More Than Dirt: Soil Health Needs to Be Emphasized in Stream and Floodplain Restorations

Soil Systems

article

Shreeram P. Inamdar¹  Sujay S. Kaushal²  Robert Brian Tetrick³  Larry Trout⁴  Richard Rowland⁵  Dennis Genito⁵  Harsh Bais¹ 

[1] Plant & Soil Sciences Department, University of Delaware;Department of Geology, Earth Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park;WSP;Straughan Environmental;Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability

关键词: soil health;    floodplain restoration;    soil chemistry;    microbial ecology;    nutrients;   

DOI  :  10.3390/soilsystems7020036

学科分类：电子与电气工程

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Soil health is not explicitly included in current stream and floodplain restorations. This may be one of the many reasons that stream restorations are not achieving their full restoration and ecological benefits. The lack of design and implementation procedures for providing healthy soils and the absence of specific soil metrics for evaluation are some of the reasons for the non-inclusion of soil health in floodplain restorations. Here, we have brought together a team of researchers and practitioners to provide a blueprint for the inclusion of soil health in floodplain restorations, with a specific emphasis on approaches that may be easily accessible for practitioners. We describe the challenges posed by current restoration procedures for physical, chemical, and biological soil conditions. The top ten soil metrics that could be easily measured and could be leveraged by practitioners to assess floodplain soil conditions before and after restorations were identified and selected. The best design and construction practices for improving soil health on floodplains are presented. We also recommend that the current crediting approaches and regulatory mechanisms for stream restorations be updated to incentivize soil health. The inclusion of soil health will help us attain the ecological services and functional uplift goals that are being targeted by environmental agencies and the restoration community.

【 授权许可】

CC BY