Implementing soil quality knowledge in land-use planning.

J. Bouma

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Land-use negotiation rather than land-use planning tends to become the standard in our modern network society, where stakeholders, policy makers and scientists in interdisciplinary teams are engaged in joint learning experiences. Soil scientists are, as yet, not well prepared to take an active part in these teams, which is due to both attitude and lack of skills. When handled from the viewpoint of reflexive objectivity, the soil quality concept can be quite helpful to focus soils information input into the team discussions. Moreover, this can be strengthened by also illustrating the role of soil management to reach certain qualities because discussions in the team are centred on future demands and not on current conditions alone. Soil qualities can be defined for different soil functions but soil quality in general can best be expressed by defining a window of opportunities for every type of soil to be defined by field observations and monitoring and simulation modelling. A plea is made to emphasize field work through studying effects of past management on soil properties in any given type of soil, after defining their locations on published soil maps. Soil scientists are eminently qualified to play a central role in land negotiation teams if they possess the proper set of tools and a mind open to joint learning.
Other chapters from this book
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationManaging soil quality: challenges in modern agriculture
EditorsP. Schjønning, S. Elmholt, B. T. Christensen
PublisherCABI
Chapter16
Pages283-295
ISBN (Print)9780851996714
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2004

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