Designing soil health indicators to evaluate sustainability of land use systems and achieve Land Degradation Neutrality
Session Date: 09 December - Session time: 13:00 to 14:30 (AST)
Venue: UNCCDCOP16 Blue Zone - Riyadh - MET 03
Contacts : Laurent Cournac & Isabelle Bertrand
Desertification and more generally land degradation pose a serious threat to soil and ecosystem health, and with global climate change and population increase, uncertainty of maintaining soil functions at a level sufficient to support livelihoods in drylands is increasing.
Soil health can be defined as the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans. Healthy soils provide clean air and water, abundant crops and forests, productive grazing lands, diverse wildlife, and beautiful landscapes. Soil does all this by performing five essential functions: Regulating water, Sustaining plant and animal life, Filtering and buffering potential
pollutants, Cycling nutrients and Providing physical stability and support.
A pressing issue is to evaluate how desertification affects the soil health and to quantify the ability of promoted sustainable land use systems to restore it durably when impaired or at least maintain essential properties, and therefore eventually achieve Land Degradation Neutrality. Science based and context-relevant soil health indicators should be designed to specifically address and prevent the effect of desertification and monitor the efficiency of sustainable land management (SLM) to avoid or reduce degradation, and when possible restore degraded land. The aim of this multistakeholder event is ① to take stock of existing soil health indicators that provide a documented scientific basis for analyzing the impact of aridity and land use on soil function sustainability, and evaluate their suitability to different purposes and contexts ② to share experiences on ways and means to assess and monitor soil health for achieving LDN.
Panelists:
o Laurent COURNAC, IRD (moderator)
o Isabelle Bertrand, INRAE
o Sekouna Diatta, ASERGMV, Senegal
o Paul Luu, 4p1000 initiative
o Leigh Ann Winowiecki Coalition of Action for Soil Health
o Praveena Sridhar, Save Soil Movement
