Making Soil with FAO

Soil health is a term that is often neglected in landscape architectural projects. But the soil organisms make up more than 25% of the total biodiversity of our planet and it is accepted that the total biomass below ground equals or potentially exceeds that above ground. It is also no secret that soil is a very complex and poorly understood topic. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO has published a reference work regarding soil biodiversity for soil scientists and practitioners worldwide. It defines “soil biodiversity as the variety of life belowground, from genes and species to the communities they form, as well as the ecological complexes to which they contribute and to which they belong, from soil micro-habitats to landscapes.”

Facing the challenge of combining global validity but local applicability, the report is a result of the work of more than 300 soil scientists and experts on soil biodiversity from all regions of the world. It functions as a reference work and gives a very detailed overview about the state of the knowledge of soil biodiversity. 

Here’s the link to the document

Food and Agricultural Organization FAO (2020). State of knowledge of soil biodiversity - Status, challenges and potentialities, Report 2020. Rome, FAO.