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Our relationships with the more-than-human world are always somewhat incomplete as they are partially based on our state of awareness of what reaches us through our doors of perception. Only a limited part of what is “out there” in front of us, registers in our brain. We tend to only notice what we consider worthwhile paying attention to. This “becoming aware” of presences of nonhuman others shifts in time, as we continuously move our bodies through space. Goethe was one of the first in the Western world who understood that our “exact sensorial perception” of natural phenomena, needs to be complemented by “’exact sensorial imagination”. Moreover, we should appreciate understandings stemming from our intuition, to be able to relate more fully also to what is not there, or not yet there. Perhaps, such an artful empiricism is all the more relevant and urgent in our time and age, to develop and further nourish a sense of connection with the “underworld” – the myriad life forms and vibrant non-living matter below our feet – indeed, the very focus of this Biotoopia seminar.In my presentation I looked into ways in which art can help us relate to the unseen, the unfolding, the emergent, so that our understandings of our shared lifeworld become not only richer, deeper layered, but also more appreciative of its infinite complexity.

In 2018 is de Waterwijzer Landbouw gelanceerd als opvolger van onderandere de HELP-methodiek waarmee het effect van hydrologische omstandigheden op landbouwproductie is te bepalen. Omdat het voor gebruikersbelangrijk is te weten hoe betrouwbaar en toepasbaar de Waterwijzer Landbouw is, hebben wij een validatie van het nieuwe instrument uitgevoerd opperceelschaal en regionale schaal, in stroomgebied De Raam in noordoostNoord-Brabant. De voornaamste bevinding van ons onderzoek is dat Waterwijzer Landbouw zowel op perceelniveau als op regionale schaal goed instaat blijkt te zijn om de mate van droogtestress en zuurstofstress in gewassen te simuleren voor de bodem-grondwaterdynamiek-combinaties dievoorkomen in het stroomgebied van De Raam. Ruimte voor verbetering iser natuurlijk ook. Door de gekozen opzet van het instrumentarium zijn deproblemen die worden ondervonden te herleiden naar de bron: hetzij de invoergegevens, hetzij de modelmatige procesbeschrijving.

'Plausibel' is een aanprijzing die met enige regelmaat wordt gegeven aan uitkomsten van hydrologische studies. Het schept vertrouwen als deskundigen onderzoeksresultaten 'plausibel' noemen. Maar wat bedoelen ze daar precies mee en bedoelen ze er allemaal hetzelfde mee? Is plausibiliteit objectief en reproduceerbaar vast te stellen? Wat is de rol van consensus bij de beoordeling van plausibiliteit? En als een deskundige een meetwaarde niet plausibel vindt, ligt dat dan aan de meting of aan de deskundigheid?

Watervision Agriculture (in Dutch: Waterwijzer Landbouw) is used to quantify the effects of hydrology and climate on agricultural crop production. To assess the extent to which the instrument is adequate, validation is required. Some of the results are described in this report. The crop development simulated by Watervision Agricultural was compared with local observations obtained from experimental farms and on a regional and national level with satellite images of the vegetation index. Also a comparison with the so called HELP-tabel was made.

The International Society of Precision Agriculture defined precision agriculture as follows: ‘Precision Agriculture is a management strategy that gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual data and combines it with other information to support management decisions according to estimated variability for improved resource use efficiency, productivity, quality, profitability and sustainability of agricultural production’ (www.ispag.org). Bouma (2007) stated more concisely that precision agriculture aims at adjusting and fine-tuning land and crop management to the needs of plants within heterogeneous fields. Besides a reactive approach, using yield maps and sensors, Bouma (2007) also promotes the proactive approach in which simulation models for plant growth and soil processes can be used to predict optimal timing of management practices. The attention required for crop modelling is evident, as high yields of good quality mean a good profit for the farmers. This profit can be increased if the use of resources, such as fertilizers, land management practices and irrigation water, is minimized. Minimizing the use of resources means that we are at the cutting edge. For example, we are balancing between adding too much or too little water and fertilizers. This requires good knowledge on the interaction of soil–water–plant–atmosphere processes.

Climate-smart sustainable management of agricultural soil is critical to improve soil health, enhance food and water security, contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity preservation, and improve human health and wellbeing. The European Joint Programme for Soil (EJP SOIL) started in 2020 with the aim to significantly improve soil management knowledge and create a sustainable and integrated European soil research system. EJP SOIL involves more than 350 scientists across 24 Countries and has been addressing multiple aspects associated with soil management across different European agroecosystems. This study summarizes the key findings of stakeholder consultations conducted at the national level across 20 countries with the aim to identify important barriers and challenges currently affecting soil knowledge but also assess opportunities to overcome these obstacles. Our findings demonstrate that there is significant room for improvement in terms of knowledge production, dissemination and adoption. Among the most important barriers identified by consulted stakeholders are technical, political, social and economic obstacles, which strongly limit the development and full exploitation of the outcomes of soil research. The main soil challenge across consulted member states remains to improve soil organic matter and peat soil conservation while soil water storage capacity is a key challenge in Southern Europe. Findings from this study clearly suggest that going forward climate-smart sustainable soil management will benefit from (1) increases in research funding, (2) the maintenance and valorisation of long-term (field) experiments, (3) the creation of knowledge sharing networks and interlinked national and European infrastructures, and (4) the development of regionally-tailored soil management strategies. All the above-mentioned interventions can contribute to the creation of healthy, resilient and sustainable soil ecosystems across Europe.

Wateropname door plantenwortels is een kernproces in de (globale) watercyclus: meer dan 50% van de evapotranspiratie gaat via de plantenwortels terug naar de atmosfeer. Gebrek aan water in de wortelzone zal leiden tot reductie van de transpiratie en het gevolg is dat gewassen minder goed groeien (opbrengstreductie of opbrengstderving). Met simulatiemodellen voor de waterbalans in de (on)verzadigde bodem berekenen we de wateropname en de gevolgen voor gewasgroei. In Nederland maken we hiervoor gebruik van het agrohydrologische model SWAP (Soil Water Atmosphere Plant), bijvoorbeeld in het kader van de Waterwijzers Landbouw en Natuur. SWAP is ook de basis van het daarvan afgeleide metaSWAP dat wordt gebruikt in het Nederlands Hydrologisch Instrumentarium. Omdat in het recente verleden met deze modellen voor sommige bodem-gewascombinaties transpiratiereducties werden gesimuleerd die niet goed verklaard konden worden, is voorgesteld om de bestaande concepten voor het simuleren van wateropname in combinatie met een statische wortelverdeling te vergelijken met alternatieve wateropnameconcepten en een dynamische wortelverdeling. Twee bestaande, in de wetenschappelijke literatuur gepubliceerde, microscopische beschrijvingen voor wateropname door plantenwortels zijn toegevoegd aan SWAP. Deze microscopische concepten beschouwen stroming van water in een cilindervormige bodemkolom rondom een wortel naar de wortelwand toe en vervolgens de wortel in en naar het blad toe. Op deze manier wordt zowel rekening gehouden met de hydraulische eigenschappen van de bodem als met enkele gewaseigenschappen waaronder de doorlatendheid van de wortelwand en de geleidbaarheid in het pad wortel-stam-blad. Daarmee verschillen deze van het meer eenvoudige macroscopische concept van Feddes, waar geen rekening wordt gehouden met stroming naar een wortelwand toe. Voor alle 79 BOFEK2020-eenheden in combinatie met gras of mais en onder relatief droge en onder relatief natte hydrologische omstandigheden is het volgende waargenomen. • De wateropname gerealiseerd met beide microscopische concepten is in de meeste gevallen groter dan gesimuleerd met het traditionele macroscopische concept van Feddes. • De onderlinge verschillen in gesimuleerde wateropname tussen beide microscopische concepten zijn nihil. • Beide microscopische concepten zijn vrij ongevoelig voor de nieuw geïntroduceerde parameters. De enige parameter waarvoor beide modellen gevoelig kunnen zijn, is de doorlatendheid van de wortelwand, als deze zeer klein is. Bij dynamische wortelontwikkeling wordt nieuwe biomassa vooral daar aan de bestaande wortelbiomassa toebedeeld waar geen (of de geringste) transpiratiereductie wordt gesimuleerd, en eventuele afsterving van wortels zal plaatsvinden daar waar de meeste transpiratiereductie plaatsvindt. De mate waarin de plant dit dynamische gedrag kan uiten, is deels te sturen met een factor tussen de waarde 0 (geen dynamische wortelverdeling) en 1 (volledige dynamische wortelverdeling). Een belangrijk voordeel van toepassing van dynamische wortelverdeling is dat de wortelverdelingen die in de loop de tijd ontstaan zich relatief onafhankelijk ontwikkelen van de door de gebruiker opgegeven initiële wortelverdeling. Echter, wanneer uitgegaan wordt van een initiële uniforme (blok)verdeling, bestaat de kans dat er relatief veel wortels onder in de wortelzone ontstaan. Zeker bij relatief ondiepe grondwaterspiegeldieptes leidt dit tot een groot aandeel zuurstofstress. Daarom wordt afgeraden om met een initiële uniforme verdeling te starten. Dynamische wortelverdeling is toepasbaar in combinatie met zowel de macroscopische als de microscopische wateropnameconcepten. Zowel de microscopische wateropnamemodellen als de dynamische wortelverdeling zijn operationeel in de ontwikkelversie van SWAP. Het verdient de voorkeur om in de toekomst beide onderdelen te gaan gebruiken. Het gebruiken van microscopische wateropname past dan ook bij de huidige implementatie van microscopische zuurstofopname (analoge concepten). Het is echter nog wel nodig om eerst een nieuwe manier vast te stellen hoe microscopische wateroname het best gecombineerd kan worden met zuurstofstress (en zout- en vorststress).

Runoff data is crucial for development of water resources. Runoff data is however rarely available for ungauged catchments, especially in developing countries. Geomorphological instantaneous unit hydrographs (GIUH) models can be used for predicting runoff in poorly gauged catchments, but a challenge with these models is estimating the dynamic velocity parameter. In this study, three GIUH models were developed based on estimation of flow velocity using calibration of Manning’s n (GIUH-cal), peak discharge (GIUH-pq) and 30-min rain intensity (GIUH-I30). The objectives of this study were to (a) assess suitability of a GIUH model for simulating runoff in Gule catchment, northern Ethiopia and (b) evaluate performance of three velocity parameter estimation methods in simulating runoff using GIUH models. Runoff hydrographs of the GIUH models matched well with observed hygrographs for most rain events. The GIUH-cal model had the best performance, 18 out of 20 rain events resulting in Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency (NSE) values of 0.53 to 0.95. The GIUH-pq and GIUH-I30 models performed satisfactorily with 12 of the 20 rain events resulting in NSE values greater than 0.50. Overall, the GIUH models underestimated peak discharge compared to observed data. The GIUH models were moderately sensitive to changes in flow velocity. Peak discharge and time to peak discharge were highly sensitive to changes in flow velocity. The developed GIUH models could be used for simulating flood hydrographs of the Gule catchment. Particularly, the GIUH-I30 model will be very useful for estimating direct surface runoff in the absence of streamflow data.

Vegetation restoration serves as a long-term and important strategic initiative in ecologically-fragile locations worldwide, while the ecological effects of long-term vegetation restoration must be thoroughly investigated to support ecological restoration in these regions. The Loess Plateau is a typical area where the eco-environment has been improved by vegetation restoration in China, wherein four representative sites: the P. tabulaeformis planted forest, P. orientalis planted forest, R. pseudoacacia planted forest and the natural Secondary forest were selected as examples of typical planted and natural forests in this study. To analyze the ecological benefits of different vegetation restoration types and discuss a more sustainable pattern of afforestation in the future, soil properties in 0–100 cm, vegetation attributes at four synusiae, and hydrological regulation functions (the rainfall distributions of 23 rainfall events and 10 years of soil water storage) were measured and compared. The results showed that: (1) the soil properties of natural Secondary forest, in particular, soil water-retention capacities, were better than those of the planted forests; (2) the biomass of arborous synusia in natural Secondary forest was less than that in the planted forests, whereas it was significantly higher at shrub and herbaceous synusiae; (3) there were differences in rainfall redistribution among the natural and planted forests examined in this study, and the natural forest exhibited the highest soil water storage (414.33 mm) during the last decade; (4) according to the structural equation model (SEM), the vegetation attributes at arborous and herbaceous synusiae had the most direct and total effect on the hydrological regulation functions in the ecosystems. The results indicate that afforestation should be conducted in a way of near-natural restoration, which can provide guidance for future vegetation restoration in the Loess Plateau and other ecologically vulnerable areas.

There is a need for precise irrigation strategies to reduce leaching and water use, whilst avoiding drought exposure. A model-based prediction and visualization method is proposed to help estimate the precise required irrigation dosage and frequency to achieve desired leaching fraction and drought exposure as a multi-objective optimization problem. The method produces a contour plot that shows the estimated leaching and drought exposure under uncertain evapotranspiration. Three sandy soils and three clay soils were examined for a total of 6 different soils, which included a clay soil case with protected Chrysanthemum cultivation. The results illustrate the usefulness of this type of visualization in decision support. Predictions indicate that compared to a conventional irrigation strategy, leaching could be reduced by 40% and water use by 9% whilst maintaining a low drought exposure (below 1%). Furthermore, predictions indicate that reducing evapotranspiration uncertainty would require an irrigation frequency increase (∼20%) or a total irrigation dosage increase (∼10%). Compared to clay soils, sandy soils require a higher frequency irrigation (more than once per 2 days) to prevent drought exposure. The proposed model-based framework and visualization method provides a useful understanding of low-risk irrigation strategies that account for evapotranspiration uncertainty, while reducing water use and minimizing leaching, giving valuable insights to agricultural professionals and policymakers alike. Additionally, the developed framework has the potential to be used as a core for decision and control tools developed for sustainable agriculture and water resource management.

De Bodemkaart van Nederland, schaal 1:50.000, is onderdeel van de Basisregistratie Ondergrond (BRO), eencentrale registratie met publieke gegevens over de Nederlandse ondergrond. Wageningen Environmental Research(WENR) onderhoudt dit bestand voor het ministerie van LNV.Dit rapport presenteert verbeterde en recente informatie over de bodem, het voorkomen van veen en landvormenin de gemeente Vijfheerenlanden, die is ingewonnen bij de actualisatie van de Bodemkaart en GeomorfologischeKaart in 2022.---Update of the soil map of the municipality of Vijfheerenlanden: Remapping the spatial distribution of peat soilsThe Soil Map of the Netherlands at scale 1:50.000 is part of the Dutch National Key Registry of the Subsurface(BRO), the central registry of public data on the subsurface of the Netherlands. Wageningen EnvironmentalResearch (WENR) maintains this map for the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.This report presents improved and updated information on soils, the occurrence of peat and landforms in themunicipality of Vijfheerenlanden, that was collected during the update of the Soil Map and Geomorphological Map in2022

This report shows the results of a sampling of sand and clay soils of forests. Samples were taken from litter layers (LF and H) and mineral layers (0-30 cm and 30-100 cm deep). The soil profiles have been described for the sandy soils. The results have been compared with a sampling carried out in 1990.

Climate change has caused the soil temperature of the upper 100 cm to increase by an average of 1.5 ̊C over the past forty years and will continue to increase by 1.2°C over the next thirty years. The rate of increase is strongly determined by vegetation. For example, bare soil will warm much faster and more strongly than grass-covered soil. Thus, nature developers can influence soil temperature through vegetation, but the type of measure on will define the effect. An integrated understanding of temperature and water dynamics in the soil-crop-atmosphere system is urgently needed to better understand the risks of soil temperature elevation and to appropriately adapt cropping and nature development systems to these integrated climate effects.

Het Bedrijvennetwerk Bodemmetingen van de PPS Beter Bodembeheer is in het najaar 2018 opgezet met als doel om bodemmetingen op praktijkbedrijven te testen en te kijken naar de samenhang van bodemindicatoren onderling en met de bedrijfsvoering. De 16 bedrijven vertegenwoordigen de variatie in de akkerbouw in Nederland en vormen daarmee een land dekkend netwerk. De deelnemende bedrijven zijn geselecteerd en geworven in afstemming met de sectororganisaties. Bij elk bedrijf hebben we met de ondernemers twee percelen geselecteerd voor uitvoering van de metingen. In het najaar van 2019 zijn meer dan 30 verschillende bodemindicatoren gemeten op twee percelen van elk bedrijf vanuit de werkpakketten rond organische stof, bodembiologie en bodemweerbaarheid en meten van bodemkwaliteit in de PPS Beter Bodembeheer. Deze metingen zijn in najaar 2020 en 2021 herhaald op dezelfde percelen. Hierbij zijn zowel alle indicatoren uit de BLN-indicatorset gemeten, zowel met de klassieke meetmethodes als de alternatieve (goedkopere en/of snellere) meetmethodes als een aantal andere indicatoren. Hiernaast zijn ook teeltgegevens en historische gegevens van de percelen verzameld. Doel van de metingen was om 1) een beter zicht te krijgen op de toepasbaarheid van de indicatoren en meetmethoden in de BLN, 2) alternatieve indicatoren en meetmethoden te testen, 3) een beter inzicht te krijgen in de relatie tussen indicatoren onderling, de indicatoren en de fysieke omstandigheden (bodemtype, klimaat, grondwater) en de indicatoren en het management, 4) na te gaan welke set aan indicatoren leidt tot een goed beeld van de integrale bodemkwaliteit mede gezien ook het management en de fysieke omstandigheden. In dit rapport worden de resultaten gericht op de eerste twee doelen gepresenteerd. De meetwaarden van de indicatoren worden voor alle percelen gepresenteerd met referentiewaarden en streefwaarden indien beschikbaar. Daarnaast is er gekeken waar beschikbaar hoe de klassieke en de alternatieve methoden zich tot elkaar verhouden. Waar mogelijk is een vergelijk tussen de metingen van 2019 en 2021 gemaakt.

The report describes what regenerative and conventional agriculture can mean in a Dutch context and shows the actual and potential benefit of regenerative agriculture compared to conventional agriculture with respect to soil carbon sequestration for a practical case study of a Dutch farm on marine clay soils in the Netherlands.

The climate is changing. Due to the special structure of the soil and subsoil, the water system on the Winterswijk plateau is extra sensitive to this, with the result that streams of ecological value, such as the Ratumse brook, run dry. The challenge is to create a more robust water system that responds less sensitively to weather extremes: streams with a higher basic discharge, smoothed discharge peaks that can supply sufficient groundwater for nature, agriculture and other uses well into the growing season. For the Ratumse beek, research is being carried out into whether a diversion of the lower course of the river contributes to a climate-robust water system and what the ecology’s response to this could be. Het klimaat verandert. Het watersysteem op het Winterswijks plateau is hier door de bijzondere opbouw van bodem en ondergrond extra gevoelig voor, met als gevolg dat beken van ecologische waarde, zoals de Ratumse beek, droogvallen. De uitdaging is om een robuuster watersysteem te creëren dat minder gevoelig reageert op weersextremen: beken met een hogere basisafvoer, afgevlakte afvoerpieken die tot ver in het groeiseizoen voldoende grondwater kunnen leveren voor natuur, landbouw en andere gebruiksfuncties. Voor de Ratumse beek is onderzocht of een verlegging van de benedenloop bijdraagt aan een klimaat-robuuster watersysteem en wat de respons van de ecologie daarop kan zijn.

Soil compaction due to agricultural vehicle traffic is recognized as one of the major threats to soil productivity, and soil ecological and hydrological functioning. The size and weight of agricultural machinery have significantly increased during the last decades which is likely to have increased compaction levels. The recently published report of the mission board for soil health and food, “Caring for soil is caring for life” (European Commission, 2020) estimates that the area of land failing soil health due to compaction is 23-33% (7% of which outside agricultural area). Preventing soil compaction is important because the effects of structural decay can affect yields for decades and the decreased infiltration and storage capacity. Once a soil becomes compacted, there are several techniques to solve this. However, the question is which techniques are available, how long they are effective and under what conditions they are best used. In this research, which is part of the EJP SOIL SOILCOMPAC project, an extensive literature review was conducted and combined with data from current recovery field experiments. An overview is made of past and running experiments on recovery methods in different countries to characterize the rate of recovery by different processes and the relative importance of the recovery mechanisms across pedo-climatic zones. The review includes mechanical (tillage), biological (“biosubsoiling”) and natural (soil physical processes) methods. The research was made on the compacted subsoil below the plough layer (25-50 cm b.s.). This means that the focus is on arable farming however most of the recovery techniques can also be applied to grassland.

In the northwest Ethiopian highlands, Fagita Lekoma district, farmers’ are practicing different land use systems such as crop land use, fodder land use, tree based land use and a combination these land use systems. Acacia decurrens based small-scale agroforestry (SSA) land use system is commonly practiced. However, the economic advantage of the A. decurrens based SSA land use system is not yet investigated. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the productivity and economic benefit of the A. decurrens based SSA land use system. Within the district, five investigation sites were selected where A. decurrens based SSA land use system (LUS) widely applied. The study was designed in five treatments with five replications and the test crop was Teff (Eragrostis teff, E. abyssinica) and the test agroforestry tree was A. decurrens. The treatments were; (1) Sole crop (Teff) LUS, (2) Sole fodder LUS, (3) Crop—A. decurrens intercropped LUS, (4) Fodder—A. decurrens intercropped LUS, and (5) Sole A. decurrens LUS. The result shows that the Teff—A. decurrens intercropped, fodder—A. decurrens intercropped, and sole A. decurrens LUSs, respectively, were found to provide better income for small-holder farmers. The Teff—A. decurrens intercropped LUS provided 1.3 and 1.2 times more income than the sole Teff and sole Acacia LUSs, respectively. The fodder—A. decurrens intercropped LUS provided 11 times more income than the sole fodder LUS. These are the main reasons motivating farmers to change the sole Teff and sole fodder LUSs to mixed/intercropped LUS. In general, A. decurrens intercropped based SSA land use system was found to provide better income for small-holder farmers. Hence, the mixed land use system is recommended to be practiced by farmers and could be up-scaled to other areas having similar agro-ecological situations.

Dit rapport geeft de resultaten van een literatuurstudie dat bij aanvang van het project Bodemverdichting Verdiept (BoVer) is uitgevoerd. Op basis hiervan zijn ideeën voor vervolgonderzoek afgeleid.

Soil organic matter (SOM) stocks are crucial for soil fertility and food provision and also contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. However, assessing SOM changes in cropping systems is difficult due to the varying quantity and quality of input data. SOM processes have been described by several models, but these are complex and require high amounts of input data. In this work, we identified and selected frameworks that simulate SOM pools and stocks as well as the effects of different management practices. We also required that the frameworks be easily accessible for farm-related end users and require limited and accessible amounts of input data. In all, six frameworks met our inclusion criteria: SOCRATES (Soil Organic Carbon Reserves and Transformations in EcoSystems), CCB (CANDY and-Carbon Balance), AMG, CENTURY, CQESTR, and RothC (Rothamsted Carbon Model). We collected information on these frameworks and compared them in terms of their accessibility, the model time steps used, the nutrient cycles included in the simulation, the number of SOM pools, and the agricultural management options included. Our results showed that CCB was the most robust of the frameworks considered, while AMG, CQESTR, and RothC performed the least well. However, all frameworks have strengths which may match the specific requirements and abilities of individual users.

Landslides are natural hazards that can cause catastrophic life losses and damage to infrastructures and communities. In Iran, landslide exposure has been predominantly increasing in the Zagros Mountains, notably along the lifelines, such as road networks. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the landslide vulnerability of a 6682 km road network in the Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, Iran, using a two-step methodology comprised of: (1) landslide susceptibility mapping using four machine learning methods—boosted regression trees (BRT), multiple discriminant analysis (MDA), multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), and random forest (RF); and (2) mapping road exposure to landslides using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) that computed the weight for four buffer zones (0–50, 50–150, 150–300, and > 300 m) from the road network. The combined results of steps 1 and 2 produced a map of the road network vulnerability to landslides that demonstrated that 9.7 km (13.6%) of the road network was located in the very-high vulnerability class. Specifically, the roads of the Ardal and Kohrang counties have been found to be the most vulnerable to landslide risk. The finding of this study could be useful for decision-makers and civil engineering to better manage road networks in terms of landslide risk and community resilience in the aftermath of major landslides.

Vanwege het verschijnen van de tekst van Jan van Bakel en Jacco Hoogwoud in Stromingen 2021-2 over Waterwijzer Landbouw (WWL) denken wij dat het goed is om enkele zaken te verduidelijken namens de werkgroep Waterwijzer Landbouw. Wij vragen daarom aandacht voor de volgende punten

Soils form the basis for agricultural production and other ecosystem services, and soil management should aim at improving their quality and resilience. Within the SoilCare project, the concept of soil-improving cropping systems (SICS) was developed as a holistic approach to facilitate the adoption of soil management that is sustainable and profitable. SICS selected with stakeholders were monitored and evaluated for environmental, sociocultural, and economic effects to determine profitability and sustainability. Monitoring results were upscaled to European level using modelling and Europe-wide data, and a mapping tool was developed to assist in selection of appropriate SICS across Europe. Furthermore, biophysical, sociocultural, economic, and policy reasons for (non)adoption were studied. Results at the plot/farm scale showed a small positive impact of SICS on environment and soil, no effect on sustainability, and small negative impacts on economic and sociocultural dimensions. Modelling showed that different SICS had different impacts across Europe—indicating the importance of understanding local dynamics in Europe-wide assessments. Work on adoption of SICS confirmed the role economic considerations play in the uptake of SICS, but also highlighted social factors such as trust. The project’s results underlined the need for policies that support and enable a transition to more sustainable agricultural practices in a coherent way. article-number: 780 ispartof: Land vol:11 issue:6 status: published