Abstract
What is soil health? It is not essential to have a degree in soil science in order to have a valid opinion on this. In a very general sense, almost everybody has some impression of what is meant by a healthy soil, especially anyone who has done any gardening or even looked after a potted plant on a windowsill. They will probably say it should have a beautiful crumbly structure, should hold water but not become waterlogged, and be teeming with life; provided that life does not include insects or pathogens that damage the plants. In a somewhat analogous way, the word “wellbeing” is used concerning the way individual humans feel about themselves and we will all have our own ideas on what contributes to our personal wellbeing. It is likely to include being in good physical and mental health, being adequately fed and being housed. However, social scientists have taken the idea further, developing indicators of wellbeing and even using these to compare the state of wellbeing in different countries and assess the impact of policies on the way people feel. Some may consider that this is taking the “wellbeing” concept too far. With soil health, perhaps soil scientists make it too complicated. However, although anyone may have a general idea of what makes a healthy soil, if the term is to be used in anything other than general informal conversation, we do need to “dig a little deeper”, if readers will excuse the pun.
Highlights
What is soil health? It is not essential to have a degree in soil science in order to have a valid opinion on this
A 1977 conference paper by Warkentin and Fletcher[5] is usually cited as the first scientific publication to use the term “soil quality” but Bünemann et al.[1] cite an earlier paper by Mausel[6] published in 1971 describing the suitability of different soils in Illinois, USA, to grow various crops
A influential action in promoting the term and concepts of SQ was the establishment in 1994 of a committee by the Soil Science Society of America to “define the concepts of soil quality, examine its rationale and justification, and identify soil and plant attributes that would be useful for describing and evaluating soil quality”[10]. This committee was established in response to questions on the subject by policymakers and others following publication of a book entitled Soil and Water Quality: An Agenda for Agriculture by the US National Academy of Sciences[11]. Perhaps this was an example of soil scientists at that time being unable to respond to the requirements of policymakers and having to rapidly learn how to communicate more effectively with fellow citizens who were not soil science specialists but did have a vital interest in the properties and functioning of soils
Summary
Since time immemorial humans must have developed some concept regarding the functioning of soils. Villages and later cities usually developed in areas where the surrounding land was capable of producing sufficient food for the population. When I began my career in soil science in the 1960s, the term “soil fertility” was commonly used as a way of describing the success (or failure) of specific soils to grow agricultural crops. This term clearly has its limitations because it is usually limited to agricultural uses of soil. One example is the Land Use Capability Classification for the UK published over 50 years ago[3] which was, in part, inspired by an earlier system developed for the USA[4]
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