Thumbnail Image

Status of the World’s Soil Resources. Chapter 7: The impact of soil change on ecosystem services

Year of publication 2016

Pages 58 p.

Author Land and Water Division

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Book (stand-alone)

Category Technical book

ISBN 978-92-5-109004-6

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) This is Chapter 7, "The impact of soil change on ecosystem services," of the report Status of the World’s Soil Resources.

Soils are now recognized to be in the ‘front line’ of global environmental change and we need to be able to predict how they will respond to changing climate, vegetation, erosion and pollution. Although only a thin layer of material at the Earth’s surface, soils like many interfaces play a pivotal role in regulating t he flow and transfer of mass and energy between the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. Soils help regulate the Earth’s physical processes such as water and energy balances, and act as the biogeochemical engine at the heart of many of the Earth system cycles and processes on which life depends. All these phenomena are discussed in this chapter.

The full report has been divided into sections and individual chapters for ease of downloading:

Also available: Technical Summary of the Status of the World’s Soil Resources.

Language English

Also available in:
No results found.

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.
Show more

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    High-profile
    Status of the World's Soil Resources: Main Report 2015
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    The SWSR is a reference document on the status of global soil resources that provides regional assessments of soil change. The information is based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, complemented with expert knowledge and project outputs. It provides a description and a ranking of ten major soil threats that endanger ecosystem functions, goods and services globally and in each region separately. Additionally, it describes direct and indirect pressures on soils and ways and means to combat s oil degradation. The report contains a Synthesis report for policy makers that summarizes its findings, conclusions and recommendations.

    The full report has been divided into sections and individual chapters for ease of downloading:
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (series)
    Flagship
    The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020
    Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets
    2020
    Also available in:
    Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions.The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    Technical book
    Soil erosion: the greatest challenge for sustainable soil management 2019
    Also available in:
    Despite almost a century of research and extension efforts, soil erosion by water, wind and tillage continues to be the greatest threat to soil health and soil ecosystem services in many regions of the world. Our understanding of the physical processes of erosion and the controls on those processes has been firmly established. Nevertheless, some elements remain controversial. It is often these controversial questions that hamper efforts to implement sound erosion control measures in many areas of the world. This book, released in the framework of the Global Symposium on Soil Erosion (15-17 May 2019) reviews the state-of-the-art information related to all topics related to soil erosion.
Show more