Potential of the economic valuation of soil-based ecosystem services to inform sustainable soil management and policy

Australian soil microbiome: A first sightseeing regional prediction driven by cycles of soil temperature and pedogenic variations

Declines in soil multifunctionality (e.gsoil capacity to provide food and energy) are closely related to changes in the soil microbiome (e.g., diversity) Determining ecological drivers promoting such microbiome changes is critical knowledge for protecting soil functions. However, soil-microbe interactions are highly variable within environmental gradients and may not be consistent across studies. Here we propose that analysis of community dissimilarity (β-diversity) is a valuable tool for overviewing soil microbiome spatiotemporal changes. Indeed, β-diversity studies at larger scales (modelling and mapping) simplify complex multivariate interactions and refine our understanding of ecological drivers by also giving the possibility of expanding the environmental scenarios. This study represents the first spatial investigation of β-diversity in the soil microbiome of New South Wales (800,642 km2 ), Australia. We used metabarcoding soil data (16S rRNA and ITS genes) as exact sequence variants (ASVs) and UMAP (Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection) as the distance metric. β-Diversity maps (1000-m resolution)-concordance correlations of 0.91-0.96 and 0.91-0.95 for bacteria and fungi, respectively-showed soil biome dissimilarities driven primarily by soil chemistry-pH and effective cation exchange capacity (ECEC)-and cycles of soil temperature-land surface temperature (LST-phase and LST-amplitude). Regionally, the spatial patterns of microbes parallel the distribution of soil classes (e.g., Vertosols) beyond spatial distances and rainfall, for example. Soil classes can be valuable discriminants for monitoring approaches, for example pedogenons and pedophenons. Ultimately, cultivated soils exhibited lower richness due to declines in rare microbes which might compromise soil functions over time.

The Synergistic Effect of Biochar and Poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline)/poly(2- hydroxyethylmethacarylate)/Chitosan) Hydrogels on Saline Soil Properties and Carrot Productivity.. [DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-2409982/v1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0]

Background Soil Salinity is one of the most important factors limiting crop production. Moreover, with the increasing population and saline soil worldwide there is no choice but to use saline soil to increase the agricultural area. Therefore, to increase carrot productivity under saline conditions, it's necessary to provide good management such as applying hydrogels and biochar for improving soil properties. Methodology Hydrogels (PEtOx-HEMA-CS) were prepared from poly (2-ethyl-2-oxazoline), chitosan (CS), and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA as crosslinker), by exposure those to gamma irradiation at range from 0–50 kGy with 0.9 kGy/h, and obtained three types of hydrogels according to concentration of chitosan. The PEtOx-HEMA-CS hydrogels were prepared for enhanced water holding capacity for agriculture purposes. The chemical structures of those were investigated by FTIR, XRD and SEM. Biochar (BC) as an active substance was physically mixed with those hydrogels at different ratios (0/100, 0.5/99.5, 1/99 and 100/0 (g/g) biochar/hydrogels). BC, PEtOx-HEMA-CS and the mixture of PEtOx-HEMA-CS-BC were mixed with saline soil at ratio 0.05 and 0.1% w/w of prepared materials/soil. Pot agriculture carrot experiments were conducted to mitigate the salinity hazards by using biochar with and without hydrogels. Findings The obtained data referred that there is a significant decrease in soil salinity and exchangeable sodium percentage and increase in organic matter, cation exchange capacity, field capacity, permanent wilting point and available water especially at (PEtOx-HEMA-CS5)0.1-BC1. The highest increment percentage of NP and K were 36.36, 70 and 72%, respectively. Also, the relative increase of carrot productivity was 49.63% at the highest rates of biochar and hydrogels. However, the highest value of water use efficiency was observed at the mixture of biochar and hydrogels at (PEtOx-HEMA-CS5)0.1-BC1. Conclusion Finally, applying biochar combined with (PEtOx-HEMA-CS5) could be recommended as a good approach to enhance carrot productivity and water use efficiency under saline soil conditions.

Soil-Improving Cropping Systems for Sustainable and Profitable Farming in Europe

Soils form the basis for agricultural production and other ecosystem services, and soil management should aim at improving their quality and resilience. Within the SoilCare project, the concept of soil-improving cropping systems (SICS) was developed as a holistic approach to facilitate the adoption of soil management that is sustainable and profitable. SICS selected with stakeholders were monitored and evaluated for environmental, sociocultural, and economic effects to determine profitability and sustainability. Monitoring results were upscaled to European level using modelling and Europe-wide data, and a mapping tool was developed to assist in selection of appropriate SICS across Europe. Furthermore, biophysical, sociocultural, economic, and policy reasons for (non)adoption were studied. Results at the plot/farm scale showed a small positive impact of SICS on environment and soil, no effect on sustainability, and small negative impacts on economic and sociocultural dimensions. Modelling showed that different SICS had different impacts across Europe—indicating the importance of understanding local dynamics in Europe-wide assessments. Work on adoption of SICS confirmed the role economic considerations play in the uptake of SICS, but also highlighted social factors such as trust. The project’s results underlined the need for policies that support and enable a transition to more sustainable agricultural practices in a coherent way.

Heterogeneous public preferences for controlling agricultural non-point source pollution based on a choice experiment

The public's stated value and heterogeneous preferences are crucial for formulating policies and financing approaches to promote the control of agricultural non-point-source pollution (ANSP). This study aims to investigate urban residents' willingness to pay (WTP) for ANSP control and analyse the source of preference heterogeneity using a choice experiment method. Survey data were obtained from face-to-face interviews with 595 respondents in south Shaanxi Province, China. We found that respondents' average WTP for the attributes of ANSP control schemes were 2.34 yuan ($0.36) and 5.42 yuan ($0.83) per year per household for a 1% reduction in fertiliser and pesticide use, respectively. We also found significant impacts of WTP from individuals' socio-economic characteristics (i.e., gender, age, education, and income) and cognitive factors (i.e., policy understanding, and government trust). Thus, to improve the efficiency and universality of ANSP control policy, the public's willingness and preference heterogeneity should be thoroughly taken into policy formulation.

Creating ecosystem services assessment models incorporating land use impacts based on soil quality

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely applied approach used to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product or service across its life cycle stages; however, the impacts of land use on ecosystem services are less addressed in most LCA studies. This study, therefore, aims to improve the LCA model by incorporating a new impact category of land use on ecosystem services at both midpoint and endpoint levels in the existing ReCiPe2016 impact assessment method. The impacts of land use in the LCA model included land occupation and land transformation. The soil quality-based indicator, soil organic carbon (SOC), was adopted to quantify the soil quality change in ecosystem services caused by land use. A site with contaminated soils was adopted to validate the proposed impact assessment approach and to compare the results of various remediation practices. Our results revealed that the characterization factors (CFs) varied with the type of land use intervention, with land occupation of settlements presenting the highest CFs and land occupation of forest presenting the most negative CFs and thus benefitting ecosystem services. These results were well reflected in the case study, while the type of land intervention was the key factor determining the impact level. The results suggested that long-term occupation, high contamination levels, and high material or energy use contributed to relatively higher impacts of land use on ecosystem services. The proposed approach enables the quantification of land use impacts on ecosystem services as expressed in monetary loss or benefit at the endpoint resource level. The impact assessment results indicated that the in situ bioremediation scenario contributed relatively higher impacts ($12,667 USD) than the excavation and thermal treatment scenario ($-37 USD). These monetary assessment results are informative and are expected to be used in the decision-making process towards achieving beneficial environmental outcomes.

Soil Diversity (Pedodiversity) and Ecosystem Services

Soil ecosystem services (ES) (e.g., provisioning, regulation/maintenance, and cultural) and ecosystem disservices (ED) are dependent on soil diversity/pedodiversity (variability of soils), which needs to be accounted for in the economic analysis and business decision-making. The concept of pedodiversity (biotic + abiotic) is highly complex and can be broadly interpreted because it is formed from the interaction of atmospheric diversity (abiotic + biotic), biodiversity (biotic), hydrodiversity (abiotic + biotic), and lithodiversity (abiotic) within ecosphere and anthroposphere. Pedodiversity is influenced by intrinsic (within the soil) and extrinsic (outside soil) factors, which are also relevant to ES/ED. Pedodiversity concepts and measures may need to be adapted to the ES framework and business applications. Currently, there are four main approaches to analyze pedodiversity: taxonomic (diversity of soil classes), genetic (diversity of genetic horizons), parametric (diversity of soil properties), and functional (soil behavior under different uses). The objective of this article is to illustrate the application of pedodiversity concepts and measures to value ES/ED with examples based on the contiguous United States (U.S.), its administrative units, and the systems of soil classification (e.g., U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Soil Taxonomy, Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) Database). This study is based on a combination of original research and literature review examples. Taxonomic pedodiversity in the contiguous U.S. exhibits high soil diversity, with 11 soil orders, 65 suborders, 317 great groups, 2026 subgroups, and 19,602 series. The ranking of “soil order abundance” (area of each soil order within the U.S.) expressed as the proportion of the total area is: (1) Mollisols (27%), (2) Alfisols (17%), (3) Entisols (14%), (4) Inceptisols and Aridisols (11% each), (5) Spodosols (3%), (6) Vertisols (2%), and (7) Histosols and Andisols (1% each). Taxonomic, genetic, parametric, and functional pedodiversity are an essential context for analyzing, interpreting, and reporting ES/ED within the ES framework. Although each approach can be used separately, three of these approaches (genetic, parametric, and functional) fall within the “umbrella” of taxonomic pedodiversity, which separates soils based on properties important to potential use. Extrinsic factors play a major role in pedodiversity and should be accounted for in ES/ED valuation based on various databases (e.g., National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) databases). Pedodiversity is crucial in identifying soil capacity (pedocapacity) and “hotspots” of ES/ED as part of business decision making to provide more sustainable use of soil resources. Pedodiversity is not a static construct but is highly dynamic, and various human activities (e.g., agriculture, urbanization) can lead to soil degradation and even soil extinction.