title: An exploration of spatial risk assessment for soil protection: estimating risk and establishing priority areas for soil protection.
abstract: Methods for the spatial estimation of risk of harm to soil by erosion by water and wind and by soil organic matter decline are explored. Rates of harm are estimated for combinations of soil type and land cover (as a proxy for hazard frequency) and used to estimate risk of soil erosion and loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) for 1 km(2)pixels. Scenarios are proposed for defining the acceptability of risk of harm to soil: the most precautionary one corresponds to no net harm after natural regeneration of soil (i.e. a 1 in 20 chance of exceeding an erosion rate of <1 tha(-1)y(-1) and SOC content decline of 0 kg t(-1)y(-1) for mineral soils and a carbon stock decline of 0 tha(-1)y(-1) for organic soils). Areas at higher and lower than possible acceptable risk are mapped. The veracity of boundaries is compromised if areas of unacceptable risk are mapped to administrative boundaries. Errors in monitoring change in risk of harm to soil and inadequate information on risk reduction measures' efficacy, at landscape scales, make it impossible to use or monitor quantitative targets for risk reduction adequately. The consequences for priority area definition of expressing varying acceptable risk of harm to soil as a varying probability of exceeding a fixed level of harm, or, a varying level of harm being exceeded with a fixed probability, are discussed. Soil data and predictive models for rates of harm to soil would need considerable development and validation to implement a priority area approach robustly.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Kibblewhite
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: P H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Bellamy
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: T R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Brewer
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Graves
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Dawson
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Rickson
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Truckell
authors.affiliation: Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Horseferry Road, London, SW1P 2AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stuart
mesh_terms: D002244:Carbon / Q000032:analysis*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D002244:Carbon
keywords: Erosion; Organic matter; Risk acceptability; Soil; Spatial risk