Soil Degradation, Land Scarcity and Food Security: Reviewing a Complex Challenge
Abstract
:1. Introduction: The Key Priority Represented by Soil Conservation
- the sustainability of soils is key to addressing the pressures of a growing population,
- the sustainable management of soils can contribute to healthy soils and thus to a food-secure world and to stable and sustainably used ecosystems,
- good land management is of economic and social significance, and this includes soil management, particularly for its contribution towards economic growth, biodiversity, sustainable agriculture and food security, which in turn are key to eradicating poverty and allowing women’s empowerment,
- it is urgent to address issues such as climate change, water availability, desertification, land degradation and drought, as they pose global challenges,
- there is an urgent need at all levels to raise awareness and to promote sustainable use of our limited soil resources using the best available scientific information and building on all dimensions of sustainable development.
1.1. The Great Achievement of Agriculture Since the “Green Revolution”
1.2. The Pressure on the Land and the Appropriation of the Net Primary Productivity of Nature
1.3. Is There Enough Land to Meet Future Needs?
1.4. Soil Degradation: A Threat to Future Food Security
2. Soil Degradation: Definition, Typologies and Estimates of the Problem
2.1. Defining Soil Degradation
2.2. Estimates of Soil Degradation
2.3. Soil Erosion and Other Typologies of Soil Degradation
3. The Importance of Preserving Soil as Capital: A Call for a Precautionary Approach
3.1. Humans and Soil: Is History Always Repeating Itself?
3.2. Economics and the Soil: Are We Doomed to Perpetuate the Spoiling of Our Most Important Capital?
3.3. The Importance of Preserving True Capital: Soil Health
4. Soil Degradation and the Scenarios of Agricultural Land: Optimism vs. Concern
4.1. The Optimistic View: Agricultural Land is Still Potentially Abundant
4.2. The Concerned View: Soil Quality and Soil Degradation Greatly Affect Agriculture Productivity
4.3. Trends for Arable Land 1980–2010: The Complex Relation between Land, Population and Economic Growth
4.4. Energy: A Key Constraint for the Future of Agriculture
4.5. The Necessity to Embrace a Precautionary Approach and to Adopt Novel Modeling Tools
- “soil degradation” is a broad definition, including many processes that affect the soil in different ways and to different extents; a unique definition of soil degradation is missing;
- there is a lack of objective criteria to define soil degradation (soil and land degradation are often used as synonyms, although they are not); in most cases, different processes take place at the same time, making the enterprise very challenging;
- it is difficult to gather basic data, and the figures provided by many local and national institutions are affected by high uncertainty and unreliability. FAO [57] argues that the quantity and quality of information on soil degradation is very variable in different regions, and that great differences exist between countries in data and data availability on soil resources and soil change information.
- Uncertainty in the basic data
- ○
- as FAO [57] (p. 8) argues, “Crop models, especially when run at global scale, are highly complex models that differ widely in terms of process representations, functional implementations, data input choices and basic assumptions. Even with the same version of the same basic underlying mode, … results often differ substantially”;
- ○
- the difficulty to know the actual land in use, its quality and the real productivity of the crops; as Alexandratos and Bruinsma [32] warn, for many countries data are unreliable or even non-existent). Unreliable data may also concern other domains such as economics, inputs and, in many countries, the population itself;
- Methodological limitations
- ○
- data from different models are difficult to compare as they rely on different assumptions, boundaries and protocols;
- ○
- land use is mapped at a scale that does not account for the real morphology, features and use of the land (e.g., hilly and rocky outcrops), leading to gaps in basic data;
- ○
- the amount of land occupied by the people themselves is not properly accounted for;
- ○
- the analysis underestimates the amount of land that is actually cultivated (e.g., illegal land occupation, forest use);
- ○
- the lack of integration among the different domains that characterize food production, such as the future scenarios of water and energy, the fate of some key elements (e.g., phosphorus);
- ○
- most of the land that FAO includes as potential cropland is actually represented by rain forests, grazing land and marginal land that may be providing ecosystem services;
- Oversights in the description of key issues
- ○
- soil degradation is not taken into account, yet it greatly affects productivity and land conversion [71] provide a review on this issue);
- ○
- the effect of climate change, the changes in water and energy supply are poorly (or not at all) included in the scenarios. It has to be stressed that the cost of inputs (and therefore the price of energy) is a key issue for maintaining high agricultural productivity;
- ○
- the effects of trade and globalization bring a lot of uncertainty to the agricultural sector in different regions/countries. Other socioeconomic issues are not considered either (e.g., credit, financial speculation, conflicts);
- ○
- the effects of future social and economic trends, which will pose great pressure on existing resources and on the resilience of the social fabric.
- Developing clear definitions of soil and land degradation
- Gathering more on-the-ground information/measure
- Integrating different sources of information (trying not to rely on a single source)
- Adopting “nexus approaches”: Understanding soil and land degradation within the metabolism of societies
- Adopting a precautionary approach
5. Preserving Soil Organic Matter: Adopting Alternative Agricultural Practices
6. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
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Total Land | Potential | VS + S | MS | PS | NS | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total land * | 13295 | 4495 | 3502 | 993 | 3731 | 6061 |
of which in agricultural use (1999/2001) | 1559 | 1260 | 1058 | 201 | 425 | 75 |
Gross balance of rain-fed potential | 3236 | 2444 | 792 | 3306 | ||
Under forest | 3736 | 1601 | 1307 | 293 | 1165 | 1263 |
Strictly protected land | 638 | 107 | 80 | 27 | 125 | 423 |
Built-up land | 152 | 116 | 102 | 14 | 36 | 15 |
Net balance of land with rain-fed potential | 1412 (VS + S + MS) | 955 | 458 | 1979 |
Top 10 Most Populated Countries | Pop. Year 2014 WB (M) | % World Pop. (7260 M) | % Arable Land/Capita 1980–2010 | Arable Land ha/capita (Year 2013) | Pop. Growth (Annual %) (2011–2015) | Pop. Year 2030 (est.) UN | Pop. Year 2050 (est.) UN |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
China | 1.364 | 18.8 | −18 | 0.08 | 0.5 | 1.415 | 1.348 |
India | 1.295 | 17.8 | −45 | 0.12 | 1.2 | 1.527 | 1.705 |
USA | 319 | 4.4 | −39 | 0.48 | 0.7 | 356 | 389 |
Indonesia | 254 | 3.5 | −20 | 0.09 | 1.3 | 295 | 322 |
Brazil | 206 | 2.8 | −4 | 0.37 | 0.9 | 229 | 238 |
Pakistan | 185 | 2.5 | −28 | 0.17 | 2.1 | 244 | 309 |
Nigeria | 177 | 2.4 | −19 | 0.20 | 2.7 | 262 | 398 |
Bangladesh | 159 | 2.2 | −54 | 0.04 | 1.2 | 186 | 202 |
Russian Fed. | 144 | 2.0 | −8 * | 0.85 | 0.2 | 139 | 127 |
Japan | 127 | 1.7 | −20 | 0.03 | −0.2 | 120 | 107 |
Total | 4.231 | 58 | 4.773 | 5.145 |
In the Field—Technical Actions (as Summarized by [214]) | At the National Level—Policy Actions (as Summarized by [6]) |
---|---|
Premise: the first step is being aware of the problem; the second is realizing that those problems will not solve themselves and action needs to be taken | |
minimizing bare soil by using cover crops and perennial crops in rotation or between perennial woody species such as in orchards | integrating production with conservation |
reducing tillage | gaining better information concerning all aspects of land resources |
applying organic amendments, albeit wisely ( i.e., in accordance with crop and system needs) | improving management methods, linking research to the work of farmers and learning from them as well for bidirectional knowledge exchange |
reducing chemical inputs by increasing nutrient use efficiency and using integrated pest management concepts | facing the population issue, as gains in productivity can be stripped away by the rapid population growth |
national governments taking responsibility for their actions | |
Warning: the value of the local knowledge of the environment and of local land resource management should be fully recognized and integrated in the survey work |
© 2016 by the author; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Gomiero, T. Soil Degradation, Land Scarcity and Food Security: Reviewing a Complex Challenge. Sustainability 2016, 8, 281. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8030281
Gomiero T. Soil Degradation, Land Scarcity and Food Security: Reviewing a Complex Challenge. Sustainability. 2016; 8(3):281. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8030281
Chicago/Turabian StyleGomiero, Tiziano. 2016. "Soil Degradation, Land Scarcity and Food Security: Reviewing a Complex Challenge" Sustainability 8, no. 3: 281. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8030281