Agriculture intensification impacts on soil and water ecosystem services

Agriculture intensification is increasing due to food demand and consumption patterns. Intensive agriculture is based on management that promotes the maximum profit per unit of area and involves agrochemicals, irrigation and heavy machinery. The purpose is to have high crop yields and livestock productivity. This practice's implications are increasing soil degradation and the loss of ecological functions and consequently to the detriment of ecosystem condition and services. Intensive agriculture practices are related to high erosion rates, soil compaction, pollution (e.g., pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals), nitrification and acidification, loss of fertility and productivity, desertification, diffuse pollution, ground and surface water contamination, land fragmentation, loss of biodiversity, greenhouse gases emission, air pollution and ultimately human impact. All these effects contribute dramatically to global environmental change. Soils are the base of life. Therefore, such intensive use will induce rapid degradation. This is a global reality. Shreds of evidence from the world are plentiful: Tropical rainforests destruction in Amazonia, Congo Basin and southeast Asia due to the establishment of agriculture plantations or livestock farms, irrigation in semi-arid or arid areas of central Asia and Saudi Arabia and acidification in Northeast Europe. All these forms of soil degradation have negative implications on soil ecosystem services. For instance, agriculture intensification affects multiple regulating ecosystem services. The soil loses the capacity to regulate erosion, floods, water purification, and carbon storage, contribute to microclimate regulation, and combat pests and diseases. It also hampers the soil's capacity to supply fodder, water, wild food and medicinal plants. Although crop yields may increase, intensive agriculture practices are not sustainable since they contribute to soil degradation. Without any intervention (e.g., fertilization), there will be a loss of fertility, and yields may be reduced. Also, diffuse pollution from agriculture contributes to surface water bodies' loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. These areas are also key for food provisioning. Intensive agriculture also dramatically impacts cultural ecosystem services such as landscape aesthetics, recreation and heritage. We have many challenges ahead regarding the impacts of agriculture intensification, and it is key to halt and reduce their impacts on ecosystem services. We live in challenging times when food security needs to be ensured for a growing global population. How we can balance between food production and soil degradation? What practices are more adjusted in each context to ensure the sustainability of agroecosystems? These are key questions that need to be answered. Bottom line is that we need to develop practices to follow a sustainable path, instead of exhausting the ecosystems and their services at a dramatic pace.         

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support of the project Enhancing ecoSysteM sERvices mApping for poLicy and Decision mAking (SELINA), financed by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101060415.