Soil Ecological Risk Assessment Based on LULC

Dear Colleagues,

Soil is a key resource for food production, while also providing other important regulating and cultural ecosystem services, such as nutrient cycling, pest and diseases control, flood control, carbon storage and water recycling, and aesthetic and heritage values, among others.

The land use and land cover (LULC) currently adopted worldwide significantly affects the soil biogeochemical properties, inducing changes in micro, meso, and macro fauna, soil pH, texture, water retention capacity, electrical conductivity, mineralogy, and organic matter content. Such alterations, although conducted under a potential benefit, will impact the soil functioning capacity. With time, the ability of soil to store carbon, store water and nutrients, maintain biodiversity, and produce biomass may become limited, jeopardising the ecosystem service potential of this resource. In this context, assessing the ecological risk associated with different LULC is crucial for understanding and quantifying the losses of soil ecosystem services at local, regional, and global scales, as well as its social and economical impacts on these scales.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) to give insights about (1) both existing and new methodologies, their benefits and applicability to successfully quantify the soil ecological risk assessment (soil functions, soil threats, and soil ecosystem services), and (2) the soil ecological risk associated with different LULC for different soil types, parent materials, and geographical and climate conditions.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:

• Existing methods for quantifying soil ecological risk assessment, their benefit, limitations, and application ranges when used due to LULC impacts.
• New methods developed to assess the soil ecological risk associated with LULC and their link to soil functions and soil ecosystem services.
• Soil ecological risk assessments due to different LULC and their impacts.
• Soil ecological risk assessment and its link to economical and social impacts.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Lúcia Barão
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• risk assessment
• ecosystem services
• soil functioning
• land use/land cover
• soil threats