The BonaRes status seminar took place from 19-21.02.2019 in Leipzig. More than 200 participants from the eleven collaborative projects presented their latest research results.
Our coordinator Prof Rachel Creamer (WUR) on Tuesday the 20th of February 2019 gave a keynote lecture on Evaluating Soil Functions – How can we support sustainable farm management
In recent years, sustainable food production has risen to the top of the EU policy agenda. Europe’s land is now expected to provide multiple ecosystem services (soil functions) for society. These include: i) food production, ii) carbon storage, iii) the provision of clean water, iv) habitats for biodiversity and v) nutrient cycling. However, we must balance the demand for these soil functions (by society), with the intrinsic capacity of the soil to supply, under different landscapes, climates and management systems. All soils are capable of delivering these five soil functions individually, but our management defines the capacity of the soil to deliver multiple functions at once. Every day, farmers make decisions on how they manage their land and soil. At the same time, national and European policy makers make long-term decisions on how to manage their soil resources at larger scales. Therefore, the contemporary challenge for researchers and stakeholders is to link the decision making on land management across scales, so that the practicalities of how farmers make decisions is reflected in policy formation. This presentation will try to respond to this challenge through research conducted in the LANDMARK project
The programme of the BonaRes status seminar can be found at https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=45598