Examining links between soil management, soil health, and public benefits in agricultural landscapes: An Australian perspective

Published Date
Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
15 October 2010, Vol.139(1):1–12, doi:10.1016/j.agee.2010.06.017

Review

• Author 

• Lauren T. Bennett ^a,,
• Pauline M. Mele ^b,
• Shayne Annett ^c,1,
• Sabine Kasel ^d,

• aDepartment of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Water Street, Creswick, Victoria 3363, Australia
• bDepartment of Primary Industries, Knoxfield Centre, 621 Burwood Highway, Knoxfield, Victoria 3180, Australia
• cDepartment of Sustainability and Environment, 8 Nicholson St, East Melbourne, Victoria 3002, Australia
• dDepartment of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, 500 Yarra Boulevard, Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia

Received 10 March 2010. Revised 29 June 2010. Accepted 30 June 2010. Available online 23 July 2010. 

Abstract

Public expectations of soil management are gradually expanding beyond traditional primary production requirements to include diverse ecosystem services. In Australia, as in many other countries, the accommodation of these new expectations will require shifts in the practice of private land managers. In turn, this may require public intervention and the expenditure of public funds. However, public net benefits from soil management interventions are rarely established, in part due to a lack of understanding of the conceptual links between management changes, soil health, and associated services and benefits. This paper uses an ecosystem services-based approach to examine these links from an Australian perspective.

Entrenchment of the popular soil health concept in field-based assessments of agricultural production potential was found to limit the concept's applicability to questions of broader public benefit. Without expanding soil health to include more ecological indicators, the concept risks remaining peripheral to contemporary visions of multiple-outcome soil management in Australia. Conceptual and case study links were examined between soil properties and processes, soil-based services, and private and public net benefits. In this framework, benefits were produced from services, and were considered a more tangible point for public understanding and valuation than services. The qualitative case study highlighted many knowledge gaps relating to non-agricultural services and benefits from soils, particularly in the scaling-up of sub-paddock measurements, and in the form and constancy of relationships among services and benefits. Criteria for identifying priority public benefits from soil management were examined, namely, likelihood, degree, consequence, scale, direction, time lag, and valuation. Assumptions about these criteria require rigorous testing so that the what, where, when, and how of public benefits from changed soil management can be more clearly defined.

Keywords

Ecosystem services

Ecosystem disservices

Public benefit

Soil health

Soil indicators

Soil management

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