Project objectives:
European soil biodiversity is pivotal for delivering food, fibre and bio-fuels and carbon storage. However, the demand is greater than the amount of soil available,
as production of bio-fuels competes with areas for food production and nature. Moreover, intensified land use reduces soil biodiversity and the resulting
ecosystem services. SOILSERVICE will value soil biodiversity through the impact on ecosystem services and propose how these values can be granted through
payments.
SOILSERVICE will combine interdisciplinary empirical studies and soil biodiversity surveys to construct soil food web models and determine effects of
changing soil biodiversity on stability and resilience of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, as well as assess consequences for outbreaks of pests
or invasive species.
SOILSERVICE links ecological and economic models to develop a system for valuing soil biodiversity in relation to ecosystem services. Objectives: Develop
methods to value soil ecosystem services during different pressure of land use and changes in soil biodiversity. Field and modelling studies will determine
to what spatial and temporal scales soil biodiversity and soil ecosystem services are vulnerable to disturbance.
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Project
Summary:
Soils and their biodiversity form the basis of agricultural production systems and generate a
range of fundamental ecosystem services, such as providing food, feed, clean water and carbon
storage, and control of pests and diseases. Yet soil degradation is widespread in the EU:
erosion, loss of soil organic matter and compaction are some of the degradation processes that
are threatening soil fertility. The SOILSERVICE project has quantified the negative impacts
of intensive arable cropping systems on soil ecosystem services due to loss of soil organic
matter and soil biodiversity. SOILSERVICE has also analysed how soils can be better
managed to mitigate climate change and reduce nutrient and chemical inputs, and, ultimately,
improve the long-term incomes of European farmers. This goes hand in hand with conserving
soil biodiversity, the natural capital that generates ecosystem services. SOILSERVICE has
linked ecosystem services to farmers’ economic decision making by combining production,
land use, soil biodiversity and sustainability in socio-economic models that can be used to
analyse the consequences of current and planned policies. The findings of SOILSERVICE
provide a basis for a broad range of policy decisions related to reform of the Common
Agricultural Policy and environmental policy.
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Professor Paul Bardos