SOIL ENVIRONMENTAL-QUALITY - A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

Environmental quality is a major political concern in Europe and the i mportant role of the soil is widely recognized. However, soil science still has an important role to play in translating good intentions int o policies supporting the implementation of innovative soil management procedures that can ensure sustainable production systems in harmony with nature. Society is impatient and demands solutions from science. This could in time lead to only holistic, applied research that is not adequately supported by basic research. A plea is made for establishi ng research chains in which a holistic, interdisciplinary analysis of a problem to be studied is followed by reductionistic basic research i n relevant areas. Results are again communicated to and analyzed by th e holistic team to be integrated in the overall analysis. Two areas of particular concern in soil research are discussed: (i) the implicatio ns of variability in space and time on defining characteristic thresho ld values for environmental indicators, and (ii) providing data to eco nomists, which will allow them to express environmental effects of soi l management practices in monetary terms.