5 December 2015

200 soil scientists from 60 countries worked together to prepare the

Status of the World’s Soil Resources report.

It provides a global perspective on the current state of soils, their role in providing food security and vital ecosystem services, and the threats to their ability to continue providing these services.

The issuance of this first “Status of the World’s Soil Resources” report was most appropriately timed with the occasion of the International Year of Soils (2015) declared by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

We have taken soils for granted for a long time. However, we have been witnessing a reversal in attitudes…

…in this more auspicious context, when the international community is fully recognizing the need for concerted action , the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS), the main scientific advisory body to the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), took the initiative

to prepare this much needed assessment.

• The report provides a global scientific assessmentof current and projected soil conditions built onregional data analysis and expertise.

Part I “Global Soil Resources”

Regional assessment of soil changesPart III “Soil change: impacts andresponses”

Part II “Global Soil change.Drivers, status and trends”

• The report explores the implications of soilconditions for food security, climate change, waterquality and quantity, biodiversity, and humanhealth and wellbeing.

• The report concludes with a series ofrecommendations for action by policymakers andother stakeholders

• It is based on the best available soil information,including a full uncertainty evaluation of the soilinformation.

• It results in the identification of soil-relatedknowledge gaps that constrain the achievement ofsustainable development.

• It aims for an assessment of global soil resources,set within a framework of ecosystem services. Itpresents the threats to soil functions and theirconsequences for ecosystem services.

Erosion • Erosion is ranked as the most

important threat to the soil inAfrica, Asia, Latin America andthe Caribbean, North America,and the Near East and NorthAfrica.

• Annual crop losses due toerosion have been estimated at0.3% of crop yields. If erosioncontinues at this rate, a totalreduction of over 10 percentcould take place by the year2050.

• Erosion on croplands andintensively grazed land is 100to 1,000 times the naturalbackground rate.

• The annual cost of fertilizer toreplace nutrients lost toerosion is US$110-US$200billion.

Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) loss

• Soils contain nearly threetimes as much carbon as isstored in all terrestrial plants

• The primary driver of loss insoil organic carbon is landuse change.

• When land is converted fromnative forest to crops, soilcarbon decreases by 42percent. When pasture isconverted to crops thereduction in soil carbon iseven greater – 59 percent.

• Loss in the global pool of soilorganic carbon since 1850 isestimated at 66 billiontonnes, much of whichremains in the atmosphere.

Maps of change in soil carbon due to land usechange and land management from 1860 to2010 from three vegetation models.

Pink indicates loss of soil carbon, blueindicates carbon gain.

Nutrient imbalance

• The greatest obstacle to improvingfood production and soil function inmany degraded landscapes is the lackof nutrients, especially nitrogen andphosphorus, and organic inputs.

• In Africa, all but three countries minemore nutrients from the soil everyyear than are returned through use offertilizer, crop residues, manure, andother organic matter.

• In other areas, oversupply of nutrientscontaminates soil and water resourcesand contributes to greenhouse gasemissions.

• In 2010, nitrogen oxide emissionsfrom agricultural soils caused by theaddition of synthetic fertilizers werethe equivalent of 683 million tonnesof CO2.

Nutrient availability in soils

Soil salinization

• An estimated 760,000 km2 of landworldwide are affected byhuman-induced salinity – an arealarger than all the arable land inBrazil.

• Ill-designed, large-scale irrigationprojects are the main cause ofhuman-made salinization.

• Increasing soil salinity takes anestimated 30,000 to 150,000 km2

of irrigated cropland out ofproduction every year anddecreases the productionpotential of another 200,000 to460,000 km2.

• Salinization of irrigated dry landscauses annual income lossesestimated at US$11.4 billion.

Soil contamination

• Soil contamination damages foodsecurity, both because toxic levels ofcontaminants reduce crop yields andbecause crops that are produced canbe unsafe to consume.

• Nearly a fifth of the farmland in China(19.4%) is contaminated with heavymetals.

• Over 130 million people worldwideroutinely consume well-water witharsenic concentrations that exceedWHO recommendations

• More than 2.5 million potentiallycontaminated sites have beenidentified in Europe, of which340,000 are expected to becontaminated.

Global distribution of (a) atmospheric S deposition, (b) soil sensitivity to acidification, (c) atmospheric N deposition, and (d) soil carbon to nitrogen ratio.

Soil acidification

• Around 30 percent of the topsoiland 75 percent of subsoil on theworld’s ice-free land is affected byacidity.

• The most acidic topsoils in theworld are located in areas of SouthAmerica that have experienceddeforestation and intensiveagriculture.

• The main causes of human-induced acidification are aciddeposition (commonly called acidrain) and massive application ofammonium-based fertilizers.

• Use of high-nitrogen fertilizers andhigh rates of product removalincrease soil acidity in intensiveagricultural areas.

Soil biodiversity

• An estimated 25% of all livingspecies reside in the soil.

• A square meter of soil containsbillions of individual organismsand millions of species.

• Fungi and bacteria break downorganic waste in the soil,controlling the dynamics of soilorganic carbon, and makingnutrients available to plants.

• Soil biodiversity is threatened byintensification of land use, anduse of chemical fertilizers,pesticides, and herbicides.

• 56% of the European Union hassome degree of threat to soilbiodiversity.

Soil sealing

• Land take and soil sealing areregarded as the greatest threat tosoil functions in Europe andEurasia.

• Over 70% of the land take in theEuropean Union between 1990and 2000, and over half of thetake between 2000 and 2006consumed agricultural land.

• In 2000, urban areas covered657,000 km2, equivalent toalmost 4% of the arable land onthe planet.

• Between 1990 and 2006, the totalextent of urban area worldwideincreased by 58,000 km2.

Soil compaction• Soil compaction has degraded up

to 330,000 km2 in Europe.

• Worldwide compaction hasdegraded an estimated 680,000km2 of soil, or around 4% of thetotal land area.

• Soil compaction can reduce cropyields by as much as 60 percent.

• Cattle trampling and insufficientcover of top soil by naturalvegetation or crops account forcompaction of 280,000 km2 inAfrica and Asia.

• The damage caused by soilcompaction is long-lasting oreven permanent. A one-timecompaction event can lead toreduced crop yields up to 12years later.

Soil compaction risk derived from intensity of tractor use in crop land and from livestock density in grasslands.

Waterlogging

• The combined impact ofwaterlogging with soilsalinity has been estimatedto cut soil productivity by 30to 35 percent.

• In Asia, waterlogging andsalinization affect nearly100,000 km2 of irrigated landin India and Pakistan.

The majority of the world’s soil resources are in only fair, poor or very poor condition. And detailed regional

reports and case studies confirm that while there is cause for optimism in some regions, conditions are getting

worse in far more cases than they are improving.

Overwhelming conclusion

Achieving sustainable management of soil resources will yield enormous benefits for all communities and nations. In some parts of the world it will be a key to economic prosperity, and in others it will even be critical for their national security in the relatively near

term.

“The report is aimed at scientists, laymen and policy makers alike.

It provides in particular an essential benchmark against periodical assessment and reporting of soil functions and overall soil health at global and regional levels.

This is of particular relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that theinternational community pledged to achieve. Indeed, these goals can only be

achieved if the crucial natural resources – of which soils is one – are sustainablymanaged.”

José Graziano Da SilvaFAO Director-General