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- Evans, D. L., et al.
(author)
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Sustainable futures over the next decade are rooted in soil science
- 2022
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In: European Journal of Soil Science. - : Wiley. - 1351-0754 .- 1365-2389. ; 73:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The importance of soils to society has gained increasing recognition over the past decade, with the potential to contribute to most of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With unprecedented and growing demands for food, water and energy, there is an urgent need for a global effort to address the challenges of climate change and land degradation, whilst protecting soil as a natural resource. In this paper, we identify the contribution of soil science over the past decade to addressing gaps in our knowledge regarding major environmental challenges: climate change, food security, water security, urban development, and ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. Continuing to address knowledge gaps in soil science is essential for the achievement of the SDGs. However, with limited time and budget, it is also pertinent to identify effective methods of working that ensure the research carried out leads to real-world impact. Here, we suggest three strategies for the next decade of soil science, comprising a greater implementation of research into policy, interdisciplinary partnerships to evaluate function trade-offs and synergies between soils and other environmental domains, and integrating monitoring and modelling methods to ensure soil-based policies can withstand the uncertainties of the future. Highlights: We highlight the contributions of soil science to five major environmental challenges since 2010. Researchers have contributed to recommendation reports, but work is rarely translated into policy. Interdisciplinary work should assess trade-offs and synergies between soils and other domains. Integrating monitoring and modelling is key for robust and sustainable soils-based policymaking.
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- Ferreira, Carla S. S., et al.
(author)
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Soil degradation in the European Mediterranean region : Processes, status and consequences
- 2022
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In: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 805
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Soil, a non-renewable resource, sustains life on Earth by supporting around 95% of global food production and providing ecosystem services such as biomass production, filtration of contaminants and transfer of mass and energy between spheres. Unsustainable management practices and climate change are threatening the natural capital of soils, particularly in the Mediterranean region, where increasing population, rapid land-use changes, associated socio-economic activities and climate change are imposing high pressures on the region's shallow soils. Despite evidence of high soil susceptibility to degradation and desertification, the true extent of soil degradation in the region is unknown. This paper reviews and summarises the scientific literature and relevant official reports, with the aim to advance this knowledge by synthesizing, mapping, and identifying gaps regarding the status, causes, and consequences of soil degradation processes in the European Mediterranean region. This is needed as scientific underpinning of efforts to counteract soil degradation in the region. Three main degradation categories are then considered: physical (soil sealing, compaction, erosion), chemical (soil organic matter, contamination, salinisation), and biological. We find some degradation processes to be relatively well documented (e.g. soil erosion), while others, such as loss of biodiversity, remain poorly addressed, with limited data availability. We suggest establishment of a continuous, harmonised soil monitoring system at national and regional scale in the Mediterranean region to provide comparable datasets and chart the spatial extent and temporal changes in soil degradation, and corresponding economic implications. This is critical to support decision making and fulfilment of related sustainable development goals.
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- Raška, Pavel, et al.
(author)
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Identifying barriers for nature-based solutions in flood risk management : An interdisciplinary overview using expert community approach
- 2022
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In: Journal of Environmental Management. - : Elsevier BV. - 0301-4797 .- 1095-8630. ; 310
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The major event that hit Europe in summer 2021 reminds society that floods are recurrent and among the costliest and deadliest natural hazards. The long-term flood risk management (FRM) efforts preferring sole technical measures to prevent and mitigate floods have shown to be not sufficiently effective and sensitive to the environment. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) mark a recent paradigm shift of FRM towards solutions that use nature-derived features, processes and management options to improve water retention and mitigate floods. Yet, the empirical evidence on the effects of NBS across various settings remains fragmented and their implementation faces a series of institutional barriers. In this paper, we adopt a community expert perspective drawing upon LAND4FLOOD Natural flood retention on private land network (https://www.land4flood.eu) in order to identify a set of barriers and their cascading and compound interactions relevant to individual NBS. The experts identified a comprehensive set of 17 barriers affecting the implementation of 12 groups of NBS in both urban and rural settings in five European regional environmental domains (i.e., Boreal, Atlantic, Continental, Alpine-Carpathian, and Mediterranean). Based on the results, we define avenues for further research, connecting hydrology and soil science, on the one hand, and land use planning, social geography and economics, on the other. Our suggestions ultimately call for a transdisciplinary turn in the research of NBS in FRM.
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- Åhlen, Imenne, et al.
(author)
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Hydro-climatic changes of wetlandscapes across the world
- 2021
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In: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 11:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Assessments of ecosystem service and function losses of wetlandscapes (i.e., wetlands and their hydrological catchments) suffer from knowledge gaps regarding impacts of ongoing hydro-climatic change. This study investigates hydro-climatic changes during 1976–2015 in 25 wetlandscapes distributed across the world’s tropical, arid, temperate and cold climate zones. Results show that the wetlandscapes were subject to precipitation (P) and temperature (T) changes consistent with mean changes over the world’s land area. However, arid and cold wetlandscapes experienced higher T increases than their respective climate zone. Also, average P decreased in arid and cold wetlandscapes, contrarily to P of arid and cold climate zones, suggesting that these wetlandscapes are located in regions of elevated climate pressures. For most wetlandscapes with available runoff (R) data, the decreases were larger in R than in P, which was attributed to aggravation of climate change impacts by enhanced evapotranspiration losses, e.g. caused by land-use changes.
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