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Urban and agricultural soils: conflicts and trade-offs in the optimization of ecosystem services

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Abstract

On-going human population growth and changing patterns of resource consumption are increasing global demand for ecosystem services, many of which are provided by soils. Some of these ecosystem services are linearly related to the surface area of pervious soil, whereas others show non-linear relationships, making ecosystem service optimization a complex task. As limited land availability creates conflicting demands among various types of land use, a central challenge is how to weigh these conflicting interests and how to achieve the best solutions possible from a perspective of sustainable societal development. These conflicting interests become most apparent in soils that are the most heavily used by humans for specific purposes: urban soils used for green spaces, housing, and other infrastructure and agricultural soils for producing food, fibres and biofuels. We argue that, despite their seemingly divergent uses of land, agricultural and urban soils share common features with regards to interactions between ecosystem services, and that the trade-offs associated with decision-making, while scale- and context-dependent, can be surprisingly similar between the two systems. We propose that the trade-offs within land use types and their soil-related ecosystems services are often disproportional, and quantifying these will enable ecologists and soil scientists to help policy makers optimizing management decisions when confronted with demands for multiple services under limited land availability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Niemenkatu 73, 15140, Lahti, Finland

    H. Setälä & M. Liiri

  2. Department of Biology, Lund University, S223 62, Lund, Sweden

    K. Birkhofer & K. Hedlund

  3. AgriFood Economics Centre, Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Box 730, S-220 07, Lund, Sweden

    M. Brady

  4. Department of Biology, Marine Biology and Environmental Science, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI, USA

    L. Byrne

  5. Soil and Ecosystem Ecology Laboratory, Lancaster Environment, Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK

    R. D. Bardgett & F. T. de Vries

  6. Land Management and Natural Hazards Unit, Institute for the Environment, Joint Research Centre, via Fermi, 21027, Ispra, VA, Italy

    C. Gardi

  7. Department of Animal Ecology, Justus-Liebig-University, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26, 35392, Giessen, Germany

    S. Hotes

  8. Centre for Agri-Environmental Research, School of Agriculture, Policy & Development, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AR, UK

    S. R. Mortimer

  9. School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA

    M. Pavao-Zuckerman

  10. USDA Forest Service, Arlington, VA, 22209, USA

    R. Pouyat

  11. School of Biology, Department of Ecology, Aristotle University, 54124, Thessaloniki, Greece

    M. Tsiafouli

  12. Department of Mathematical and Statistical Methods, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 100, 6700 AC, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    P. C. de Ruiter & L. Hemerik

  13. Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), P.O.Box 50, 6700 AB, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    W. H. van der Putten

  14. Laboratory of Nematology, Wageningen University, PO Box 8123, 6700 ES, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    W. H. van der Putten

Authors
  1. H. Setälä
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  2. R. D. Bardgett
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  3. K. Birkhofer
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  4. M. Brady
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  5. L. Byrne
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  6. P. C. de Ruiter
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  7. F. T. de Vries
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  8. C. Gardi
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  9. K. Hedlund
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  10. L. Hemerik
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  11. S. Hotes
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  12. M. Liiri
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  14. M. Pavao-Zuckerman
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  15. R. Pouyat
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  16. M. Tsiafouli
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  17. W. H. van der Putten
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Correspondence to H. Setälä.

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Setälä, H., Bardgett, R.D., Birkhofer, K. et al. Urban and agricultural soils: conflicts and trade-offs in the optimization of ecosystem services. Urban Ecosyst 17, 239–253 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-013-0311-6

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