Selected Papers from "Soil Security and Planetary Health Conference"

Dear Colleagues,

Soil security refers to the maintenance and improvement of the world’s soil resource to produce food, fiber and fresh water, while also contributing to energy and climate stability, maintaining biodiversity and protecting natural systems and human wellbeing more generally. 

Planetary health is about safeguarding the health and wellbeing of current and future generations through good stewardship of Earth’s natural systems, and by re-thinking the way we feed, move, house, power and care for the world. 

Soil security is an essential foundation for planetary health because the vast majority of terrestrial biodiversity is found within soil or is reliant on soils and 97% of the world’s food comes from agricultural soils. 

The aims of the conference are:

• through multidisciplinary discourse, we will review, develop and synthesize the concepts of soil security and planetary health, focusing on the role of soil in overall planetary health.
• we will highlight to a wider audience key examples of threats to soil security and measures to improve soil security from across the planet.
• from improved understanding generated through the conference, we aim to provide clearer measurement systems and policy frameworks for stewardship and sustainable use of the Earth’s

The Soil Security and Planetary Health Conference Organising Committee are seeking papers on the five core dimensions of soil security:

• Capability
• Condition
• Capital
• Connectivity
• Codification

as well as the wider issues of:

• Soil security in the city
• Connecting consumers to soil managers
• Soil, provenance and human health
• Soil, biodiversity and human health
• Rethinking soil value
• Soil and health in a circular economy
• Public and private sector soil governance
• Soil condition and soil health

Prof. Dr. Alex McBratney
Prof. Dr. Tony Capon
Prof. Dr. Cristine L. S. Morgan
Assoc. Prof. Damien Field

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Soil Systems is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.