The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Soil is the slowest food-system asset to build and one of the fastest to lose. Its organic matter, structure, nutrients and biology set how much water a field holds, how well crops use fertiliser and how a landscape absorbs rain. Erosion, salinisation, compaction, nutrient mining and conversion lower productivity long before the damage is visible. This page sets out how soil and land condition are measured, how degradation spreads, and who acts on the evidence.
Soil degradation is the decline of a soil's capacity to support plants and store water, carbon and nutrients, through erosion, nutrient mining, salinisation, compaction and loss of organic matter. It lowers productivity long before it is visible. Soil and land condition are mapped from soil profiles, laboratory analyses and satellites, and reported nationally under the UNCCD.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Soil and land · Main season · Crop stage: grain fill
| Highland zone | 2.1 | ▼ 8 | Medium |
| Coastal plain | 3.2 | ▼ 5 | Medium |
| Region North | 0.8 | ▼ 16 | Low |
| Region South | 1.0 | ▼ 6 | Medium |
red: crop stress observed
Soil health, land degradation and productivity. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Water and wind strip topsoil fastest where land is bare, steep or overgrazed. Topsoil holds most of the organic matter and nutrients, and it forms far more slowly than it is lost under poor management.
Harvests remove nutrients that are not replaced where fertiliser is unaffordable, while heavy use elsewhere leaks nitrogen and phosphorus into water. Both lower long-term productivity, in different places.
Irrigation without drainage raises water tables and leaves salts in the root zone. Coastal land takes salt from storm surges and from seawater drawn into overpumped aquifers.
Degraded soil holds less water, so droughts bite sooner and floods run off faster. Lower yields push cultivation onto marginal land and forest, and the degradation front moves with it.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Land degradation neutrality | A state in which the amount and quality of land resources stay stable or increase within a given time and area, the target of SDG 15.3 under the UNCCD. |
| Soil organic carbon | The carbon held in soil organic matter, which supports soil structure, water holding and nutrient supply. |
| Salinisation | The build-up of soluble salts in soil, often from irrigation with poor drainage, which reduces crop growth. |
| Nutrient mining | Removal of more nutrients in harvests than are returned by fertiliser, manure or residues, depleting soil fertility over time. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soil organic carbon stock | tonnes of carbon per hectare to a stated depth | multi-year | Soil sampling, digital soil mapping | MODELLED |
| Proportion of land that is degraded (SDG 15.3.1) | percent of land area | reporting cycle | National reporting to the UNCCD | OFFICIAL |
| Land productivity dynamics | trend class | multi-year | Satellite net primary productivity time series | ESTIMATED |
| Soil erosion rate | tonnes per hectare per year | multi-year | Erosion models with field validation | MODELLED |
| Soil salinity | decisiemens per metre (electrical conductivity) | per survey | Soil sampling | OBSERVED |
| Soil nutrient balance | kilograms of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium per hectare per year | annual | Input and harvest accounts | ESTIMATED |
| Conversion to and from cropland | hectares | annual | Satellite land cover classification | OBSERVED |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| SoilGrids (ISRIC) | Global gridded soil properties with prediction uncertainty | Free and open, attribution |
| Harmonized World Soil Database (FAO and IIASA) | Soil units and attributes for crop and land evaluation | Free, terms per FAO and IIASA |
| Global Soil Partnership maps (FAO) | Country-driven maps of soil organic carbon and salt-affected soils | Free, terms per FAO |
| UNCCD national reporting and Trends.Earth | Land cover, land productivity and soil carbon sub-indicators of degradation | Public records; open-source tool |
| ESA WorldCover and Copernicus land cover | Cropland extent and land cover change | Free and open, attribution |
| LUCAS topsoil survey (European Commission JRC) | Harmonised topsoil samples for mapping and validation | Free on registration, terms per JRC |
| National soil surveys and laboratories | Soil profiles, analyses and national soil maps | Public records, terms per agency |
Food Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and environment ministries | Where to target soil conservation, restoration and fertiliser support | Degradation hotspots, nutrient balances and soil maps with their uncertainty |
| National focal points to the UNCCD | How to report progress toward land degradation neutrality and which measures to commit | Sub-indicator layers with method, baseline and confidence |
| Irrigation and drainage authorities | Where salinity and waterlogging call for drainage investment or changed water management | Salinity sampling, water-table depth and irrigation records read together |
| Land administration and planning authorities | Where conversion of cropland, pasture or forest needs control or tenure support | Land cover change with tenure context, read against the Voluntary Guidelines on tenure |
Soil condition is rarely visible in a single season, which is why it is easy to neglect. Yet it sets the ceiling on yields, the buffer against drought and flood, and the cost of producing food in future. Experts treat soil as natural capital that can be run down or rebuilt, with consequences that outlast any one harvest.
Soil change is slow to build and fast to lose, which makes it a hidden driver of risk.
Wind and water erosion remove fertile topsoil; heavy machinery and overgrazing compact soil and reduce infiltration.
Imbalanced fertilization depletes some nutrients and pollutes water with others. Poorly drained irrigation raises salinity.
Soil organisms cycle nutrients and build structure. Loss of organic carbon weakens both and releases greenhouse gases.
Laboratory analysis gives precise measures at points; scaling to landscapes needs careful design and spatial statistics.
Combines samples, terrain, climate and satellite data using spatial statistics. Maps carry prediction uncertainty that should be shown alongside them.
Detects bare soil, vegetation cover and some erosion features, but cannot measure most soil properties directly.
Decades-long experiments reveal how practices change soils. They are few, and results may not transfer between climates and soil types.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.