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Despite phosphorus (P) being crucial for plant nutrition and thus food security, excessive P fertilization harms soil and aquatic ecosystems. Accordingly, the European Green Deal and derived strategies aim to reduce P losses and fertilizer consumption in agricultural soils. The objective of this study is to calculate a soil P budget, allowing the quantification of the P surpluses/deficits in the European Union (EU) and the UK, considering the major inputs (inorganic fertilizers, manure, atmospheric deposition, and chemical weathering) and outputs (crop production, plant residues removal, losses by erosion) for the period 2011–2019.

The Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey (LUCAS) topsoil data include measured values for almost 22,000 samples for both available and total P. With advanced machine learning models, we developed maps for both attributes at 500 m resolution. We estimated the available P for crops at a mean value of 83 kg ha−1 with a clear distinction between North and South. The ratio of available P to the total P is about 1:17.

The inorganic fertilizers and manure contribute almost equally as P inputs (mean 16 ± 2 kg P ha−1 yr−1 at 90 % confidence level) to agricultural soils, with high regional variations depending on farming practices, livestock density, and cropping systems. The P outputs came mainly from the exportation by the harvest of crop products and residues (97.5 %) and, secondly, by erosion. Using a sediment distribution model, we quantified the P fluxes to river basins and sea outlets.

In the EU and UK, we estimated an average surplus of 0.8 kg P ha−1 yr−1 with high variability between countries with some regional variations. The P annual budget at regional scale showed ample possibility to improve P management by both reducing inputs in regions with high surplus (and P soil available) and rebalancing fertilization in those at risk of soil fertility depletion.

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158706


 

Information on spatial and temporal changes in the soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN) stocks are crucial to support sustainable land management strategies. However, such information is scarce mainly for arid and semi-arid regions. The present research aimed to determine SOC and STN stock dynamics with depths during the 1971–2019 period. Thus, two soil types were selected in north Tunisia: a Luvisol under forest vegetation and a Cambisol under cereal crop and analyzed for SOC, STN, rock fraction, and bulk density from the surface (0–30 cm), middle (30–50 cm), and deep layers (50–100 cm) in 1971, 2005, 2012, and 2019. SOC and STN contents decreased with depth in both soils. The Luvisol exhibited the highest SOC and STN contents. From 1971 to 2019, SOC and STN contents decreased more in the surface layer in both soils with sharpest decrease for STN than SOC. The stocks were calculated taking into account the rock fractions avoiding overestimation. Stocks recorded in the surface layer corresponded to 68% of total SOC stock and 58% of total STN stock in both soils. From 1971 to 2019, the reduction of SOC and STN stocks was more important in the Cambisol than in the Luvisol in all layers, mainly in the surface layer. Such reductions could have important implications for soil fertility and global warming

10.1007/s12517-022-09860-3

Developing a methodology for the analysis of the anthropogenic intervention on natural capital is an ambitious process. The LANDSUPPORT project implemented a Decision Support System (DSS) to help support better land use planning. The LANDSUPPORT DSS aimed at creating an innovative and intuitive environment that will improve the readability of measured and modelled geo-information, making it accessible to a wide range of stakeholders. A cross-evaluation analysis has been developed to measure the ability to support policy-related stakeholders and help them make informed decisions.

In the field of land use and land management, appropriate data are essential to support effective land planning in which different sources of available information need to be synthesised to provide an holistic picture of their combined effect. Policy stakeholders play a pivotal role in designing the DSS to be transversal and able to cope with issues at local, national and regional scales. National and regional land monitoring projects are often evenly disseminated or unsuitable for policy needs. Many attempts were recently made to overcome this problem, and the concept of decision dashboards is now extensively used to address these challenges. DSS are growing in popularity. They are often distributed as open access online interfaces that use georeferenced data and visualization tools to present model metrics and key performance indicators. Data behind DSSs can be static or dynamic as it is for the LANDSUPPORT DSS. The set of tools developed at different scales within different domains of application, are regularly updated and obtained from the state-of-the-art scientific development. With the user in mind, the LANDSUPPORT DSS encourages an extensive range of policy stakeholders to perform land use analysis, improving the tool's usability and making informed decisions for land sustainability. Decisions on land management at local scale are already benefiting from such information systems.

For the EU, specific tools were developed, tailored to the specific needs of stakeholders. For instance, in line with its strategic plan, Italy uses specific functionality and indicator sets to support its decision-making across agriculture sectors (viticulture and oliviculture tools are tailored examples of the DSS dynamism).
Another goal of DSS is to improve geodata integration across highly compartmentalized sectors. Each tool which appears in the dashboard will undergo regular improvements as the backend platform is refined. The LANDSUPPORT tool allows for the analysis of soil sealing in the land take tool, the land degradation neutrality tool (SDG 15.3.1 indicator), and the climate change resilience through another dedicated tool embedding future scenarios of climate change based on CORDEX ensemble models and (Representative Concentration Pathways, RCPs). Given the challenge of identifying and gaining access to good quality data from local partners, the LANDSUPPORT project fostered the capacity building among partners through workshops and other interactions and drew attention to better data management and improved accessibility and sharing. Embedding data access and its use in end-user organizations is vital to generating and sustaining interest in the dashboards.

This report presents the analysis carried out to test the LANDSUPPORT DSS’s ability to support EU policies when applied at the EU scale. Key EU policies of interest include the 7th Environmental Action Porgamme; COM 2006/231 Soil Strategy, Dir 2000/60/EC Water Directive; Dir 2007/2/EC INSPIRE Directive. and the land-related targets of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in particular, SDGs 2 “Zero Hunger”, 3 “god healh and well-being”, 13 “Climate action”, 15, with a special emphasis to the key SDG 15.3.1, “achieving a land degradation-neutral world” (LDN) and climate change (CC) mitigation goals.

This report accompanies the release of the soil dataset collected as part of the 2018 Land Use/Cover Area frame statistical Survey’ (generally referred to as LUCAS Soil). It presents an overview of the laboratory analysis data and provides a detailed description of the results for the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom as it was still a Member State at the time of the survey. The report describes the spatial variability of soil properties by land cover (LC) class and a comparative analysis of the soil properties for NUTS 2 regions.

Black Soils have attracted renewed attention from policy-makers and the public thanks to strong interest from China; an International Network on Black Soils was launched in 2017 and the first plenary meeting held in Harbin in 2018. The Chernozem originally defined by Dokuchaev in 1883 is the central concept of Black Soils but, more than 140 years on, these soils have been much changed by human intervention and there is a need for a new definition—including Chernozem but, also, other soils with similar properties. The term Black Soils is taken to encompass Chernozem, Kastanozem and Phaeozem—all characterized by thick, dark-coloured, humus-rich topsoil originally developed under grassland. Chernozems, in particular, are known for their granular structure, optimal bulk density, and goodly stock of plant nutrients; however, all these favorable properties are only present in soils within virgin ecosystems that are now rare. Black Soils make up only 7% of the land surface but they are of fundamental importance to food security; UN Sustainable Development Goal 2—to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030—will only be achieved if we introduce a mandatory framework for their sustainable management. Sustainable management means arrest of soil erosion, compaction, salinity, sodicity, pollution and soil sealing; maintenance of protective cover, a stable stock of soil organic matter both as a store of plant nutrients and as a carbon sink; maintenance of capacity to infiltrate and hold rainfall and irrigation water but drain any excess to streams and groundwater; and conservation of biodiversity to maintain essential soil functions.

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Soil fungi strongly influence ecosystem structure and functioning, playing a key role in many ecological services as decomposers, plant mutualists and pathogens. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) establish mutualistic symbiotic associations with plant roots and act as biofertilizers by enhancing plant nutrients and water uptake. Information about the AMF association with Crocus sativus L. (saffron) and their impact on crop performances and spice quality has been increasing in recent years. Instead, there is still little data on the biodiversity of soil microbial communities associated with this crop in the Alpine environments. The aims of this study were to investigate the fungal communities of two Alpine experimental sites cultivated with saffron, and to rank the relative impact of two AMF inocula, applied to soil as single species (R = Rhizophagus intraradices, C. Walker & A. Schüßler) or a mixture of two species (M = R. intraradices and Funneliformis mosseae, C. Walker & A. Schüßler), on the resident fungal communities which might be influenced in their diversity and composition. We used Illumina MiSeq metabarcoding on nuclear ribosomal ITS2 region to characterize the fungal communities associated to Crocus sativus cultivation in two fields, located in the municipalities of Saint Christophe (SC) and Morgex (MG), (Aosta Valley, Italy), treated or not with AMF inocula and sampled for two consecutive years (Y1; Y2). Data analyses consistently indicated that Basidiomycota were particularly abundant in both sites and sampling years (Y1 and Y2). Significant differences in the distribution of fungal taxa assemblages at phylum and class levels between the two sites were also found. The main compositional differences consisted in significant abundance changes of OTUs belonging to Dothideomycetes and Leotiomycetes (Ascomycota), Agaricomycetes and Tremellomycetes (Basidiomycota), Mortierellomycetes and Mucoromycetes. Further differences concerned OTUs, of other classes, significantly represented only in the first or second year of sampling. Concerning Glomeromycota, the most represented genus was Claroideoglomus always detected in both sites and years. Other AMF genera such as Funneliformis, Septoglomus and Microdominikia, were retrieved only in MG site. Results highlighted that neither sites nor inoculation significantly impacted Alpine saffron-field fungal communities; instead, the year of sampling had the most appreciable influence on the resident communities

10.3390/jof7010045

Soil erosion is generally recognized as the dominant process of land degradation. The formation and expansion of gullies is often a highly significant process of soil erosion. However, our ability to assess and simulate gully erosion and its impacts remains very limited. This is especially so at regional to continental scales. As a result, gullying is often overlooked in policies and land and catchment management strategies. Nevertheless, significant progress has been made over the past decades. Based on a review of >590 scientific articles and policy documents, we provide a state-of-the-art on our ability to monitor, model and manage gully erosion at regional to continental scales. In this review we discuss the relevance and need of assessing gully erosion at regional to continental scales (Section 1); current methods to monitor gully erosion as well as pitfalls and opportunities to apply them at larger scales (section 2); field-based gully erosion research conducted in Europe and European Russia (section 3); model approaches to simulate gully erosion and its contribution to catchment sediment yields at large scales (section 4); data products that can be used for such simulations (section 5); and currently existing policy tools and needs to address the problem of gully erosion (section 6). Section 7 formulates a series of recommendations for further research and policy development, based on this review. While several of these sections have a strong focus on Europe, most of our findings and recommendations are of global significance.

10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103637

Mercury (Hg) is one of the most dangerous pollutants worldwide. In the European Union (EU), we recently estimated the Hg distribution in topsoil using 21,591 samples and a series of geo-physical inputs. In this manuscript, we investigate the impact of mining activities, chrol-alkali industries and other diffuse pollution sources as primary anthropogenic sources of Hg hotspots in the EU. Based on Hg measured soil samples, we modelled the Hg pool in EU topsoils, which totals about 44.8 Gg, with an average density of 103 g ha−1. As a following step, we coupled the estimated Hg stocks in topsoil with the pan-European assessment of soil loss due to water erosion and sediment distribution. In the European Union and UK, we estimated that about 43 Mg Hg yr−1 are displaced by water erosion and c. a. 6 Mg Hg yr−1 are transferred with sediments to river basins and eventually released to coastal Oceans. The Mediterranean Sea receives almost half (2.94 Mg yr−1) of the Hg fluxes to coastal oceans and it records the highest quantity of Hg sediments. This is the result of elevated soil Hg concentration and high erosion rates in the catchments draining into the Mediterranean Sea. This work contributes to new knowledge in support of the policy development in the EU on the Zero Pollution Action Plan and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 3.9 and 14.1, which both have as an objective to reduce soil pollution by 2030.

10.1016/j.envres.2021.111556

Protecting the structure and functioning of soil ecosystems is one of the central aims of current regulations of chemicals. This is, for instance, shown by the emphasis on the protection of key drivers and ecosystem services as proposed in the protection goal options for soil organisms by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Such targets require insight into soil biodiversity, its role in the functioning of ecosystems, and the way it responds to stress. Also required are tools and methodologies for properly assessing biodiversity. To address these issues, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Europe 14th Special Science Symposium (SESSS14) was held 19 to 20 November 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. The central aim of the SESSS14 was to provide information on how to include soil biodiversity and soil functions as protection goal options in the risk assessment and quantification of the effects of chemicals and other stressors (including their respective regulations). This paper is based on the presentations and discussions at the SESSS14 and will give a brief update on the scientific state-of-the art on soil biodiversity, novel scientific developments, experimental and modeling approaches, as well as case studies. It will also discuss how these approaches could inform future risk assessment of chemicals and other stressors in the regulatory context of protecting soil ecosystems. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021;17:541–551. © 2020 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC)

10.1002/ieam.4371

Nature conservation literature and policy instruments mainly focus on the impacts of human development and the benefits of nature conservation for oceans and aboveground terrestrial organisms (e.g., birds and plants) and processes (e.g., food production), but these efforts almost completely ignore the majority of terrestrial biodiversity that is unseen and living in the soil (1). Little is known about the conservation status of most soil organisms and the effects of nature conservation policies on soil systems. Yet like “canaries in the coal mine,” when soil organisms begin to disappear, ecosystems will soon start to underperform, potentially hindering their vital functions for humankind. Soil biodiversity and its ecosystem functions thus require explicit consideration when establishing nature protection priorities and policies and when designing new conservation areas. To inform such efforts, we lay out a global soil biodiversity and ecosystem function monitoring framework to be considered in the context of the post-2020 discussions of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). To support this framework, we suggest a suite of soil ecological indicators based on essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) (2) (see the figure and table S3) that directly link to current global targets such as the ones established under the CBD, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Paris Agreement

10.1126/science.abd7926

We collected 881 soil samples from across Europe in the framework of the Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey (LUCAS). We measured potential soil basal respiration at 20 ºC and microbial biomass (substrate-induced respiration) using an O2-microcompensation apparatus. Soil and climate data were obtained from the same LUCAS survey and online databases. Structural equation models (SEMs) were used to quantify relationships between variables, and equations extracted from SEMs were used to create predictive maps. Fatty acid methyl esters were measured in a subset of samples to distinguish fungal from bacterial biomass.Soil microbial properties in croplands were more heavily affected by climate variables than those in forests. Potential soil basal respiration and microbial biomass were correlated in forests but decoupled in grasslands and croplands, where microbial biomass depended on soil carbon. Forests had a higher ratio of fungi to bacteria than grasslands or croplands.
Soil microbial communities in grasslands and croplands are likely carbon-limited in comparison with those in forests, and forests have a higher dominance of fungi indicating differences in microbial community composition. Notably, the often already-degraded soils of croplands could be more vulnerable to climate change than more natural soils. The provided maps show potentially vulnerable areas that should be explicitly accounted for in future management plans to protect soil carbon and slow the increasing vulnerability of European soils to climate change.

10.1111/geb.13371