The strategic relevance of 13 potential indicators to monitoring soil health in the context of existing land use
climateXchange
December 01, 2021
This scoping study takes 13 potential soil health indicators identified in a 2020 report for CXC and considers their strategic relevance to monitoring soil health in the context of existing land use Scotland.
Key points
- Potential primary soil health indicators were identified for several land use categories.
- It is not possible to identify a single, definitive indicator for each individual land use category
- Seven indicators were considered extremely important for more than 50% of the categories assessed:
o soil organic matter content
o topsoil depth
o erosion features
o bulk density
o bacteria and archaeal diversity (DNA methods)
o fungal and nematode diversity (DNA methods)
The issue of dependency between indicators generates a layer of complexity that requires further exploration.
Find out more: Monitoring soil health in Scotland by land use category - a scoping study
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