The 5C's of soil security guiding realization of ecosystem services in line with the UN-SDGs

Abstract

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have a deadline of 2030 so, restricting attention to agriculture, development and implementation of management measures, aimed at reaching the goals, is urgent. Even though the current 159 very broad targets and 234 indicators for the SDGs don't mention soils, soils play a key role when addressing indicators 2.4.1 and 15.3.1 aimed at “sustainable agriculture” and “degraded land”, by introducing operational methods to assess soil health and interdisciplinary ecosystem services in line with the SDGs. Application of the soil security concept, combining biophysical and socioeconomic approaches, is essential for sustainability research where dominant socioeconomic considerations by stakeholders should frame the biophysical analysis. If stakeholders don't embrace SDG-inspired innovative management, nothing will materialize in the real world. Much research is still needed to address inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability issues but a plea is made at this critical point in time to also apply a relatively straightforward and pragmatic research approach, essentially based on available data and methods, to assess ecosystem services, defining indicators and thresholds, in line with five key SDGs. Reference is made to an exploratory Dutch case study in a:”Living Lab”. The National Soil Health Institute in the US has already pioneered such a pragmatic approach by first emphasizing socioeconomic aspects and by incorporating the soil health analysis in regenerative farm management that is recognized by farmers. But the five ecosystem services will still have to be assessed here to maintain the link with the SDGs and the policy arena. The 5C's of soil security apply very well at farm level. The soil science profession will benefit from showing specific examples of “Living Labs” where five thresholds of ecosystem services are met, creating: ”Lighthouses” showing examples of achieved sustainable development in which soil health plays a key role as demonstrated by specific measurements.