Restoring Soil Quality to Mitigate Soil Degradation

TLDR

Global population growth demands a ~70 % rise in food production, but soil degradation—characterized by erosion, SOC depletion, biodiversity loss, fertility decline, acidification, and salinization—threatens this goal and can only be reversed through restorative land use and management practices. The study proposes a restorative strategy that minimizes erosion, builds SOC and nitrogen budgets, enhances soil biota and structure, and improves resource use efficiency to produce more from less. Implementation involves raising SOC above 10–15 g kg⁻¹ using site‑specific techniques such as conservation agriculture, integrated nutrient management, continuous vegetative cover, and controlled grazing.

Abstract

Feeding the world population, 7.3 billion in 2015 and projected to increase to 9.5 billion by 2050, necessitates an increase in agricultural production of ~70% between 2005 and 2050. Soil degradation, characterized by decline in quality and decrease in ecosystem goods and services, is a major constraint to achieving the required increase in agricultural production. Soil is a non-renewable resource on human time scales with its vulnerability to degradation depending on complex interactions between processes, factors and causes occurring at a range of spatial and temporal scales. Among the major soil degradation processes are accelerated erosion, depletion of the soil organic carbon (SOC) pool and loss in biodiversity, loss of soil fertility and elemental imbalance, acidification and salinization. Soil degradation trends can be reversed by conversion to a restorative land use and adoption of recommended management practices. The strategy is to minimize soil erosion, create positive SOC and N budgets, enhance activity and species diversity of soil biota (micro, meso, and macro), and improve structural stability and pore geometry. Improving soil quality (i.e., increasing SOC pool, improving soil structure, enhancing soil fertility) can reduce risks of soil degradation (physical, chemical, biological and ecological) while improving the environment. Increasing the SOC pool to above the critical level (10 to 15 g/kg) is essential to set-in-motion the restorative trends. Site-specific techniques of restoring soil quality include conservation agriculture, integrated nutrient management, continuous vegetative cover such as residue mulch and cover cropping, and controlled grazing at appropriate stocking rates. The strategy is to produce “more from less” by reducing losses and increasing soil, water, and nutrient use efficiency.