How Much Margin Is Left for Degrading Agricultural Soils? The Coming Soil Crises

Abstract

Agricultural soils are in peril. Multiple lines of observational and empirical evidence suggest that we are losing the world’s fertile soils at an alarming rate, worsening the on-going global food crisis. It is increasingly clear that the risk of soil crises driven by erratic precipitation, warming air, and farming mismanagement is coming sooner rather than later. At this critical time, society cannot avoid looking for ways to curb soil crises. We argue that now is the right time for science-based mitigation strategies and new insights to protect soils. We offer four research priority areas that society needs to address. Arresting and reversing the ongoing soil degradation are tantamount to safeguarding humanity and the environment. To the extent that we continue to treat soil crises as a problem for farmers only—not as a global challenge—we only escalate the scale to which the problem will grow in time and complexity.

Characterization and Mapping of Soil-Landscape for Site-Specific Soil Management in Ayiba Watershed, Northern Highlands of Ethiopia

“…Soil that stores large amounts of water without waterlogging problems can keep plants alive and well for prolonged periods during droughts. According to Hazelton and Murphy [82]; available soil water holding capacity (%v) for a soil profle is rated as low (<10), medium (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20), and high (>20). Hence, the AWC at the upper slope was found medium, while low to medium in the mid and foot slopes.…”

“…To feed a growing population and reduce agriculture's environmental impact, ecosystem services and agricultural productivity must be balanced [13]. Since agricultural soils are in danger, site-specifc farming relies on spatial variability analysis and interpretation [14,15]. Various studies on soil properties also confrmed that topographic position largely governs the change in types, characteristics, and distribution of soils [16,17].…”

Mapping Agricultural Biodiversity: Legacy data and tensions between ways of seeing fields

“…The multi-generational challenge of rapidly declining soil health and biodiversity in agricultural lands (Brown, 1984;Gebremedhin et al, 2022) continues to persist. While it is impractical to propose the complete stoppage of grassland-tocropland conversion, we recommend that deliberate consideration be applied regarding the spatio-temporal scales of mature grassland loss in relation to ecologically-sensitive landscapes, such as meadow bird reserves.…”

Soil-landscape characterization and mapping to advance the state of spatial soil information on Ethiopian highlands: Implications for site-specific soil management

“…Balancing ecosystem services with agricultural production is essential to meet the needs of a growing global population while minimizing the environmental impacts of agriculture (Udawatta et al, 2017). So, analysis and interpretation of spatial variability of soils is a keystone in the site-speci c farming system (Iqbal et al, 2005) since agricultural soils are in peril (Gebremedhin et al, 2022). Various studies on soil properties also con rmed that topographic position largely governs the change in types, characteristics, and distribution of soils (Debele et al, 2018;Dessalegn et al, 2014;Mulugeta, 2004).…”