Understanding Soils’ Contribution to Ecosystem Services Provision to Inform Farm System Analysis

Abstract

Amongst our natural resources, soils are often forgotten and poorly represented in resource management decision-making processes. Increasing global concerns about soil degradation combined with the ever-growing demands for the finite land resource demonstrate that the time is rapidly arriving when land evaluation needs to include consideration of all the ecosystem services provided to humans by a combination of land type, climate, land use and management practices. The feasibility of using an ecosystems approach to address this gap in land evaluation procedure and provide better soil security is explored here.