Usable Science: Soil Health

Abstract

• Healthy soils are fundamental to sustainable rangelands, but soils function in obscurity. This is reflected in the belowground black-box mentality often attributed to soils.
• Transformational changes get the attention of land managers and the public for example, soil erosion associated with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. This provides benchmarks for the context of importance in maintaining healthy soils for the productive capacity of rangelands.
• Benefits of soil health include enhanced soil waterholding capacity and appropriate nutrient cycling, which increases rangelands resilience to weather variability and predicted climate change.
• Future directions of usable science for soil health include: 1) characterization of soil health indicators for sensitivity levels that affect transitions/thresholds of state-and-transition models, 2) influences of management practices, predicted climate change, and extreme events, and 3) impact of prescribed fire and wildfires on soil health.

Keywords: infiltration, nutrient cycling, organic matter, productive capacity, resiliency, soil structure.