Conceptual framework underpinning management of soil health—supporting site‐specific delivery of sustainable agro‐ecosystems

Abstract

The need for sustainable intensification of agricultural production has ushered in a growing awareness of soil health and a requirement to identify with some certainty how changes to land management will affect soil. From an agricultural perspective, the active management of soil health needs to balance the production of a healthy and profitable crop with environmental protection and improvement. However, the extreme spatial and temporal heterogeneity of soils, and the complexity of biological, physical and chemical interactions therein, makes predicting management effects on soil health challenging. Although the general principles underlying effects on soil health are well understood, they still need interpretation in a local context and the inclusion of site‐specific details. Approaches from landscape ecology provide a potential framework to integrate consideration of the structural (pools, patterns), dynamic and functional (processes, flows) aspects of the soil system. These approaches allow the crucial transition from a “descriptive and general” understanding toward a “detailed and site‐specific” prediction to be made. Using this conceptual framework, we have taken knowledge of the effects of fixed site factors (soil type and climatic zone), cropping systems and farm management practices on a range of soil physical, chemical and biological parameters for UK lowland agricultural systems, and have developed a predictive framework that shows semi‐quantitatively the effects of typical management choices on soil health and crop yield.

Responses of β‐glucosidase, permanganate oxidizable carbon, and fluorescein diacetate hydrolysis to conservation practices

“…However, site-specific factors can influence SQI responsiveness and this complicates efforts to select and interpret SQIs measured in different systems (Bai et al, 2018;Bolinder et al, 1999). Site-specific details must be considered to apply generalized understanding to particular farming contexts (Stockdale et al, 2019). A synthetic summary of multisite SQI responses gathered from a broad suite of soil and environmental contexts can help identify Tier 2 or 3 indicators that are useful only if intrinsic (soil texture and soil type) and extrinsic (climate, management, and experimental details) factors are used to contextualize information (Andrews et al, 2004;Erkossa et al, 2007;Reynolds et al, 2008;Tang et al, 2019).…”

DUS(Soil)—A Framework for Developing a Minimum Data Set of Soil Health Indicators and Management Guidelines for Farmers

“…According to Brown and Herrick (2016), it is highly challenging to ensure that land use and management are essential components of soil health. This could be due to the fact that studies commonly have provided information on sustainable soil management in a general way (Stockdale, Griffiths, Hargreaves, Bhogal, Crotty, & Watson, 2018) while the farmers require specific recommendations tailored to his situation.…”

Agriculture Green Development in China and the UK: common objectives and converging policy pathways

“…Such an index is also needed in China, and Chinese scientists have made significant contributions to this task, e.g., in estimating changes in biological activity in soils, so there could be great benefits from joint action on this objective. For example, Stockdale et al [9] describe a possible conceptual framework for assessing soil health and delivering action at a site-specific level. Stroud [10] describes the use of a simple test for assessing earthworm numbers that relies on farmers making the measurements themselves and results being presented in an easily understood color-coded format.…”