Prepared by
Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS)
Preface | Scope of The State of the
World’s Soil Resources
The main objectives of The State of the World’s Soil Resources are: (a) to provide a global scientific
assessment of current and projected soil conditions built on regional data analysis and expertise;
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| Status of the Soil Resources |
(b) to
explore the implications of these soil conditions for food security, climate change, water quality and quantity,
biodiversity, and human health and wellbeing; and (c) to conclude with a series of recommendations for action
by policymakers and other stakeholders.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with global soil issues (Chapters 1 to 8). This is
followed by a more specific assessment of regional soil change, covering in turn Africa South of the Sahara,
Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Near East and North Africa, North America, the Southwest
Pacific and Antarctica. (Chapters 9 to 16). The technical and executive summaries are published separately.
In Chapter 1 the principles of the World Soil Charter are discussed, including guidelines for stakeholders to
ensure that soils are managed sustainably and that degraded soils are rehabilitated or restored. For long, soil
was considered almost exclusively in the context of food production. However, with the increasing impact of
humans on the environment, the connections between soil and broader environmental concerns have been
made and new and innovative ways of relating soils to people have begun to emerge in the past two decades.
Societal issues such as food security, sustainability, climate change, carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas
emissions, and degradation through erosion and loss of organic matter and nutrients are all closely related
to the soil resource. These ecosystem services provided by the soil and the soil functions that support these
services are central to the discussion in the report.
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