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of high importance for attaining 32 targets. Food and water provisioning, habitat
and biodiversity maintenance, and erosion control services contributed to the largest
number of SDG targets. The results highlight that proper management of these services offers opportunities for synergistic outcomes across multiple SDGs.
Our understanding of the interaction across the SDGs and within the nexus is
increasing, but our ability to manage them remains limited. As addressed in
Chaps. 17 and 20, engaging diverse scholars and practitioners can facilitate practical and sustainable solutions to FEW nexus issues.
9.4 Case Study: Erosion Control Services and Conservation
Agriculture (CA)
Erosion control services provide an excellent focus to examine the challenges and
opportunities for ecosystem services provision in the nexus. Vegetation (such as
trees, shrubs, grasses, crops, or anything else with roots growing in soil) helps to
stabilize soil in place, maintain soil structure and porosity, and break up the energy
of falling precipitation or flooding. In doing so, it helps to manage the rate at which
soil is carried away in surface waters as sediment.
Topsoil forms very slowly—on the order of a few centimeters per century—and
where vegetation has been removed and topsoil exposed, it can be vulnerable to
being washed away much faster than it is produced. In agricultural settings, this can
damage livelihoods at several scales: at the farm scale, as the farmer’s capacity to
earn a living from productive land is stripped away; and at the landscape scale, as
sediment is carried into surface streams, rivers, and reservoirs, damaging aquatic
habitats and the livelihoods of those who fish (food) and filling reservoirs whose
functions would otherwise include flood regulation, irrigation storage (water), or
hydropower production (energy).
Meeting demands for food without eroding soil has been a challenge for millennia; the earliest known writings on soil management date back to the Roman era,
with similar struggles being repeated across Europe, North America, South America,
and particularly in agricultural landscapes with developing economies. In every
context the trade-offs are the same: farmers till and plow their soils to speed the
incorporation of fertilizer and organic matter, easing the task of planting and in the
best of cases, increasing productivity over the coming season. In doing so, however,
they break up root structures and leave loose soils exposed precisely as rains begin
to fall, a perfect formula to strip the topsoil away and erode the long-term productivity of the land.
Where land is abundant, people have historically moved on from each exhausted
plot to new land, as Romans growing crops in ancient Italy, and Southern plantation owners growing cotton in the USA each did. When we have reached the limits
of easily available land, our best answer to these problems has remained the same
for millennia as well—minimal soil disturbance and a cover crop to preserve soil
9 Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services
of high importance for attaining 32 targets. Food and water provisioning, habitat
and biodiversity maintenance, and erosion control services contributed to the largest
number of SDG targets. The results highlight that proper management of these services offers opportunities for synergistic outcomes across multiple SDGs.
Our understanding of the interaction across the SDGs and within the nexus is
increasing, but our ability to manage them remains limited. As addressed in
Chaps. 17 and 20, engaging diverse scholars and practitioners can facilitate practical and sustainable solutions to FEW nexus issues.
9.4 Case Study: Erosion Control Services and Conservation
Agriculture (CA)
Erosion control services provide an excellent focus to examine the challenges and
opportunities for ecosystem services provision in the nexus. Vegetation (such as
trees, shrubs, grasses, crops, or anything else with roots growing in soil) helps to
stabilize soil in place, maintain soil structure and porosity, and break up the energy
of falling precipitation or flooding. In doing so, it helps to manage the rate at which
soil is carried away in surface waters as sediment.
Topsoil forms very slowly—on the order of a few centimeters per century—and
where vegetation has been removed and topsoil exposed, it can be vulnerable to
being washed away much faster than it is produced. In agricultural settings, this can
damage livelihoods at several scales: at the farm scale, as the farmer’s capacity to
earn a living from productive land is stripped away; and at the landscape scale, as
sediment is carried into surface streams, rivers, and reservoirs, damaging aquatic
habitats and the livelihoods of those who fish (food) and filling reservoirs whose
functions would otherwise include flood regulation, irrigation storage (water), or
hydropower production (energy).
Meeting demands for food without eroding soil has been a challenge for millennia; the earliest known writings on soil management date back to the Roman era,
with similar struggles being repeated across Europe, North America, South America,
and particularly in agricultural landscapes with developing economies. In every
context the trade-offs are the same: farmers till and plow their soils to speed the
incorporation of fertilizer and organic matter, easing the task of planting and in the
best of cases, increasing productivity over the coming season. In doing so, however,
they break up root structures and leave loose soils exposed precisely as rains begin
to fall, a perfect formula to strip the topsoil away and erode the long-term productivity of the land.
Where land is abundant, people have historically moved on from each exhausted
plot to new land, as Romans growing crops in ancient Italy, and Southern plantation owners growing cotton in the USA each did. When we have reached the limits
of easily available land, our best answer to these problems has remained the same
for millennia as well—minimal soil disturbance and a cover crop to preserve soil
9 Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services