IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i13p3697-d246011.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Search for the Meaning of Soil Health: Lessons from Human Health and Ecosystem Health

Author

Listed:
  • Ee Ling Ng

    (School of Agriculture and Food, Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia)

  • Junling Zhang

    (Centre for Resources, Environment and Food Security, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions, Ministry of Education, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China)

Abstract

Soil is central to human wellbeing through its provision of critical ecosystem services, including food and clean water. These services emerge through the self-organising nature of the soil system. Here, we consider the lessons learnt from the evolution of the understanding of human and ecosystem health for the conceptualisation and application of soil health. We share the fundamental and practical challenges of managing the land with respect to soil health, and the need for policy to drive the protection of soil as one of our most important non-renewable natural resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Ee Ling Ng & Junling Zhang, 2019. "The Search for the Meaning of Soil Health: Lessons from Human Health and Ecosystem Health," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-6, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:13:p:3697-:d:246011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/13/3697/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/13/3697/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben Bond-Lamberty & Vanessa L. Bailey & Min Chen & Christopher M. Gough & Rodrigo Vargas, 2018. "Globally rising soil heterotrophic respiration over recent decades," Nature, Nature, vol. 560(7716), pages 80-83, August.
    2. M. Qadir & E. Quillérou & V. Nangia & G. Murtaza & M. Singh & R.J. Thomas & P. Drechsel & A.D. Noble, 2014. "Economics of salt‐induced land degradation and restoration," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 0(4), pages 282-295, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dean C. Stronge & Bryan A. Stevenson & Garth R. Harmsworth & Robyn L. Kannemeyer, 2020. "A Well-Being Approach to Soil Health—Insights from Aotearoa New Zealand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-12, September.
    2. Rui Zhao & Kening Wu, 2021. "Soil Health Evaluation of Farmland Based on Functional Soil Management—A Case Study of Yixing City, Jiangsu Province, China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-27, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hui Wei & Yalan Liu & Huimin Xiang & Jiaen Zhang & Saifei Li & Jiayue Yang, 2019. "Soil pH Responses to Simulated Acid Rain Leaching in Three Agricultural Soils," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Corwin, D.L. & Scudiero, E. & Zaccaria, D., 2022. "Modified ECa – ECe protocols for mapping soil salinity under micro-irrigation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    3. van Straten, G. & de Vos, A.C. & Rozema, J. & Bruning, B. & van Bodegom, P.M., 2019. "An improved methodology to evaluate crop salt tolerance from field trials," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 375-387.
    4. Ashenafi Worku Daba & Asad Sarwar Qureshi, 2021. "Review of Soil Salinity and Sodicity Challenges to Crop Production in the Lowland Irrigated Areas of Ethiopia and Its Management Strategies," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-21, December.
    5. Jinshi Jian & Vanessa Bailey & Kalyn Dorheim & Alexandra G. Konings & Dalei Hao & Alexey N. Shiklomanov & Abigail Snyder & Meredith Steele & Munemasa Teramoto & Rodrigo Vargas & Ben Bond-Lamberty, 2022. "Historically inconsistent productivity and respiration fluxes in the global terrestrial carbon cycle," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    6. Tunca, Mehmet Can & Saysel, Ali Kerem & Babaei, Masoud & Erpul, Günay, 2023. "A dynamic model for salinity and sodicity management on agricultural lands: Interactive simulation approach," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 482(C).
    7. Hafiz Muhammad Bilal & Haseeb Islam & Muhammad Adnan & Rohoma Tahir & Rabia Zulfiqar & Muhammad Shakeeb Umer & Muhammad Mohsin kaleem, 2020. "Effect of Salinity Stress on Growth, Yield and Quality of Roses: A Review," International Journal of Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 25(1), pages 46-50, June.
    8. Aeggarchat Sirisankanan, 2023. "Natural circumstances and farm labor supply adjustment: the response of the farm labor supply to permanent and transitory natural events," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(9), pages 9935-9961, September.
    9. Sheoran, Parvender & Basak, Nirmalendu & Kumar, Ashwani & Yadav, R.K. & Singh, Randhir & Sharma, Raman & Kumar, Satyendra & Singh, Ranjay K. & Sharma, P.C., 2021. "Ameliorants and salt tolerant varieties improve rice-wheat production in soils undergoing sodification with alkali water irrigation in Indo–Gangetic Plains of India," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    10. Nur Hidayah Hamidi & Osumanu Haruna Ahmed & Latifah Omar & Huck Ywih Ch’ng & Prisca Divra Johan & Puvan Paramisparam & Mohamadu Boyie Jalloh, 2021. "Acid Soils Nitrogen Leaching and Buffering Capacity Mitigation Using Charcoal and Sago Bark Ash," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-17, October.
    11. Minhas, P.S. & Ramos, Tiago B. & Ben-Gal, Alon & Pereira, Luis S., 2020. "Coping with salinity in irrigated agriculture: Crop evapotranspiration and water management issues," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    12. Shiksha Chaurasia & Arvind Kumar & Amit Kumar Singh, 2022. "Comprehensive Evaluation of Morpho-Physiological and Ionic Traits in Wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) Genotypes under Salinity Stress," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-15, October.
    13. Kailiang Yu & Philippe Ciais & Sonia I. Seneviratne & Zhihua Liu & Han Y. H. Chen & Jonathan Barichivich & Craig D. Allen & Hui Yang & Yuanyuan Huang & Ashley P. Ballantyne, 2022. "Field-based tree mortality constraint reduces estimates of model-projected forest carbon sinks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    14. Charlotte J. Alster & Allycia Laar & Jordan P. Goodrich & Vickery L. Arcus & Julie R. Deslippe & Alexis J. Marshall & Louis A. Schipper, 2023. "Quantifying thermal adaptation of soil microbial respiration," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    15. Song, Changji & Song, Jingru & Wu, Qiang & Shen, Xiaojun & Hu, Yawei & Hu, Caihong & Li, Wenhao & Wang, Zhenhua, 2023. "Effects of applying river sediment with irrigation water on salinity leaching during wheat-maize rotation in the Yellow River Delta," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    16. Alon Nissan & Uria Alcolombri & Nadav Peleg & Nir Galili & Joaquin Jimenez-Martinez & Peter Molnar & Markus Holzner, 2023. "Global warming accelerates soil heterotrophic respiration," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    17. Xia An & Qin Liu & Feixiang Pan & Yu Yao & Xiahong Luo & Changli Chen & Tingting Liu & Lina Zou & Weidong Wang & Jinwang Wang & Xing Liu, 2023. "Research Advances in the Impacts of Biochar on the Physicochemical Properties and Microbial Communities of Saline Soils," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-16, October.
    18. Shih-Chi Lee & Yutaka Kitamura & Shu-Hsien Tsai & Chuan-Chi Chien & Chun-Shen Cheng & Chin-Cheng Hsieh, 2022. "Screening of Rhizosphere Microbes of Salt-Tolerant Plants and Developed Composite Materials of Biochar Micro-Coated Soil Beneficial Microorganisms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-15, December.
    19. Emmanuelle Quillérou & Oleg Guchgeldiyev & Stefanie Ettling & Hannes C. Etter & Naomi Stewart, 2016. "Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative: Broadening options for improved economic sustainability in Central Asia. Synthesis report," Working Papers hal-01954788, HAL.
    20. Yuan Qiu & Yamin Wang & Yaqiong Fan & Xinmei Hao & Sien Li & Shaozhong Kang, 2023. "Root, Yield, and Quality of Alfalfa Affected by Soil Salinity in Northwest China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-17, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:13:p:3697-:d:246011. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.