Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
concepts promote this idea, so that we can understand management
trade-offs for decision making in policy. However, in order to utilise this
framework we need to build the ecosystem service concepts for soils,
understand the influence of man on soil stocks and services through
anthropogenic soil change, and how best to monitor this soil change.
This forms the basis of this chapter which reviews soil ecosystem service
concepts, direct and indirect drivers of global soil change, and methods
of monitoring national soil change using selected stocks from the
Countryside Survey of Great Britain as an example. Finally we focus on
valuation, and consider some of the methods being used to value
ecosystem services and how these might be applied to the soil resource.
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1 Overview of Soil Ecosystem Services
Society exploits nature to produce goods and services that are of benefit to our
individual and societal well-being, food being a primary example of nature's
provision. Supporting this is the thin layer of soil that envelopes the earth,
lying between us, our prosperity and certain starvation. Stewarding the land
and using our soil resource with wisdom and care is, therefore, of the utmost
importance to our continued well-being and a sustainable society. Food, feed
and fibre production, however, represent only one set of services we obtain
from soils. Other, less well recognised services such as waste disposal, nutrient
recycling, water filtration, carbon (C) storage and the support of genetic
diversity are all vital to maintaining the functioning of the earth system as
increasingly soils need to fulfil a multifunctional role.
1.1 Nature's Services
Soils are a vital component of the earth system, not only acting as the
biogeochemical engine, but also fulfilling a range of important functions that
include supporting and sustaining our terrestrial ecosystems, regulating the
atmosphere, filtering water, and recycling waste. Increasingly, soils offer an
important cultural resource, preserving artefacts and heritage, supporting
landscapes, providing aesthetic beauty in the form of soilscapes, as well as
recreation areas and sports fields. The faunal biodiversity of soils, long
recognised, has provided important medical resources such as antibiotics,
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and
continues to provide new discoveries like the recent finding reported by the
BBC
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that the Clostridium sporogenes bacterium may provide a promising way
of delivering cancer drugs into tumours. The challenge for society is to determine
how to balance use and exploitation of the soil resource in a way that maintains
all these functions. We must address the issue of how we value our soils and
trade-offs in their functionality in an increasingly anthropocentric world where
decisions are often made according to cost-benefit analysis.
