Browsing by Author "Saby, Nicolas P. A."

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    From Soil Threats to Soil Health: Prevention or Remediation
    (Wiley, 2026-05-14) Suleymanov, Azamat; Cornu, Sophie; Coblinski, João Augusto; Montagne, David; Hessel, Rudi; Cousin, Isabelle; Bispo, Antonio; Saby, Nicolas P. A.
    While soil threats and soil health are two interrelated, sometimes confused, concepts, we demonstrated here that a clear separa-tion between these two concepts associated to a mapping of both soil threats and soil health is necessary. Soil threats are com-monly defined as processes that may degrade the soil properties, functions or services, while soil health describes the state of thesoil at a given moment in time. As a consequence, an unhealthy soil is a soil which is degraded compared to a reference. Mappingsoil threats or soil health results then in different but complementary views of the situation. Mapping soil threats informs ac-tions to prevent soil degradation, while mapping soil health indicates the capacity of soils to provide functions and places whereremediation is needed. In this study, we demonstrated the differences between these concepts by comparing projection mapsfor 2050 of soil threats and soil health by considering soil compaction and loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) as soil threats andbulk density and SOC stock as basic soil properties to evaluate both soil threat and soil health in terms of the above-mentionedtwo soil descriptors. These maps were produced by digital soil mapping, taking into account changes in climate and land use inthe European Union (EU). Soil threats were mapped using soil property change between 1980 and 2050 as indicators, that is, adecrease in SOC stocks for SOC loss and increase in soil bulk density for compaction. For soil health assessment, as referencesare needed, we defined soil areas that could be considered as homogeneous by combining soil, climate and land use informationand defined for each area a threshold for soil health based on a quantiles approach. As a result, the obtained soil threat and healthmaps were very different, as healthy soils can be under threat but not have crossed the threshold yet, while unhealthy soils maynot be under threat anymore if no more degradation occurs. These results demonstrate that reading a map requires a good priorunderstanding of the meaning of the indicators used in order to be able to interpret it in terms of threat or health and to be ableto select appropriate metrics, which will not be the same in both cases. Indeed, while soil health maps identify degraded areaswhere the soil lost part or all its capacity to provide functions and that need remediation, soil threat maps offer vital informationabout potential vulnerabilities and areas requiring intervention or management strategies.
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    Review of Soil Threats and Soil-Related Ecosystem Services European Maps: Can We Use Them to Study Their Relationships?
    (Wiley, 2025-10-22) Reyes-Rojas, Jessica ; Montagne, David ; Saby, Nicolas P. A. ; Coblinski, João Augusto ; Pindral, Sylwia ; Medina-Roldán, Eduardo ; Lorenzetti, Romina ; Scammacca, Ottone ; Piccini, Chiara ; Borůvka, Luboš ; Cornu, Sophie
    The scientific concepts of soil threats (STs) and soil-related ecosystem services (SESs) are gaining importance and are fueling the debate on natural resources management and decision-making within the EU. The literature reports numerous assessments of individual STs and SESs at the European scale. However, a comprehensive overview of the patterns emerging from the relationships between STs and SESs is still lacking, which restricts the ability to limit soil degradation and its impact on SESs. In this article, we provide an in-depth analysis of existing European maps for three STs (soil organic carbon loss, erosion, and compaction) and four SESs (climate regulation and carbon sequestration, hydrological control, biomass production, and erosion control) and the feasibility of combining them to study their relationships. At the EU-level, 37 maps for these STs and 17 for these SESs were encountered. With the notable exception of erosion, these maps differ considerably in their conceptualization of STs and SESs, and in the indicators, methods, and databases used to assess them. In the current situation, the combination of individual maps of STs and SESs to study their relationships is rarely possible. Besides these limitations, we identify possible combinations and provide recommendations aimed at improving the compatibility between different STs/SESs maps. We conclude that there is a need for a more robust framework for conceptualizing STs/SESs and for systematically and precisely specifying the chosen indicators.