New soil quality monitoring tools in the Soil Web Portal of Sardinia (Italy): automatic calculation of SEs at regional scale

Autore/i: S. Fanni, M. Cocco, A. Frongia, R. Puddu, V.A. Marrone
Anno di pubblicazione: 2024
Lingua: Italiano

Abstract:
According to the definition of the MEA - Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), Ecosystem Services (ES) are "the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems" and can be divided into four broad categories: life support, provisioning, regulation and cultural values, the latter category not addressed in this paper. This study addressed how to calculate the SEs of Sardinian soils through the determination of suitable pedofunctions applicable at the regional level, in line with other European soil protection projects, including the SOIL4LIFE - Save Our Soil For Life project, which focuses in particular on the quantification of soil Ecosystem Services (SEs). Good knowledge of the soil characteristics of the territory, supported by adequate data availability, was the starting point for this study, which made it possible to standardise SEs assessments on a regional scale and introduce new tools for monitoring soil quality. The main source of information for the analysis carried out was provided by the more than 5,000 pedological data in the Sardinian Soils Database (DBSS), the actual engine of the Sardinian Soils Web Portal, which made it possible to normalise the SEs on a regional scale and standardise the pedofunctions developed. Eight ecosystem services provided by soil were considered in the study: BIO - biodiversity of soil organisms, BUF - purification capacity, CLI - effect on microclimate, CSP - potential carbon stock, PRO - agricultural productivity, SUP - infrastructure support, WAS - water storage and WAR - deep water infiltration. Each service was described by means of indicators based on measured (or quantitatively estimated) properties, which were then standardised from 0 to 1 for the entire regional territory so that they could be used in different spatial contexts. Subsequently, a Soil Quality Index IQ, obtained as the sum of the indicators, was determined in order to have a summary picture of the provision of the SEs. The automatic SEs evaluation method thus obtained represents an important step forward in the management and conservation of natural resources. Furthermore, the integration of these new algorithms for the automatic calculation of SEs into the Sardinian Soil Web Portal provides easy and transparent access to soil information for researchers, farmers, planners and other interested stakeholders. In summary, the DBSS and the Sardinian Soils Web Portal play a key role in providing reliable data and assessment tools to support spatial planning and natural resource management, thus contributing to the environmental sustainability and socio-economic development of the region.

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