The Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils has completed the first State of the World's Soil Resources Report. Globally soil erosion was identified as the gravest threat, leading to deteriorating water quality in developed regions and to lowering of crop yields in many developing regions. We need to increase nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer use in infertile tropical and semi-tropical soils – the regions where the most food insecurity among us are found – while reducing global use of these products overall. Stores of soil organic carbon are critical in the global carbon balance, and national governments must set specific targets to stabilize or ideally increase soil organic carbon stores. Finally the quality of soil information available for policy formulation must be improved – the regional assessments in the State of the World's Soil Resources Report frequently base their evaluations on studies from the 1990s based on observations made in the 1980s or earlier.

Biochar application to agricultural soils is an interesting emerging technology with promising potential for long-term carbon storage, sustainable waste disposal, and soil fertility enhancement. Extensive information exists in the literature on the highly beneficial properties of biochar. Nevertheless, systematic application of biochar on European agricultural soils may have wide ranging policy implications as well as environmental and public health concerns. In this paper we critically review existing scientific evidence from a European policy perspective and identify research gaps for future comprehensive assessments of the policy, environmental, economic, and health implications of the systematic use of biochar in European agricultural soils.

Petursdottir, T., O. Arnalds, S. Baker, L. Montanarella, and Á. Aradóttir. 2013. A social–ecological system approach to analyze stakeholders’ interactions within a large-scale rangeland restoration program. Ecology and Society 18(2): 29. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05399-180229

Biochar has a relatively long half-life in soil and can fundamentally alter soil properties, processes, and ecosystem services. The prospect of global-scale biochar application to soils highlights the importance of a sophisticated and rigorous certification procedure. The objective of this work was to discuss the concept of integrating biochar properties with environmental and socioeconomic factors, in a sustainable biochar certification procedure that optimizes complementarity and compatibility between these factors over relevant time periods. Biochar effects and behavior should also be modelled at temporal scales similar to its expected functional lifetime in soils. Finally, when existing soil data are insufficient, soil sampling and analysis procedures need to be described as part of a biochar certification procedure.

The current state of the art in erosion research does not provide answers about the “where” and “when” of wind erosion in European agricultural lands. Questions about the implications for the agricultural productivity remain unanswered. Tackling this research gap, the study provides a more comprehensive understanding of the spatial patterns of land susceptibility to wind erosion in European agricultural lands. The Index of Land Susceptibility to Wind Erosion (ILSWE) was applied in a GIS environment. A harmonized input dataset ranked following a fuzzy logic technique was employed. Within the 36 European countries under investigation, moderate (17.3 million ha) and high levels (8.8 million ha) of land susceptibility to wind erosion were predicted. This corresponds to 8.0% and 4.1% of total agricultural land, respectively.