Soil Degradation Impacts on Soil Quality and Ecosystem Services

Dear Colleagues,

Soil provides irreplaceable ecosystem functions and services, such as food production, water filtration, climate and temperature regulation. Soils are continuously threatened by a series of pressures included in the broader process of land degradation, i.e., a long-term loss of ecosystem functions caused by disturbance from which land cannot recover autonomously. Erosion, organic matter decline, compaction, salinization, sealing, landslides and contamination are the main degradation processes affecting soils. In recent years, these processes have accelerated on a global level and thus one of the main objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015 by the United Nations Organization is to “restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world.”

To achieve these objectives, we have very important challenges ahead, including the identification of functional approaches to monitor soil degradation and the quantitative assessment of degradation processes, including their impacts on soil quality and ecosystem services. Moreover, in order to combat soil degradation, policymakers and decision makers need access to tools that can provide them with quantitative data during the decision-making process.

Therefore, this Special Issue wants aims to contribute to the research area, presenting the most relevant advances in this field related (but not limited) to the following topics:

• Use of sensors and field approaches to quantitatively assess soil degradation;
• Methods to quantify the impacts of degradation processes on soil quality, soil functions and ecosystem services;
• Spatial decision support systems as policy tools for monitoring and managing soil degradation;
• Evaluation of soil threats under climate change, land use and cover change, along with the adoption of new management practices.

Dr. Piero Manna
Prof. Dr. Simona Vingiani
Dr. Romina Lorenzetti
Guest Editors

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• soil degradation processes
• soil quality
• soil health
• soil functions
• ecosystem services