SOIL, 2, 79–82, 2016
www.soil-journal.net/2/79/2016/ SOIL
doi:10.5194/soil-2-79-2016
© Author(s) 2016. CC Attribution 3.0 License.
World’s soils are under threat
Luca Montanarella1, Daniel Jon Pennock2, Neil McKenzie3, Mohamed Badraoui4, Victor Chude5,
Isaurinda Baptista6, Tekalign Mamo7, Martin Yemefack8, Mikha Singh Aulakh9, Kazuyuki Yagi10,
Suk Young Hong11, Pisoot Vijarnsorn12, Gan-Lin Zhang13, Dominique Arrouays14, Helaina Black15,
Pavel Krasilnikov16, Jaroslava Sobocká17, Julio Alegre18, Carlos Roberto Henriquez19, Maria de
Lourdes Mendonça-Santos20, Miguel Taboada21, David Espinosa-Victoria22, Abdullah AlShankiti23,
Sayed Kazem AlaviPanah24, Elsiddig Ahmed El Mustafa Elsheikh25, Jon Hempel26, Marta Camps
Arbestain27, Freddy Nachtergaele28, and Ronald Vargas28
1European Commission – DG JRC, Via E. Fermi, 2749, 21027 Ispra (VA), Italy
2College of Agriculture and Bioresources, University of Saskatchewan, 51 Campus Drive,
Saskatoon SK S7N 5A8, Canada
3CSIRO Agriculture Flagship, B.E. Butler Laboratory, GPO Box 1666, Canberra, ACT 2601, Canberra,
Australia
4INRA, Rabat, Morocco
5National Programme for Food Security, 127 Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja, Nigeria
6Instituto Nacional de Investigação e Desenvolvimento Agrário (INIDA) – São Jorge dos Órgãos CP 84, Praia,
Cabo Verde
7Ministry of Agriculture, P.O. Box 62347, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
8International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Institute of Agricultural Research for Development
(IRAD), Yaoundé, Cameroon
9Banda University of Agriculture & Technology, Banda, 210001, Uttar Pradesh, India
10National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences (NIAES), 3-1-3 Kannondai, Tsukuba 305-8604, Japan
11National Academy of Agricultural Science (NAAS), Rural Development Administration (RDA), Wanju-gun,
Jeonbuk, South Korea
12Chaipattana Foundation, Bangkok, Thailand
13State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
14INRA, InfoSol Unit, US 1106, 45075, Orléans, France
15Ecological Sciences Group, The James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, Scotland, UK
16Eurasian Center for Food Security, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
17National Agricultural and Food Centre – Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute, Bratislava,
Slovakia
18Departamento de Suelos, National Agrarian University, La Molina, Peru
19Centro de Investigaciones Agronómicas, Facultad de Ciencias Agroalimentarias, Universidad de Costa Rica,
San Pedro, Costa Rica
20EMBRAPA – Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation/The National Centre of Soil Research (Embrapa
Solos), Rua Jardim Botânico, 1024, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
21Instituto de Suelos and CONICET, CIRN, INTA, Nicolás Repetto y De los Reseros S/N,
CP 1686 Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, Argentina
22Colegio de Postgraduados, Mexico City, Mexico
23International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), Dubai, United Arab Emirates
24Department of Remote Sensing and GIS, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
25Department of Soil & Environment Sciences, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Republic of the Sudan
26USDA-NRCS National Soil Survey Center,100 Centennial Mall, Lincoln, NE 68508, USA
27Institute of Agriculture and Environment, Massey Agriculture, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand
Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.
80 L. Montanarella et al.: World’s soils are under threat
28Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy
Correspondence to: Luca Montanarella (luca.montanarella@jrc.ec.europa.eu)
Received: 28 October 2015 – Published in SOIL Discuss.: 9 December 2015
Accepted: 24 February 2016 – Published: 29 February 2016
Abstract. The Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils has completed the first State of the World’s Soil
Resources Report. Globally soil erosion was identified as the gravest threat, leading to deteriorating water quality
in developed regions and to lowering of crop yields in many developing regions. We need to increase nitrogen and
phosphorus fertilizer use in infertile tropical and semi-tropical soils – the regions where the most food insecurity
among us are found – while reducing global use of these products overall. Stores of soil organic carbon are
critical in the global carbon balance, and national governments must set specific targets to stabilize or ideally
increase soil organic carbon stores. Finally the quality of soil information available for policy formulation must
be improved – the regional assessments in the State of the World’s Soil Resources Report frequently base their
evaluations on studies from the 1990s based on observations made in the 1980s or earlier.
1 Introduction 2 State of the World’s Soil Resources – the why and
how
Soils are fundamental to life on Earth. They are central to
sustainable development and the future we want. Soils have The ITPS is composed of 27 soil experts nominated by the
critical relevance to global issues such as food and water se- FAO members and representing all the regions of the world.
curity and climate regulation (Koch et al., 2013; Lal, 2004; The main function of the ITPS is to provide scientific and
McBratney et al., 2014), and they are increasingly recognized technical advice and guidance on global soil issues to the
as major contributors to a wide range of ecosystem services GSP primarily and to specific requests submitted by global
(Dominati et al., 2010). However, until now, no global state- or regional institutions. One of its main tasks for 2013–2015
ment on the world’s soils resources has been released. Soil has been production of the SWSR. The goal of the SWSR is
resources have been seen as a second-tier priority; until 2013 to make clear the essential connections between human well-
no international governance body had existed that advocated being and the soil. The report provides a benchmark against
for and coordinated initiatives to ensure that knowledge and which the world’s collective progress to conserve this essen-
recognition of soils are appropriately represented in global- tial resource can be measured.
change dialogues and decision-making processes. About 200 soil scientists from 60 countries contributed
The societal responses required to achieve sustainable soil directly to the report. Their assessment has synthesized the
management are complex and multi-faceted (Arnold et al., scientific knowledge embodied in more than 2000 peer-
1990). The implementation of soil management decisions reviewed scientific publications. The report provides a global
is typically made locally and occurs within widely differ- perspective on the current state of the soil, its role in provid-
ing socio-economic contexts. The development of specific ing ecosystem services, and the threats to its continued con-
measures appropriate for adoption by local decision-makers tribution to these services. The specific threats to soil func-
requires multi-level, interdisciplinary initiatives by many tion considered in the report are erosion, compaction, acid-
stakeholders – partnerships are therefore essential. In recog- ification, contamination, sealing, salinization, waterlogging,
nition of this, the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) (http://www. nutrient imbalance (i.e., both nutrient deficiency and nutri-
fao.org/globalsoilpartnership) was established by members ent excess), and losses of soil organic carbon and of biodi-
of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Na- versity. Several threats (e.g., waterlogging, salinization) have
tions (FAO). Its Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils both natural and human-induced causes; our focus was on
(ITPS) was established at the first Plenary Assembly of the human-induced changes to the state and trend of the threats.
GSP in June 2013. After two years of work, the ITPS is pub-
lishing the first-ever comprehensive State of the World’s Soil
Resources Report (SWSR) (ITPS, 2015). In this paper we 3 What are the global drivers of soil change?
summarize the main outputs of this report and stress what
should be the main priorities at the global level. The primary global drivers of soil change are population
growth and economic growth. While economic growth may
eventually be decoupled from increases in consumption of
resources and generation of waste, it will continue to be a
strong driver of soil change for the next few decades at least.
SOIL, 2, 79–82, 2016 www.soil-journal.net/2/79/2016/
L. Montanarella et al.: World’s soils are under threat 81
Figure 1. Global assessment of the four main threats to soil by FAO regions.
The 20th century has witnessed extraordinary population and 4 What are the main threats to soil functions?
economic growth and an associated revolution in agriculture.
The world population of 7.2 billion in mid-2013 is projected While there is cause for optimism in some regions, the over-
to increase by almost 1 billion people within the next 12 whelming conclusion from the report is that the majority of
years. It is expected to reach 9.6 billion in 2050 and 10.9 bil- the world’s soil resources are in only fair, poor, or very poor
lion in 2100. Most of this growth will occur in low-income condition. The most significant threats to soil function at the
countries. Many of these countries (e.g., in West Africa) have global scale are soil erosion, loss of soil organic carbon, and
infertile soils and low levels of agricultural productivity. Fac- nutrient imbalance (Fig. 1).
tors such as education, cultural values, civil strife, the effec- The current outlook is for the situation to worsen – unless
tiveness of markets, and the wealth or poverty of the land concerted actions are taken by individuals, the private sector,
users are also important drivers of global soil change. governments, and international organizations.
Climate change is the third primary driver of soil change The global assessment should not mask large regional dif-
through its current and anticipated effects on land use and ferences in soil threats. For instance, soil erosion is seen as
management. The impact of climate change on soil function- a major priority in sub-Saharan African countries while soil
ing is the largest source of uncertainty in any projections of sealing is considered the major soil threat in western Europe.
the trends in key ecosystem services provided by the soil. Cli-
mate change will have significant impacts on soil resources.
For instance, the change in water availability due to changes 5 The way forward
of quantity and pattern of precipitation and higher temper-
atures entailing a higher evaporative demand will influence The assessment contained in the first report on the status
the rate of actual evaporation, groundwater recharge, and the of the world’s soil resources is long overdue. The singu-
generation of runoff according to local conditions. Warming- lar focus on soil has a simple yet profound basis. Managed
induced changes in soil temperature and moisture regimes well, soil circulates chemical elements, water, and energy for
may increase the soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition great human benefit. If soil is managed poorly, it is impos-
rate and intensify the risks of erosion and desertification. sible to be optimistic about the future (Richter and Marke-
witz, 2001; Admunson et al., 2015). The current trajectories
in soil condition have potentially catastrophic consequences
that will affect millions of people in some of the most vul-
nerable regions over coming decades. More importantly, the
global community is presently ill-prepared and ill-equipped
www.soil-journal.net/2/79/2016/ SOIL, 2, 79–82, 2016
82 L. Montanarella et al.: World’s soils are under threat
to mount a proportionate response. Countries can change cur- Acknowledgements. The State of the World’s Soil Resources
rent trajectories. The starting point is implementation of the Report was possible thanks to the support of the Food and
actions outlined in the World Soil Charter (Food and Agricul- Agriculture Organization of the UN, the Global Soil partnership
ture Organization, 2015) that has been endorsed by the FAO Secretariat, and the financial contribution of the European Com-
countries in direct connection with the plans of action of the mission.
Global Soil Partnership.
Edited by: A. Don
Overall we believe the following four actions are the great-
est priorities:
1. Sustainable soil management can increase the supply of References
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on Sustainable Soil Management that will begin to bridge
the gap between the local decision-making required for im-
plementation of sustainable soil management and the high-
level governance work of the GSP. The International Year of
Soils in 2015 will be remembered in the coming decades as
the year when the soil challenge confronting the world was
clearly articulated. History will record whether this gener-
ation of decision makers responded with sufficient zeal to
ensure that soil did indeed remain as humanity’s silent ally.
SOIL, 2, 79–82, 2016 www.soil-journal.net/2/79/2016/