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Aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) of an ecosystem is among the most important metrics of valued ecosystem services. Measuring the efficiency scores of ecological production (ESEP) based on ANPP using relevant variables is valuable for identifying inefficient sites. The efficiency scores computed by the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) may be influenced by the number of input variables incorporated into the models and two DEA settings-orientations and returns-to-scales (RTSs). Therefore, the objectives were threefold to: (1) identify soil-environmental variables relevant to ANPP, (2) assess the sensitivity of ESEP to the number of input variables and DEA settings, and (3) assess local management relations with ESEP. The ANPP rates were calculated for pine forests in the southeastern U.S. where 10 management types were used. This was followed by an all-relevant variable selection technique based on 696 variables that cover biotic, pedogenic, climatic, geological, and topographical factors. Five minimal-optimal variable selection techniques were further applied to create five parsimonious sets that contain a different number of variables used as DEA inputs. After setting ANPP as the output variable, two DEA orientations (input/output) and six RTS were applied to compute ESEP. The variable selection methods succeeded in objectively identifying the major factors relevant to ANPP variation. The site index showed the highest correlation with ANPP (r = 0.39), while various precipitation factors were negatively correlated (r = - 0.15~ - 0.29, p0.01). Parsimonious ESEP models observed a decrease in score variances as the number of input variables increased. Various RTS produced similar scores across orientations. Of the DEA settings, an output orientation with decreasing RTS produced the most progressive ESEP with large variation. Results also suggested that macro- and micronutrient fertilization is the best combination of management strategies to achieve high ESEP. This holistic benchmark approach can be applied to other ecological functions in diverse regions.

Soil aggregate (SA) can be formed and stabilized when soil organic matter (SOM) is decomposed in the soil. However, the relationships between the SA dynamics and SOM with different decomposition rates have not been clarified. Therefore, this study examined the effects of the addition of polysaccharides to soil on SA formation and stability. A Japanese tropical soil was incubated for 99 d at 30 °C in a dark environment following the addition of 0.5% (w/w) starch or cellulose. The decomposition rates of the amendments, and SA formation and stability were evaluated by measuring soil respiration rates, and distribution fractions of soil aggregate sizes and mean weight diameter (MWD) of SA, respectively. The cumulative soil respirations with all treatments rapidly increased until Day 12 of the incubation. The initial slope of the cumulative soil respiration in the soil with starch was significantly higher than that in the soil with cellulose. In either soil with starch or cellulose, the fractions of macro-aggregates (>1000 μm in diameter) significantly increased, respectively, compared with control soil. However, the fractions of meso-aggregates (250–1000 μm) and nano-aggregate (

Global soil security is complex, encompassing technical, socioeconomic, and political issues and people’s beliefs and values. Our thesis is that global soil security and the soil health crisis we face today are due to a lack of awareness and understanding of prominent values and benefits soils provide to sustain humanity. In this paper, we use the integral lens to explore global soil security. The integral ecology model uses four interconnected perspectives (the individual-interior, collective-interior, individual-exterior, and collective-exterior) to study wicked environmental issues. We assert that cognizance is the key integrator to bring forth awareness, knowledge, and understanding within and across the four equally important perspectives. It has profound significance for global soil security because it reveals the underlying causes that jeopardize the security of soils and identifies chasms that constrain the sustainability of soil ecosystems. Cognizance is the (i) awareness and perceptions held by individuals and people (interior perspectives), (ii) the facts, knowledge, and understanding of external phenomena (exterior perspectives), and (iii) their interactive effects (i.e., integration across all four perspectives of the integral map). Importantly, cognizance is preceding any other dimension of soil security (connection, codification, capital, condition, and capability). Reductionist approaches that are one-sided (e.g., “soil science will fix the global soil security crisis”) ignore people’s beliefs and values and are non-cognizant of interconnected perspectives are doomed for failure. Ecological awareness is composed of exterior “scientist/observer/3rd person” qualities and interior “people/subjective” qualities. To achieve global soil security, it is necessary to grow ecological awareness evoking to value, care for, and secure the natural world including soils. Recognizing the significance of global soil security is closely linked to moral values and ethical beliefs people hold relative to soils. These beliefs provide the motivation and appropriate actions needed within cultural, social, environmental, and institutional contexts to secure soils.

Soil security denotes freedom from risks of losing a specific or a group of soil functions. This case study in the permanent protection area of Sana river (PPA-Sana), Brazil, addresses the relationship between soil security and water security. It explores the soil function “the provision of clean water and its storage, as well as filtering the contamination of water ways.” The study also presents a formal way to put soil security into practice applying the meta soil model. Meta soil modeling is built on integral theory that facilitates to understand the complexity of soil, water, and other securities. The soil and water securities in the PPA-Sana are interconnected and at risk. Specifically, one of the main problems is the discharge of soil sediments in the rivers as a consequence of soil erosion. Soil erosion and compaction constrain soil and water security, and these were monitored and mapped in order to provide support for policy interventions. However, our findings suggest that producing better soil maps and more monitoring are not enough to improve soil and water security. On the contrary, awareness building, creating trust among stakeholders, and better integration among quadrants of the integral model would lead to an enhancement of soil and water security. In essence, cognizance (the sixth dimension of soil and other securities) is profoundly important to allow integration of human and biophysical system dimensions.

The profound human-centric dominance in the Anthropocene has created changes in land use, biomes, climate, food networks, economies, and social communities, which in turn have impacted global resources, such as food, energy, and water, as well as the soils, that humanity and other terrestrial life-forms depend on for survival. We posit that a new integrative science is needed to support global soil security that facilitates improved soil synthesis of data, knowledge, understanding, experiences, beliefs, values, and actions related to soils considering multiple perspective dimensions, such as soil-environment, soil-politics, and soil-human. Integrative soil security – a new term we coin in this paper – is based on (i) integration of individual and collective human needs, uses, values, beliefs, and perceptions of soils coalesced with (ii) quantitative knowledge of soils derived through empirical observation and quantitative analysis as well as (iii) systems that soils are embedded in (e.g., economic, political, social, and legal systems). We propose a Meta Soil Model (MSM) that is rooted in integral theory and integral ecology as the foundation for a new integral soil security with cognizance as the key integrator. We define an MSM as an integrative, multi-model framework to assess soil security within the context of regional and global human-environmental interactions. The MSM fosters enactment for securing soils rooted in inter-, trans-, and post-(integral) disciplinary thinking and allows to diagnose integration gaps, such as the values and beliefs people hold about soils and scientist’s observations, data, maps, and models of soils, ultimately constraining global soil security.