The role of hydropedology when aiming for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

Soil physics defines soil water, air, and temperature regimes that are crucial for agricultural production, the quality of water resources, and waste management. Positioning such activities in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will provide a valuable link to the international policy arena and should also include consideration of other SDGs dealing with climate change, biodiversity preservation, and soil health, thereby covering aspects of SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG3 (good health and wellbeing), SDG6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG13 (climate action), and SDG15 (life on land). Combined expertise of soil physicists and pedologists in hydropedology offers a basic soil package, to be completed by soil chemists and biologists, to interdisciplinary teams studying ecosystem services in line with SDGs. Soils not being isotropic and homogeneous, pedology offers descriptions of soil heterogeneity, requiring innovative measuring methods. Digital mapping significantly improves the quality of traditional soil maps by being more quantitative at lower cost. Socioeconomic conditions are important elements of sustainable development as is recognized by the soil security concept, distinguishing soil connectivity with users and soil codification, linking soil with the policy arena. The latter has been successfully achieved in South Africa. Innovative, “applied” interdisciplinary research is needed to develop operational methods, assessing ecosystem services that are relatively of low cost, simple, and transparent, allowing acceptance by critical stakeholders. Modern proximal sensing techniques offer a promising perspective. An exploratory case study of a Dutch: “Living Lab” is referred to as an example of such an “applied” interdisciplinary approach.