An integrated evaluation of Ecosystem Services and Soil Health through a web-based DSS.

In this work we present the LandSupport Soil Health tool for an integrated evaluation of multiple potential soil-based ecosystem services (SESs) through the use of a process-based modelling, simulating the crop growth and water balance in the soil-plant-atmosphere system. Specifically, we evaluate the soil contribution to i) food provisioning, through the estimation of biomass of winter wheat and maize; ii) nutrient and pollutants retention and release, through the estimation of soil filtering capacity and mineralization rates; iii) water regulation, through the estimation of yearly percolation toward groundwater; iv) water regulation/water storage through the water yearly stored in the soil; and vi) microclimate regulation, through the total actual evapotranspiration and total SOC change. The proposed approach was framed in the context of the geospatial Decision Support Systems LandSupport (www.landsupport.eu) that, in the latest years, proved to be a powerful and state-of-art instrument for the what-if scenario analysis, in support of multiple stakeholders and end-users, at different spatial scales. Thanks to the LandSupport features, the end-user can evaluate the soil health resilience by simulating the effects of some degradation processes such as: i) a compacted plow layer, ii) a decrease of organic matter, iii) a thickness reduction of the Ap horizon following an erosion process. Furthermore, the gain in soil health can be evaluated by simulating the effect of multiple best practice managements, such as different tillage operations, residue retain and/or the insertion of a cover crop. Each of the above simulated ESs is than mapped and classified to give to the interested end-user an indicator of the soil health status.The Soil Health tool is designed to assist Public Authorities, such as regional environmental agencies, farmers and farmer advisors in designing plans and in evaluation of impacts of the measures in order to ensure a good health of the soils.