GeoEcology essay / Soil and Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, the UN formulated seventeen global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), among them ending poverty, eliminating hunger, protecting the planet and ensuring peace and prosperity. Although judicious management of soils is critical to advancing most of these goals, the word soil is not once mentioned in any of these laudable goals. SDG#15, for example, mentions land degradation but does not specifically focus on soils. In line with previous UN programs, SDGs thus reflect an utter lack of awareness of the importance of the most basic of all natural resources on which depends all terrestrial life - soils. Consequently, this book aims to document the importance of soil and soil protection to reaching these Sustainable Development Goals. This fifteen-chapter book, authored by experienced and knowledgeable researchers from around the world, is a synthesis of the knowledge and state-of-the-science, linking soil properties and processes to specific SDGs. The volume highlights individual soil related aspects of these SDGs, such as the contribution of soil science, soil management and use, measures to minimize erosion, climatic effects, carbon sequestration by soils, soil restoration, the role hydrology plays in sustainable soil management, ways to preserve soil structure of fertile volcanic soils. Soil and water pollution, which must be controlled in order to preserve soil and environmental health are also discussed. Other chapters deal with how to convince the general public of the usefulness of the SDGs and point out how the public may contribute to them, ways to manage Chernozems and the role IUSS plays in furthering and implementing the soil related measures are also discussed herein.