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Soil Components and Human Health pp 1–34Cite as

Soil Quality and Human Health

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Abstract

Protecting soil and preserving its overall quality has become a key international goal. Early concepts of soil quality dealt mainly with soil properties that contribute to soil productivity, with little consideration for environment regulation and human health. It is only recently that studies integrating soil and human health have been initiated. While soil performs several important functions related to ecosystem services, the most significant functions for human health are production of safe and nutritious food and protecting from environmental pollution. Human health is greatly dependent on the soil-water-air continuum which is strongly moderated by processes in the soil. The functions of soil such as filtering, buffering and transformation help in protecting the environment, including human beings against the contamination of groundwater and the food chain. Human activities impact several processes in soil that could lead to physical (accelerated erosion, deterioration of soil structure, crusting, compaction, hard-setting), chemical (nutrient depletion and imbalance, acidification, salinization) and biological (depletion of soil organic matter, loss of biodiversity) degradation of soil. Soil degradation directly affects food security through reduction in crop yields, decline in their nutritional quality and reduced input use efficiency. Plant availability of mineral nutrients in the soil is the main source of mineral supply to human beings. Plants, which absorb minerals from soil, are either eaten directly by humans or fed to animals that are then included in human diet. Therefore, any deficiency in plant products could manifest in human beings. Global warming associated with altered rainfall pattern could subject soils to significant risk of climate induced physical and chemical degradation. Therefore, it is imperative to manage soils to minimize soil degradation and to derive benefits for human health. In this chapter, land as a resource for supporting global population and the role it plays in performing ecosystem functions vis-à-vis soil quality, and the impact of anthropogenic activities on soil quality, plant and animal products and human health are discussed.

Keywords

  • Land resources
  • Soil quality indicators
  • Soil degradation
  • Organic agriculture
  • Soil and human health
  • Land suitability classes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geoecology, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

    Rolf Nieder

  2. Department of Soil Science, Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana, Ludhiana, India

    Dinesh K. Benbi

  3. Walther-Straub Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, LMU, Munich, Germany

    Franz X. Reichl

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  1. Rolf Nieder
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  2. Dinesh K. Benbi
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  3. Franz X. Reichl
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Nieder, R., Benbi, D.K., Reichl, F.X. (2018). Soil Quality and Human Health. In: Soil Components and Human Health. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1222-2_1

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