Soil-Improving Cropping Systems for Sustainable and Profitable Farming in Europe

Soils form the basis for agricultural production and other ecosystem services, and soil management should aim at improving their quality and resilience. Within the SoilCare project, the concept of soil-improving cropping systems (SICS) was developed as a holistic approach to facilitate the adoption of soil management that is sustainable and profitable. SICS selected with stakeholders were monitored and evaluated for environmental, sociocultural, and economic effects to determine profitability and sustainability. Monitoring results were upscaled to European level using modelling and Europe-wide data, and a mapping tool was developed to assist in selection of appropriate SICS across Europe. Furthermore, biophysical, sociocultural, economic, and policy reasons for (non)adoption were studied. Results at the plot/farm scale showed a small positive impact of SICS on environment and soil, no effect on sustainability, and small negative impacts on economic and sociocultural dimensions. Modelling showed that different SICS had different impacts across Europe—indicating the importance of understanding local dynamics in Europe-wide assessments. Work on adoption of SICS confirmed the role economic considerations play in the uptake of SICS, but also highlighted social factors such as trust. The project’s results underlined the need for policies that support and enable a transition to more sustainable agricultural practices in a coherent way

Landscapes: An Introduction

The approach to describing the landscapes of Ireland is based upon earlier works to describe landscapes of Ireland. The delineation of the landscapes is developed using a digital elevation model in tandem with the Irish Soil Information Systems data, using ArcGIS, geographic information system software. Mountain areas are those that occur above an elevation of 500 m above sea level, while lowlands, are those areas found at an elevation of less than 150 m. Unlike other volumes in this World Soil Series, Ireland is a relatively small island with a strong influence of glaciation, which has resulted in significant changes to the landscape. These glacial influences are clearly defined across a range of physiographic and altitudinal zones. In the lowland areas the physiographic influences are related to the influence of parental material (either limestone or siliceous) or as a result of the influence of groundwater table. Peatlands are an important soil across the Irish landscape, and while these soils appear in other chapters, these soils have a dedicated chapter. Owing to rapid urbanisation in Ireland in the period 2000–2006 the final landscape chapter explores urban soils as urbanisation represents both direct and indirect impacts for the soil resource

Limestone Lowlands

Ireland is mostly comprised of lowlands (<150 m) and the midlands of Ireland are made up of a central plain of carboniferous limestone giving rise to the limestone soils that dominate the central lowlands of Ireland. Altogether, the limestone lowlands of Ireland account for approximately 1.6 million hectares (M ha), almost one-quarter of the land area (23.2%). Peat is a prominent feature and is readily found interspersed with these limestone soils where the flat gradient and soils characterised by a higher clay percentage result in a slower drainage gradient, inducing conditions that are favourable for peat formation. Luvisols are the more prevalent soils found and account for 60.6% of the limestone lowland soils. Brown Earths are the next most commonly found soil type, with the larger portion of these being Typical Calcareous Brown Earths. The Typical Calcareous Brown Earths are spatially concentrated in the west of Ireland where the limestone bedrock is found at shallower depths. Wetter soils, such as Surface-water Gleys are found in counties Meath, Dublin and Kildare with the even wetter Humic Surface-water Gleys also common across this landscape. Calcareous Groundwater Gleys (2.37%) are found in counties Kildare, Laois and Offaly which are soils that include both gleying within the top 40 cm and a calcareous sub-surface horizon starting within 40 cm. While Humic Rendzinas account for a relatively small proportion of the lowland limestone soils (<2%), the majority of these (76.9%) are found in the Burren region of Co. Clare. The Burren is one of the largest karst landscapes in Europe and is home to an extensive assemblage of flora and fauna

Rolling Lowlands

Ireland is mostly comprised of lowlands. The midlands of Ireland are made up of a central plain of carboniferous limestone with elevation generally less than 150 m above sea level, giving rise to limestone soils which are described in Chap. 9. In this chapter, we focus on the remaining lowland areas that occur around this central plain. Lowlands are typically associated with Brown Earths and Luvisols. Brown Earths are found associated with sandstone bedrock whilst Rendzina and Luvisols (although not always) are typically associated with limestone bedrock. Alluvial soils are widely found along waterways, estuarine or marine environments. In general, Brown Earths are considered good agricultural soils with a wide use range potential. In particular, their natural free drainage means that they do not require additional drainage and their ability to retain nutrients means that they have good agricultural potential. Humic Brown Earths, such as the Ashgrove series with high organic matter content in the topsoil may be moderately acidic and may therefore benefit from periodic liming. Groundwater Gleys are water-affected soils, typically found in depressions and so have a limited use range with a high susceptibility to poaching. Alluvial soils reflect similar characteristics to Groundwater Gleys and are limited due to their very high risk of flooding. The main limitation with Brown Podzolics is associated with the nutrient status of these soils, which require frequent liming to neutralise the acidity and other amendments to increase fertility

Soil Classification

In 2014 the 3rd Edition National Soil Map of Ireland was published at a resolution of 1:250,000, accompanied by an associated online soil information system (SIS) database. The 3rd Edition National Soil Map was developed using a combination of novel digital mapping techniques, traditional field survey methods, and historic soil survey detail. This produced for the first time, a consistent national level legend for Irish soils. Irish soil classification 2014 consists of a three-tiered taxonomy of ‘Great Soil Group’, ‘Subgroup’ and ‘Series’, ordered from the most general to the most specific. This chapter explains how soils are classified including the reference section, how to describe a soil profile, horizon definitions and soil diagnostic criteria. Finally, the correlation of the Irish SIS with World Reference Base (WRB) classification is described and the classification of urban soils using the WRB system

The challenge of managing soil functions at multiple scales: An optimisation study of the synergistic and antagonistic trade-offs between soil functions in Ireland

peer-reviewedRecent forecasts show a need to increase agricultural production globally by 60% from 2005 to 2050, in order to meet a rising demand from a growing population. This poses challenges for scientists and policy makers to formulate solutions on how to increase food production and simultaneously meet environmental targets such as the conservation and protection of water, the conservation of biodiversity, and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. As soil and land are subject to growing pressure to meet both agronomic and environmental targets, there is an urgent need to understand to what extent these diverging targets can be met simultaneously. Previously, the concept of Functional Land Management (FLM) was developed as a framework for managing the multifunctionality of land. In this paper, we deploy and evaluate the concept of FLM, using a real case-study of Irish agriculture. We investigate a number of scenarios, encompassing combinations of intensification, expansion and land drainage, for managing three soil functions, namely primary productivity, water purification and carbon sequestration. We use proxy-indicators (milk production, nitrate concentrations and area of new afforestation) to quantify the ‘supply’ of these three soil functions, and identify the relevant policy targets to frame the ‘demand’ for these soil functions. Specifically, this paper assesses how soil management and land use management interact in meeting these multiple targets simultaneously, by employing a non-spatial land use model for livestock production in Ireland that assesses the supply of soil functions for contrasting soil drainage and land use categories. Our results show that, in principle, it is possible to manage these three soil functions to meet both agronomic and environmental objectives, but as we add more soil functions, the management requirements become increasingly complex. In theory, an expansion scenario could meet all of the objectives simultaneously. However, this scenario is highly unlikely to materialise due to farm fragmentation, low land mobility rates and the challenging afforestation rates required for achieving the greenhouse gas reduction targets. In the absence of targeted policy interventions, an unmanaged combination of scenarios is more likely to emerge. The challenge for policy formation on future land use is how to move from an unmanaged combination scenario towards a managed combination scenario, in which the soil functions are purposefully managed to meet current and future agronomic and environmental targets, through a targeted combination of intensification, expansion and land drainage. Such purposeful management requires that the supply of each soil function is managed at the spatial scale at which the corresponding demand manifests itself. This spatial scale may differ between the soil functions, and may range from farm scale to national scale. Finally, our research identifies the need for future research to also consider and address the misalignment of temporal scales between the supply and demand of soil functions

Functional Land Management: Bridging the Think-Do-Gap using a multi-stakeholder science policy interface

This work was in part conducted under the Soil Quality Assessment Research (SQUARE) Project, Reference No: 13S468 funded by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan 2007–2013. This study was completed as part of the LANDMARK (LAND Management: Assessment, Research, Knowledge Base) project. LANDMARK has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 635201. This work has also received funding as part of the SoilCare project from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under Grant Agreement No. 677407.Functional Land Management (FLM) is proposed as an integrator for sustainability policies and assesses the functional capacity of the soil and land to deliver primary productivity, water purification and regulation, carbon cycling and storage, habitat for biodiversity and recycling of nutrients. This paper presents the catchment challenge as a method to bridge the gap between science, stakeholders and policy for the effective management of soils to deliver these functions. Two challenges were completed by a wide range of stakeholders focused around a physical catchment model—(1) to design an optimised catchment based on soil function targets, (2) identify gaps to implementation of the proposed design. In challenge 1, a high level of consensus between different stakeholders emerged on soil and management measures to be implemented to achieve soil function targets. Key gaps including knowledge, a mix of market and voluntary incentives and mandatory measures were identified in challenge 2

Assessing the role of artificially drained agricultural land for climate change mitigation in Ireland

In 2014 temperate zone emission factor revisions were published in the IPCC Wetlands Supplement. Default values for direct CO2 emissions of artificially drained organic soils were increased by a factor of 1.6 for cropland sites and by factors ranging from 14 to 24 for grassland sites. This highlights the role of drained organic soils as emission hotspots and makes their rewetting more attractive as climate change mitigation measures. Drainage emissions of humic soils are lower on a per hectare basis and not covered by IPCC default values. However, drainage of great areas can turn them into nationally relevant emission sources. National policy making that recognizes the importance of preserving organic and humic soils’ carbon stock requires data that is not readily available. Taking Ireland as a case study, this article demonstrates how a dataset of policy relevant information can be generated. Total area of histic and humic soils drained for agriculture, resulting greenhouse gas emissions and climate change mitigation potential were assessed. For emissions from histic soils, calculations were based on IPCC emission factors, for humic soils, a modified version of the ECOSSE model was used. Results indicated 370,000 ha of histic and 426,000 ha of humic soils under drained agricultural land use in Ireland (8% and 9% of total farmed area). Calculated annual drainage emissions were 8.7 Tg CO2e from histic and 1.8 Tg CO2e from humic soils (equal to 56% of Ireland’s agricultural emissions in 2014, excluding emissions from land use). If half the area of drained histic soils was rewetted, annual saving would amount to 3.2 Tg CO2e. If on half of the deep drained, nutrient rich grasslands drainage spacing was decreased to control the average water table at −25 cm or higher, annual savings would amount to 0.4 Tg CO2e