The concept of Soil Health is currently receiving a lot of attention in several arenas, largely expanding beyond the community of soil scientists. Soil health appears to have affected a large community of land users, with numerous decision-makers and scientists – within and external to soil science – now referring to these terms as a must-achieve goal. Although not a new concept, Soil Health seems to answer a need to embrace soil as a biological system, to account for soil biodiversity and non-productive ecosystem services. Recently, the European Commission published its soil strategy for 2030: Reaping the benefits of healthy soils for people, food, nature, and climate. The soil strategy should support the achievements of broader plans such as the Green Deal and clearly puts ‘healthy soils’ as the central element of the proposal.
The relevance of the concept of soil health is also a source of debate from a scientific point of view. One of the main issues might be the absence of shared vision due to a lack of a clear definition resulting in a broad interpretation of indicators. According to EU soil strategy, soils are healthy when they are in a good chemical, biological, and physical condition, and thus able to continuously provide as many ecosystem services as possible. The goal of this Research Topic is to update research about the quality of soil parameters as indicators of soil functions or ecosystem services within the definition of soil health, and about the methodology used to consider the holistic nature of soils.
This Research Topic welcomes reviews or original research about specific contributions of soils to the following functions and/or services:
• provision of biomass;
• regulation of elemental cycling;
• provision of biodiversity and habitats;
• the carbon reservoir and carbon sequestration;
• soil as a physical platform providing cultural services for humans and their activities, such as physical support for buildings and roads, or as a resource for practicing physical activities;
• soils as a source of raw materials; and
• constitution of an archive of geological, geomorphological, and archaeological heritage.
Papers should focus on the relevance of soil parameters as indicators of the above themes; what can be called a good chemical, physical and biological condition for soils; or present and discuss methodologies to take into account multiple functions in the process of evaluation.
The concept of Soil Health is currently receiving a lot of attention in several arenas, largely expanding beyond the community of soil scientists. Soil health appears to have affected a large community of land users, with numerous decision-makers and scientists – within and external to soil science – now referring to these terms as a must-achieve goal. Although not a new concept, Soil Health seems to answer a need to embrace soil as a biological system, to account for soil biodiversity and non-productive ecosystem services. Recently, the European Commission published its soil strategy for 2030: Reaping the benefits of healthy soils for people, food, nature, and climate. The soil strategy should support the achievements of broader plans such as the Green Deal and clearly puts ‘healthy soils’ as the central element of the proposal.
The relevance of the concept of soil health is also a source of debate from a scientific point of view. One of the main issues might be the absence of shared vision due to a lack of a clear definition resulting in a broad interpretation of indicators. According to EU soil strategy, soils are healthy when they are in a good chemical, biological, and physical condition, and thus able to continuously provide as many ecosystem services as possible. The goal of this Research Topic is to update research about the quality of soil parameters as indicators of soil functions or ecosystem services within the definition of soil health, and about the methodology used to consider the holistic nature of soils.
This Research Topic welcomes reviews or original research about specific contributions of soils to the following functions and/or services:
• provision of biomass;
• regulation of elemental cycling;
• provision of biodiversity and habitats;
• the carbon reservoir and carbon sequestration;
• soil as a physical platform providing cultural services for humans and their activities, such as physical support for buildings and roads, or as a resource for practicing physical activities;
• soils as a source of raw materials; and
• constitution of an archive of geological, geomorphological, and archaeological heritage.
Papers should focus on the relevance of soil parameters as indicators of the above themes; what can be called a good chemical, physical and biological condition for soils; or present and discuss methodologies to take into account multiple functions in the process of evaluation.
