Developing a multifunctional indicator framework for soil health

Summary

Hannam et al. present a multifunctional soil health indicator framework that departs from single-metric approaches to instead monitor the simultaneous delivery of multiple ecosystem services by soils. The framework employs Bayesian Belief Networks informed by soil properties, environmental variables, national data, and expert judgment to assess soil capability across four key ecosystem services. The approach is designed for iterative refinement and can incorporate emerging data and local knowledge, offering potential for real-time whole-systems monitoring of soil responses.

UK applicability

Given the framework's development with readily available national data and UK-relevant soil and land use classification, the approach is directly applicable to United Kingdom soil monitoring and land management policy. The dashboard tool and benchmarking approach could support UK agri-environmental schemes and soil health initiatives, though further validation across diverse UK soil types and farm systems would strengthen its utility.

Key measures

Soil health indicator outputs for ecosystem services delivery (climate regulation, food production, water regulation, below-ground biodiversity); trade-offs between ecosystem services at different spatial scales; contextualised and benchmarked values at land parcel scale presented via dashboard application

Outcomes reported

The study developed and presented a proof-of-concept indicator framework that monitors soil health through simultaneous reporting of multiple ecosystem services (climate regulation, food production, water regulation, and below-ground biodiversity) rather than a single aggregate metric. The framework uses Bayesian Belief Networks populated with national data and expert judgment to assess soil health at land parcel scale, with outputs contextualised against benchmarks for similar soil and land use types.

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