Barriers and opportunities of soil knowledge to address soil challenges: Stakeholders' perspectives across Europe.

Climate-smart sustainable management of agricultural soil is critical to improve soil health, enhance food and water security, contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity preservation, and improve human health and wellbeing. The European Joint Programme for Soil (EJP SOIL) started in 2020 with the aim to significantly improve soil management knowledge and create a sustainable and integrated European soil research system. EJP SOIL involves more than 350 scientists across 24 Countries and has been addressing multiple aspects associated with soil management across different European agroecosystems. This study summarizes the key findings of stakeholder consultations conducted at the national level across 20 countries with the aim to identify important barriers and challenges currently affecting soil knowledge but also assess opportunities to overcome these obstacles. Our findings demonstrate that there is significant room for improvement in terms of knowledge production, dissemination and adoption. Among the most important barriers identified by consulted stakeholders are technical, political, social and economic obstacles, which strongly limit the development and full exploitation of the outcomes of soil research. The main soil challenge across consulted member states remains to improve soil organic matter and peat soil conservation while soil water storage capacity is a key challenge in Southern Europe. Findings from this study clearly suggest that going forward climate-smart sustainable soil management will benefit from (1) increases in research funding, (2) the maintenance and valorisation of long-term (field) experiments, (3) the creation of knowledge sharing networks and interlinked national and European infrastructures, and (4) the development of regionally-tailored soil management strategies. All the above-mentioned interventions can contribute to the creation of healthy, resilient and sustainable soil ecosystems across Europe.

The effect of freezing and thawing on water flow and MCPA leaching in partially frozen soil.

Limited knowledge and experimental data exist on pesticide leaching through partially frozen soil. The objective of this study was to better understand the complex processes of freezing and thawing and the effects these processes have on water flow and pesticide transport through soil. To achieve this we conducted a soil column irrigation experiment to quantify the transport of a non-reactive tracer and the herbicide MCPA in partially frozen soil. In total 40 intact topsoil and subsoil columns from two agricultural fields with contrasting soil types (silt and loam) in South-East Norway were used in this experiment. MCPA and bromide were applied on top of all columns. Half the columns were then frozen at -3 °C while the other half of the columns were stored at +4 °C. Columns were then subjected to repeated irrigation events at a rate of 5 mm artificial rainwater for 5 h at each event. Each irrigation was followed by 14-day periods of freezing or refrigeration. Percolate was collected and analysed for MCPA and bromide. The results show that nearly 100% more MCPA leached from frozen than unfrozen topsoil columns of Hov silt and Kroer loam soils. Leaching patterns of bromide and MCPA were very similar in frozen columns with high concentrations and clear peaks early in the irrigation process, and with lower concentrations leaching at later stages. Hardly any MCPA leached from unfrozen topsoil columns (0.4-0.5% of applied amount) and concentrations were very low. Bromide showed a different flow pattern indicating a more uniform advective-dispersive transport process in the unfrozen columns with higher concentrations leaching but without clear concentration peaks. This study documents that pesticides can be preferentially transported through soil macropores at relatively high concentrations in partially frozen soil. These findings indicate, that monitoring programs should include sampling during snow melt or early spring in areas were soil frost is common as this period could imply exposure peaks in groundwater or surface water.