The central importance of soil for the functioning of terrestrial systems is increasingly recognized. Critically relevant for water quality, climate control, nutrient cycling and biodiversity, soil provides more functions than just the basis for agricultural production. Nowadays, soil is increasingly under pressure as a limited resource for the production of food, energy and raw materials. This has led to an increasing demand for concepts assessing soil functions so that they can be adequately considered in decision-making aimed at sustainable soil management. The various soil science disciplines have progressively developed highly sophisticated methods to explore the multitude of physical, chemical and biological processes in soil. It is not obvious, however, how the steadily improving insight into soil processes may contribute to the evaluation of soil functions. Here, we present to a new systemic modeling framework that allows for a consistent coupling between reductionist yet observable indicators for soil functions with detailed process understanding. It is based on the mechanistic relationships between soil functional attributes, each explained by a network of interacting processes as derived from scientific evidence. The non-linear character of these interactions produces stability and resilience of soil with respect to functional characteristics. We anticipate that this new conceptional framework will integrate the various soil science disciplines and help identify important future research questions at the interface between disciplines. It allows the overwhelming complexity of soil systems to be adequately coped with and paves the way for steadily improving our capability to assess soil functions based on scientific understanding.

What drives farmers’ decision-making? To inform effective, efficient, and legitimate governance of agricultural soils, it is important to understand the behaviour of those who manage the fields. This article contributes to the assessment and development of innovative soil governance instruments by outlining a comprehensive understanding of the determinants of farmers’ behaviour and decision-making. Our analysis synthesises empirical literature from different disciplines spanning the last four decades on various farm-level decision-making problems. Based on a conceptual framework that links objective characteristics of the farm and the farmer with behavioural characteristics, social-institutional environment, economic constraints, and decision characteristics, empirical findings from 87 European studies are presented and discussed. We point out that economic constraints and incentives are very important, but that other factors also have significant effects, in particular pro-environmental attitudes, goodness of fit, and past experience. Conversely, we find mixed results for demographic factors and symbolic capital. A number of potentially highly relevant yet understudied factors for soil governance are identified, including adoption of technologies, advisory services, bureaucratic load, risk aversion and social capital, social norms, and peer orientation. Our results emphasise the importance of a broad behavioural perspective to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and legitimacy of soil governance.

Rapid expansion of settlements and related infrastructures is a global trend that comes with severe environmental, economic, and social costs. Steering urbanization toward well-balanced compactness is thus acknowledged as an important strategic orientation in UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG-11) via the SDG-indicator “Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate.” The EU’s simultaneous commitment to being “a frontrunner in implementing […] the SDGs” and to striving for “no net land take until 2050” calls for relating the concepts of land consumption and land take to each other. Drawing on an EU-centred questionnaire study, a focus group and a literature review, we scrutinize definitions of land consumption and land take, seeking to show how they are interrelated, and questioning the comparability of respective indicators. We argue that conceptual clarifications and a bridging of the two notions are much needed, and that the precision required for definitions and applications is context-dependent. While approximate understandings may suffice for general communication and dissemination objectives, accurate and consistent interpretations of the discussed concepts seem indispensable for monitoring and reporting purposes. We propose ways of addressing existing ambiguities and suggest prioritizing the term land take in the EU context. Thereby, we aim to enhance conceptual clarity around land consumption and land take—a precondition for solidly informing respective policies and decisions.