Imapcts of climate change adaptation pathways in agriculture on soil services and Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

Soil systems are fundamental for food security and for sustainable development
provides biomass for food, feed, energy and fibre
serves as habitats for organisms and gene pools (biodiversity)
contributes to carbon sequestration
•Effects of climate change associated with extreme events, such as heavy rainfall, heat waves, drought and landslides, however, threatens to increase the potential for soil erosion and soil compaction

Climate change may affect soil functions and services in two ways, directly and indirectly
e.g. soil erosion rates may increase because of increased frequencies of high intensity rainfalls → direct
irrigation regimes, crop rotation changes, or soil tillage practices as adaptation measures may improve or deteriorate soil quality → indirect
•Comprehensive evidence exists for the first case of direct effects, knowledge about the indirect effects of agricultural adaptation pathways is more scattered
•Meanwhile, improving soil functions play an important role in achieving a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly (Montanarella & Alva 2015; Bouma & Montanarella 2016):
SDG 2: achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture
SDG 13: take action to combat climate change and its impacts
SDG 15: reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Conclusions

While comprehensive evidence exists for direct effect of climate change on soil services, there has yet to be a study that has investigated the indirect linkage
•This study seeks to address this gap so as to improve the scientific knowledge on sustainable soil management
•Although adaptation practices show improvements in soil erosion and soil organic matters, the main challenge remains to combat soil compaction
•Adaptation practices reveal rather positive effect on food and biomass production as well as improvement of carbon sequestration in soil (storing more carbon in soils) but other two functions seem to be less focus
•Achievement of SDG 2 and 13 targets are currently underway with positive link, however the achievement of SDG 15 need to be the focus going forward

•We hope to get completed information from all case studies to improve the robustness of the findings
•We feel rather biased approach towards the northern part of Europe (N=7)
•The study aimed to understand and find out the impacts of climate change adaptation practices on soil services. Appropriate “response” policy tools could be an additional interesting research
•How climate change impacts soil function in the absence of adaptation → perhaps, would reveal the value of adaptation knowledge and action