Climate-smart AND sustainable management of agricultural soils: identifying synergies and addressing trade-offs
Résumé
Soils are at the crossroad of local as well as global challenges and are increasingly expected to help address challenges such as food security, combatting land degradation, adapting to and attenuating climate change. It is in particular the case for agricultural soils, for which a framework and guidelines for their sustainable management have been established under the auspices of the Global Soil Partnership. Are these guidelines compatible with the ambition of soils to be climate-smart? The European Joint Programme SOIL addresses these issues. Synergies are identified between these objectives, in particular regarding practices that increase soil organic matter contents and stocks. Trade-offs concern in particular increasing soil organic carbon sequestration versus emission of non-CO2 GHG, or versus losses of N and P affecting water quality. Other trade-offs concern food production versus other ecosystem services provision, e.g. when rewetting peatlands or irrigating drylands. Synergies and trade-offs will be discussed in the light of the EJP SOIL results and activities.