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UID:pretalx-soil-health-now-2026-NNKJR8@pretalx.earthmonitor.org
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Athens:20261207T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Athens:20261207T141500
DESCRIPTION:Soil maintenance depends on erosion not exceeding soil replacem
 ent\, yet tolerable soil loss rates (defined as the maximum erosion rate p
 ossible before soil profiles begin to thin over time) remain poorly constr
 ained and are often represented by broad global defaults that do not adequ
 ately reflect environmental variability. This study updates the global evi
 dence base for soil production from the weathering of parent material and 
 explores how these rates can be used to derive more spatially explicit est
 imates of tolerable soil loss. We compiled a global database of 528 soil p
 roduction rate (SPR) observations with soil depth information from 29 publ
 ications covering approximately the last 30 years. Across the main dataset
 \, SPRs span approximately six orders of magnitude\, ranging from 6 x 10-5
  to 2.47 mm yr⁻¹\, with a mean of 0.0869 mm yr⁻¹ and a median of 0.0
 33 mm yr⁻¹. Strong differences were evident among environmental setting
 s\, with especially low rates in dry climates\, and the highest rates asso
 ciated with steep slopes and metamorphic lithologies.\nTo move beyond glob
 al averages\, we used an ensemble of 10\,000 regression trees to identify 
 robust combinations of environmental controls on SPRs\, resulting in the d
 elineation of seven globally mappable soil production zones. The selected 
 tree structure indicates that climate\, lithology\, slope\, and sampling d
 epth (as a proxy for overlying soil profile thickness) interact to produce
  distinct regional rates of soil production. Our results are mapped at ful
 l global scale at 1 km resolution to allow for comparison with global mode
 l estimates of soil erosion rates. Mapping these zones for upland-hillslop
 e soils (where explicit soil profile thickness estimates are available and
  where soils are most vulnerable to loss through erosion) shows that SPRs 
 are lowest across hot arid regions\, including much of Australia\, central
  Asia\, southern Africa\, and the southern USA–Mexico border region\, wh
 ile higher SPRs occur widely in tropical regions and in some higher latitu
 de regions with metamorphic lithology. These results illustrate that toler
 able soil loss thresholds should be spatially differentiated\, and that co
 mmonly cited universal values (e.g. 2 t ha-1 yr-1) likely overestimate tol
 erable soil loss rates in many landscapes.
DTSTAMP:20260825T180212Z
LOCATION:Amphitheater II
SUMMARY:Deriving spatially explicit tolerable soil loss rates from a global
  synthesis of soil production rates - Chris Feeney
URL:https://pretalx.earthmonitor.org/soil-health-now-2026/talk/NNKJR8/
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