Society's willingness to pay its way to soil security

Abstract

Soils are a crucial part of terrestrial ecosystems, holding most of the soil carbon, one-quarter of the biodiversity, and are essential for food production. Human forcings, including climate change and land use pressures, threaten the security of the soil for the provision of a whole range of soil functions. Soil capability to carry out important functions has seldom been evaluated in economic terms. Importantly, the existing economic studies have not been embedded in the soil security framework. Therefore, we have limited knowledge of how the general population values these soil functions and whether they wish to see their maintenance and improvement as part of public policy. Consequently, in this study, we aim to contribute to filling this gap by providing an estimation of the value, expressed in monetary terms, that individuals place on several soil functions and compare such values across large regions of two G20 countries. We present here an estimate of willingness to pay for two publicly-funded soil management strategies: the creation of biodiversity credits based on soil microbial diversity and soil carbon insetting for achieving net-zero agriculture. We show via a discrete choice experiment addressing 3,000 citizens that societies in the distant and contrasting regions of Veneto in Italy and New South Wales in Australia are willing to pay for soil security and financially support soil management practices that improve soil functions in their regions. Further analysis shows that the stated willingness to pay corresponds to socio-demographics and attitudes toward soil protection and general environmental concerns. The aggregated monetary value of the selected soil functions for the entire population is $244 M for Veneto and twice as much for New South Wales. Our research findings give decision-makers and resource managers insights into societies' willingness to make trade-offs in favour of increased soil security. In contrast to climate change and loss of biodiversity, soil degradation and loss of soil functions have received much less attention. In this empirical research, we provide evidence of the importance of accounting for soil functions in resource management, as societies benefit from them and are willing to pay for their conservation.