EGU24-20664, updated on 11 Mar 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-20664
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

A framework for setting soil health targets and thresholds in agricultural soils 

Amanda Matson1, Maria Fantappiè2, Grant A. Campbell3, Jorge F. Miranda-Vélez4, Jack H. Faber1, Lucas Carvalho Gomes4, Rudi Hessel1, Marcos Lana5, Stefano Mocali2, Pete Smith3, David Robinson6, Antonio Bispo7, Fenny van Egmond1, Saskia Keesstra8,1, Nicolas P.A. Saby7, Bozena Smreczak9, Claire Froger7, Azamat Suleymanov7, and Claire Chenu10
Amanda Matson et al.
  • 1Wageningen University and Research, Environmental Research, Wageningen, Netherlands (amanda.matson@wur.nl)
  • 2Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l'Analisi dell'Economia Agraria, Via Lanciola 12/A, 50125 Firenze, Italy 
  • 3Institute of Biological & Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3UU, United Kingdom
  • 4Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Blichers Allé 20, 8830, Tjele, Denmark;
  • 5Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7043, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden
  • 6UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Environment Centre Wales, Deiniol Road, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, United Kingdom
  • 7INRAE, Info&Sols, 45075, Orléans, Cedex 2, France
  • 8Climate-Kic Holding B.V., Plantage Middenlaan 45, 1018 DC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 9Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation – State Research Institute, Czartoryskich 8, 24-100, Pulawy, Poland
  • 10AgroParisTech, INRAE, Bâtiment EGER, Campus AgroParisTech Grignon, 78850 Thiverval, France

Soil health is a key concept in worldwide efforts to reverse soil degradation, but to be used as a tool to improve soils, it must be definable at a policy level and quantifiable in some way. Soil indicators can be used to define soil health and quantify the degree to which soils fulfil expected functions. Indicators are assessed using target and/or threshold values, which define achievable levels of the indicators or associated soil functions. However, defining robust targets and thresholds is not a trivial task, as they should account for differences in soil type, climate, land-use, management, and history, among other factors.

We assessed (through theory and stakeholder feedback) four approaches to setting targets and thresholds: fixed values based on research, fixed proportions of natural reference values, values based on the existing range (e.g. lower quartile of the observed distribution), and targets based on relative change (e.g. a 20% increase of the indicator’s value). Three approaches (not including relative change) were then further explored using case study examples from Denmark, Italy, and France, which highlighted key strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Here, we present a selection of the assessment and case study results, as well as a framework, which facilitates both choosing the most appropriate target/threshold method for a given context, and using targets/thresholds to trigger follow-up actions to promote soil health.  

How to cite: Matson, A., Fantappiè, M., Campbell, G. A., Miranda-Vélez, J. F., Faber, J. H., Gomes, L. C., Hessel, R., Lana, M., Mocali, S., Smith, P., Robinson, D., Bispo, A., van Egmond, F., Keesstra, S., Saby, N. P. A., Smreczak, B., Froger, C., Suleymanov, A., and Chenu, C.: A framework for setting soil health targets and thresholds in agricultural soils , EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-20664, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-20664, 2024.

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