World soil health is under pressure from erosion, loss of soil organic carbon and biodiversity, pollution, and salinization. This report presents the status and drivers of global soil pollution, as well as recommendations to address the issue such as using bioremediation technologies.

This document presents key messages and the state-of-the-art of soil pollution, its implications on food safety and human health. It aims to set the basis for further discussion during the forthcoming Global Symposium on Soil Pollution (GSOP18), to be held at FAO HQ from May 2nd to 4th 2018. The publication has been reviewed by the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soil (ITPS) and contributing authors. It addresses scientific evidences on soil pollution and highlights the need to assess the extent of soil pollution globally in order to achieve food safety and sustainable development. This is linked to FAO’s strategic objectives, especially SO1, SO2, SO4 and SO5 because of the crucial role of soils to ensure effective nutrient cycling to produce nutritious and safe food, reduce atmospheric CO2 and N2O concentrations and thus mitigate climate change, develop sustainable soil management practices that enhance agricultural resilience to extreme climate events by reducing soil degradation processes. This document will be a reference material for those interested in learning more about sources and effects of soil pollution.

This book demonstrates the measurement, monitoring and mapping of environmental contaminants in soil & sediment, surface & groundwater and atmosphere. This book explores state-of-art techniques based on methodological and modeling in modern geospatial techniques specifically focusing on the recent trends in data mining techniques and robust modeling. It also presents modifications of and improvements to existing control technologies for remediation of environmental contaminants. In addition, it includes three separate sections on contaminants, risk assessment and remediation of different existing and emerging pollutants. It covers major topics such as: Radioactive Wastes, Solid and Hazardous Wastes, Heavy Metal Contaminants, Arsenic Contaminants, Microplastic Pollution, Microbiology of Soil and Sediments, Soil Salinity and Sodicity, Aquatic Ecotoxicity Assessment, Fluoride Contamination, Hydrochemistry, Geochemistry, Indoor Pollution and Human Health aspects. The content of this book will be of interest to researchers, professionals, and policymakers whose work involves environmental contaminants and related solutions.

Soil is an irreplaceable resource that sustains life on the planet, challenged by food and energy demands of an increasing population. Therefore, soil contamination constitutes a critical issue to be addressed if we are to secure the life quality of present and future generations. Integrated efforts from researchers and policy makers are required to develop sound risk assessment procedures, remediation strategies and sustainable soil management policies. Environmental Risk Assessment of Soil Contamination provides a wide depiction of current research in soil contamination and risk assessment, encompassing reviews and case studies on soil pollution by heavy metals and organic pollutants. The book introduces several innovative approaches for soil remediation and risk assessment, including advances in phytoremediation and implementation of metabolomics in soil sciences.

"The Atlas describes soil as habitat for the diversity of organisms that live under our feet. At the same time, it draws attention to the threats to soil biodiversity, such as invasive species, pollution, intensive land use practices or climate change. The Atlas provides current solutions for a sustainable management of soils. It was coordinated by the JRC and the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (www.globalsoilbiodiversity.org) with more than 70 contributing organisations and several hundred individual contributions. It illustrates the diversity of soil organisms, explains their geographical and temporal distribution, the ecosystem functions and services provided by soil biota. Most importantly, it draws attention to the myriad of threats to soil biodiversity. These include inappropriate land management practices (e.g. deforestation, land take for infrastructure development), agricultural systems, over-grazing, forest fires and poor water management (both irrigation and drainage). Other practices such as land conversion from grassland or forest to cropped land result in rapid loss of soil carbon, which indirectly enhances global warming. The Atlas shows that mismanaging soils could exacerbate the effects of climate change, jeopardise agricultural production, compromise the quality of ground water and worsen pollution. It also proposes solutions to safeguard soil biodiversity through the development of policies that directly or indirectly target soil health, leading to a more sustainable use."--

The book provides reader with a comprehensive up-to-date overview of various aspects of soil pollutants manifestation of toxicity. The book highlights their interactions with soil constituents, their toxicity to agro-ecosystem & human health, methodologies of toxicity assessment along with remediation technologies for the polluted land by citing case studies. It gives special emphasis on scenario of soil pollution threats in developing countries and ways to counteract these in low cost ways which have so far been ignored. It also explicitly highlights the need for soil protection policy and identifies its key considerations after analyzing basic functions of soil and the types of threats perceived. This book will be a useful resource for graduate students and researchers in the field of environmental and agricultural sciences, as well as for personnel involved in environmental impact assessment and policy making.

Soil degradation has serious global impacts on agronomic, economic, and sociopolitical conditions, however, statistics regarding the degree of these impacts has been largely unreliable. This book aims to standardize the methodology for obtaining reliable and objective data on soil degradation. It will also identify and develop criteria for assessing the severity of soil degradation, providing a realistic scenario of the problem.