the success of soil unsealing and restoration is rare. In particular, the development of soils and vegetation after unsealing and restoration measures as well as their potential to provide ecosystem services need more detailed investigation. In 3 case studies, we demonstrate that replacing a sealed surface with soil to restore ecosystem services is always beneficial for humans and nature. An indicator‐based mapping approach revealed the potential performance of different ecosystem services at former industrial sites in Switzerland. When unsealed sites are transformed to pioneer habitats, the intended vegetation may successfully be regained, but landscape connectivity is hardly enhanced due to increased overall landscape fragmentation. Our investigations show that with the techniques currently applied, the soil physical parameters in a restored agricultural soil developed favourably for crop growth within 15 years. However, unsealed soils are anthropogenic soils with reduced multifunctionality, and protecting natural soil against sealing is always the better option.
Soil compaction affects physical soil condition, in particular aeration, soil strength, and water availability and has adverse effects on plant growth. Bulk density is the most frequently used indicator to describe the state of compaction of a soil. However, this parameter lacks a direct functional relationship with plant growth. Various indicators have been proposed to simultaneously characterize the state of compaction of agricultural soil and its suitability for plant growth. This paper examines and compares the critical limits for crop plant growth based on three of these indicators: packing density, least limiting water range, and S parameter (the latter is the slope of the soil water-retention curve in the inflexion point). In a first step, we reviewed the literature for published optimum and limiting values of bulk density and found that these values were highly dependent on clay and silt content. Converting them into corresponding values of packing density (composite index of bulk density and clay content), a value of 1.70 was found to effectively distinguish between optimum and limiting soil conditions for plant growth. In a second step, the packing density of 59 soil horizons sampled in N Switzerland was compared with the least limiting water range and the S parameter of these soil horizons (both determined by means of pedotransfer functions taken from the literature). A linear relationship between the three parameters was found, which allowed for a comparison of the published critical limits for plant growth based on these parameters. The critical limits of the three indicators, which had been postulated independently of each other in the literature, were found to agree well with each other. This means that all of them could equally be used to describe the compaction state of a soil and its physical suitability for plant growth. However, the proposed critical limits of packing density, least limiting water range, and S parameter still need further validation by field studies relating plant growth to soil compaction.Key words: physical soil quality / optimum bulk density / limiting bulk density / packing density / least limiting water range / S parameter
This article presents a literature review that explores the challenges for planning in urban regions in connection with the preservation of ecosystem services. It further presents some best practice examples for meeting these challenges. The demand for the provision of ecosystem services within urban regions changed during the transition from a largely agrarian society to an industrial society and, most recently, to a service society. Although in the past, provisioning services such as food production or the provision of raw material were decisive for urban development, today cultural services, e.g., clear views or nearby recreation areas, have become increasingly important. According to the literature, soil sealing is the greatest threat urbanization poses toward ecosystem services, as it compromises all of them. Spatially extensive cities with a high building density particularly inhibit regulating services like the regulation of temperature or water surface runoff. Conversely, scattered settlement patterns may lead to very small remnants of open space that cannot reasonably serve as natural habitat, agricultural land, or recreation area. The challenges for planning in urban regions are: 1) specifying regulations that define outer limits to the development of each settlement unit, 2) comprehensive planning with focal points for development, and limiting access and development at other places, and 3) compensating for new soil sealing by restoring nearby sealed areas. The article presents 3 best-practice examples that support these principles: designating areas with a particular soil quality that should not be built over, offering incentives for corporate planning in urban regions, and restoring a country road in connection with a motorway construction. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2013; 9: 243–251. © 2013 SETAC
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