A conceptual framework to classify soil function evaluation methods and improve clarity and comparability.

Over the past decade, the scientific production on soil function evaluation has greatly increased. Numerous conceptual frameworks have been and continue to be used globally to assess and interpret soil functions. Among most recent ones are the soil health and the soil security frameworks. While this diversity reflects the dynamism of the community around these questions, it can also lead to confusion, particularly given the similarity of methods used to quantify soil functions.

These methods typically involve quantifying and eventually aggregating one or more soil indicators based on soil or environmental properties. However, some contextual and methodological elements, such as the depth under study or the type of properties considered can vary between studies and lead to different interpretation of indicators. Given the central role of indicators in quantifying soil functions, it is crucial to understand the information that they convey considering all these elements. For us, none of the existing frameworks is able to clearly differentiate all methods depending on the information carried by indicators.

Therefore, we developed a conceptual framework¹ capable of classifying soil function evaluation studies based on the information they produce, regardless of the initial framework used for indicator selection, interpretation, or result communication. It builds on the idea that different aspects of the same function can be quantified, namely soil function supply, soil dynamic capacity for the function, and soil inherent capacity, with variations depending on the type of properties used in the quantification process. Given that different stakeholders have distinct requirements for soil function evaluation, our approach facilitates the alignment of objectives (i.e. the information needed on soil functions) with the aspect of soil functions to be evaluated (i.e. the information produced during quantification). While our framework is not intended to replace existing conceptual frameworks-each of which may have different scopes and advantages-its systematic use in soil function evaluation studies to communicate the exact aspect of soil functions being quantified could significantly enhance the clarity, comparability, and understanding of the information generated across different research efforts.

 

 

¹Lechevallier, H., Lagacherie, P., & Wadoux, A. M. J.-C. (2025). A conceptual framework for soil function evaluation : Towards a common base. Geoderma, 461, 117476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117476