Soil health assessment and inventory: indices and databases

Description

It is increasingly appreciated that the soil resource embodies significant natural capital supporting valuable ecosystem services, yet soil natural capital and ecosystem services are threatened by land degradation at the same time as they become more central to efforts to expand food production to feed a growing population. This chapter explores the challenges for comprehensive soil health assessment, giving an account of soil health assessment frameworks and indices and indexing systems in active use. The chapter looks at practical on-farm assessment of soil health, including the use of soil health cards, crowdsourcing and citizen science. It also describes methods of mapping soil health and the use of soil property databases, concluding with a proposal for a multi-scale soil database framework. Finally, the chapter looks ahead to future research trends and provides detailed guidance on further reading in this area.

Table of contents

1 Introduction 2 Challenges for comprehensive soil health assessment 3 Soil health assessment frameworks and indices 4 Indexing systems in active use 5 Classifying indicators and indices 6 Practical on-farm assessment: soil health cards, crowdsourcing and citizen science 7 Mapping soil health 8 Soil property databases 9 Conclusion 10 Future trends 11 Where to look for further information 12 References