Given the importance of soils for crop and livestock production as well as for providing wider ecosystem services, maintaining the land in good condition is of vital importance. Decision-makers need science-based, easy to apply and cost-effective tools to assess soil quality and function, accompanied by recommendations relevant to the land user at a given moment and location.
iSQAPER aimed to:
1) Integrate existing soil quality related information with characterisations of crop and livestock farming systems in various pedo-climatic zones across Europe and China;
2) Synthesize the evidence for agricultural management effects provided by long-term field trials across Europe and China on soil physical, chemical and biological properties, including interactions, and related ecosystem services such as agricultural productivity and yield stability;
3) Derive and identify innovative soil quality indicators that can be integrated into an easy-to-use interactive soil quality assessment tool, accounting for the effects of agricultural land management practices and related effects upon ecosystem services;
4) Develop, with input from a variety of stakeholders, a multilingual Soil Quality Application (SQAPP) for in-field soil quality assessment and monitoring as an example of social innovation that allows interaction between multilevel actors;
5) Test, refine, and roll out SQAPP across Europe and China as a new standard for holistic assessment of agricultural soil quality;
6) Use a trans-disciplinary, multi-actor approach to validate and support SQAPP and to become truly relevant for agricultural practice under a wide range of circumstances;
7) Develop scenarios of how widespread application of improved agricultural management practices can contribute to a lower soil environmental footprint at a continental scale (Europe and China), while maintaining or increasing crop productivity and yield stability;
8) Carry out an integrated assessment of existing soil and agriculture related EU and national (including China) policies and derive recommendations for improvement, i.e. through the post-2020 CAP; and
9) Disseminate project results using a variety of formats and media to inform and engage targeted stakeholders, ranging from land users to high-level policy makers and the general public.
iSQAPER has developed a ‘tool kit’ for policy makers, researchers and land managers to better monitor and assess soils at local, regional and continental scales, for better decision making and improved soil quality.
1) A Set of Soil Quality Indicators - To assess soil quality, an indicator set consisting of chemical, physical and biological indicators is recommended with guidance for the interpretation of indicator values.
2) In Field Soil Assessment – Empowering Farms and Land Users - Visual Soil Assessment (VSA) combined with simple in-field assessment techniques provides a reliable basis for the on-going evaluation of key soil quality parameters at farm level.
3) The SQAPP (smart phone app) – Integrating soil and landscape data to make recommendations on-farm – presents an overview of an unprecedented number of soil quality and soil threat indicators for any location in the world.
4) Informed Decision Making - facilitate the Adoption of Improved Agricultural Management Practices in Europe by systematically linking soil quality monitoring to Agricultural Management Practices (AMPs). Tailored AMPs are proposed as effective solutions to location-specific soil quality issues.
5) Modelling and scenario analysis completed on upscaling AMP adoption has identified that targeted intervention focusing on the most vulnerable regions can produce dramatic improvements in soil quality and associated ecosystem services.
