Connecting soil health and water quality in agricultural landscapes

Abstract

As soil plays an integral role in the water cycle, the dynamic and inherent attributes of soil are important drivers of the amount and quality of water in streams, lakes, and groundwater. Studies have demonstrated links between agricultural soil management and water movement in soil, to the edge of fields, and across entire watersheds that feed water bodies of interest. Still, not enough is known about linkages between soil management, soil health, and watershed water quality to adequately predict impacts of land use changes and to effectively use soil management as a tool for water resource management. We describe here the mechanisms connecting soil health and water quality, the state of the science at the nexus of the two fields of study, and an overview of recent studies on the topic. A fundamental challenge is measuring and elucidating connections between processes working at different temporal and spatial scales. Research needs include expansion of field‐scale data and analysis of combined datasets, greater understanding of the mechanisms that explain observed associations between management practices and water quality, ensuring that hydrologic models and decision‐support tools more effectively reflect these soil–water mechanisms, and greater use of systems‐based research designs.

Spatial patterns of historical crop yields reveal soil health attributes in US Midwest fields

“…These effects challenge the direct measurements of soil health or SOC changes with management across a region because the measurement signal is small relative to the spatial noise. We reaffirm the need to use locally scaled measures of soil health to evaluate and inform management 88 – 90 and to guide SOC sampling for MRV applications 91 .…”

Enhancing the Soil Health–Watershed Health Nexus: Introduction

“…The overview article by Lewandowski and Cates (2023) invites researchers to establish networks, scientific concepts, measurements, and environmental conditions within which soil and watershed health can be correlated and assessment framework(s) applied. The first two research contributions focus on the design of diversified, long‐term conservation systems that integrate complex crop rotations, cover crops, perennials, and livestock with the intent of reducing edge‐of‐field run‐off and or increasing soil water and nutrient storage (Bawa et al., 2021; Menefee et al., 2022).…”