The total costs of soil degradation in England and Wales

Abstract

There is growing concern that the way that soils are used often results in their degradation, giving rise to significant costs, both to direct users of soils and to society as a whole. This paper develops and uses an approach to derive the total economic cost of soil degradation in England and Wales. An estimate was made of degradation costs at the national scale for dominant combinations of land cover and soils, defined as ‘soilscapes’. An ecosystem services framework was used to assess how degradation affects the capacity of soils to support a range of ‘final goods’, distinguishing between on-site and off-site costs, and market and non-market effects. Quantifiable soil degradation costs ranged between £0.9 bn and £1.4 bn per year, with a central estimate of £1.2 bn, mainly linked to loss of organic content of soils (47% of total cost), compaction (39%) and erosion (12%). Eighty percent of costs occur off-site and, as such, are often of limited concern to those whose actions may be causing soil degradation. The findings confirm that control of soil degradation has implications for a number of key policy areas such as flood risk management and climate change mitigation.