Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agrarie, Alimentari, Ambientali e Forestali (DAGRI), Università degli Studi di Firenze, 50144 Firenze, Italy.
Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari e Forestali (SAAF), Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Jan 15;856(Pt 2):159169. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159169. Epub 2022 Oct 4.
Since the birth of soil science, climate has been recognized as a soil-forming factor, along with parent rock, time, topography, and organisms (from which humans were later kept distinct), often prevalent on the other factors on the very long term. But the climate is in turns affected by soils and their management. This paper describes the interrelationships between climate - and its current change - and soil, focusing on each single factor of its formation. Parent material governs, primarily through the particle size distribution, the capacity of soil to retain water and organic matter, which are two main soil-related drivers of the climate. Time is the only unmanageable soil-forming factor; however, extreme climatic phenomena can upset the soil or even dismantle it, so as to slow down the pathway of pedogenesis or even make it start from scratch. Topography, which drives the pedogenesis mostly controlling rainfall distribution - with repercussions also on the climate - is not anymore a given factor because humans have often become a shaper of it. Indeed humans now play a key role in affecting in a plethora of ways those soil properties that most deal with climate. The abundance and diversity of the other organisms are generally positive to soil quality and as a buffer for climate, but there are troubling evidences that climate change is decreasing soil biodiversity. The corpus of researches on mutual feedback between climate and soil has essentially demonstrated that the best soil management in terms of climate change mitigation must aim at promoting vegetation growth and maximizing soil organic matter content and water retention. Some ongoing virtuous initiatives (e.g., the Great Green Wall of Africa) and farming systems (e.g., the conservation agriculture) should be extended as much as possible worldwide to enable the soil to make the greatest contribution to climate change mitigation.
自土壤科学诞生以来，气候一直被认为是一种成土因素，与母岩、时间、地形和生物（人类后来从生物中分离出来）一起，在很长一段时间内通常对其他因素起主导作用。但是，气候反过来又受到土壤及其管理的影响。本文描述了气候及其当前变化与土壤之间的相互关系，重点关注其形成的各个单一因素。母质主要通过粒径分布来控制土壤保持水分和有机质的能力，这是与土壤相关的两个主要气候驱动因素。时间是唯一不可管理的成土因素；然而，极端气候现象会破坏土壤甚至使其解体，从而减缓成土过程或使其从头开始。地形主要通过控制降雨分布来驱动成土作用——对气候也有影响——不再是一个给定的因素，因为人类常常成为地形的塑造者。事实上，人类现在在以多种方式影响那些与气候关系最密切的土壤特性方面发挥着关键作用。其他生物的丰富度和多样性通常对土壤质量和气候起到缓冲作用，但有令人担忧的证据表明，气候变化正在降低土壤生物多样性。关于气候和土壤之间相互反馈的研究文献基本上表明，为了减缓气候变化，最佳的土壤管理必须旨在促进植被生长，最大限度地提高土壤有机质含量和保水能力。一些正在进行的良性倡议（例如非洲“绿色长城”倡议）和农业系统（例如保护性农业）应该在全球范围内尽可能地推广，以使土壤能够为减缓气候变化做出最大贡献。
