United States policy approaches for assessing soil health

摘要

There is worldwide recognition of the need for a more holistic vision of soil health and for the development of tools to guide soil conservation policy, management and restoration. To meet this need, United States (US) conservation programs in the USFood, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (the farm bill), including the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), have recognized soil quality in their efforts to promote soil conservation. The first soil quality assessment in CSP was based on the Soil Conditioning Index (SCI), a simple linear model used to predict trends in levels of soil organic matter (SOM). Other efforts mandated by Congress include the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP), which entails both watershed monitoring and process modeling efforts. While these intense efforts are resulting in environmental outcome estimates at large scales, for conservation on the ground, such intense efforts are not practical. Even the simple model, SCI has now been replaced by a practice-based tool in CSP. Initial validation efforts, comparing practice-based tools with measured soil data showed good representation of soil outcomes. Practice-based assessment tools, validated and calibrated using measured data, are practical, easy to use, well-accepted by producers, and representative of both conservation effort and outcome.