Land and Soils

Assessing Global Land Use and Soil Management for Sustainable Resource Policies

  • Project no.3336
  • Duration 11/2010 - 02/2012

The Land and Soils Working Group of the International Resource Panel is preparing a comprehensive review of the challenges and opportunities facing land and soil management from the local to global level.

Global land use and soil management are both connected and complementary aspects of agriculture, forestry and built-up land development with consequences on food, energy, material and water security. Global land use change is currently characterised by the expansion of agricultural land and built-up areas along with land degradation and the polices which support these processes. Expansion is taking place at the expense of global forests, savannahs and grasslands while degradation is the result of soil erosion, nutrient depletion, water scarcity, salinity and the disruption of biological cycles, putting the best quality soils of the world under risk. As world dietary habits change, international trade and a rising consumption of goods are fuelling the demand for land. Globalisation is increasing the distance between production and consumption, so that consumer decisions to buy products and the detrimental impacts which may be associated with those products are drifting apart. The result is an increasing competition for land with unintended and unrecognised side-effects.
Policy is therefore challenged to follow a double approach: tackling both the field level of sustainable extraction and the global level of sustainable use. This project explores the connections, trade-offs, and relationships between land use, soil management and resource security more deeply. It proposes developing a safe operating space for global land use and safe operating practices for soil management that could work together towards ensuring a long-lasting and sustainable supply of products for food, feed, fuel and materials.


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