1. 1  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
Benjamin Warr, PhD
Center for the Management of Environmental
Resources
INSEAD
Email: benjamin.warr@insead.edu
INSEAD
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
Land Use Impacts and
Dependence on Soil
Functions

2. 2  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD
600 mHa – Deforestation, over 220mHa of tropical forests
cleared between 1975-90 for food production.
680 mHa – Overgrazing, most severe in Asia and Africa.
550 mHa – Agricultural mismanagement, erosion (25000mt
anually, ~2500t per ha) and salinisation (40m Ha affected).
137 mHa - Fuelwood related forest degradation.
19.5 mHa – Industry and Urbanisation, city and road
construction, mining and industry. Often on most productive
soils.
Source: FAO
Extent and Causes of Land Degradation -
TODAY

3. 3  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD
Projected doubling of population by 2050 ?
Extension – to marginal lands that used to fill other roles.
Intensification – irrigation, exogenous inputs, disturbance.
Diversification – biofuels, industrial crops, landscape services
Climate change and uncertainty – CO2 fertilisation, extreme
events, changing agro-ecological zones. Loss of knowledge.
Industrialisation – greater emissions of toxic materials.
Improved standard of living and global equity? Meat
consumption to increase 2.9 pa between 1993 - 2020.
Land Degradation: TOMORROW
1481 kg/yr per capita. USA
0.8 Ha per capita
785kg/yr per capita
0.08 Ha per capita
USAChina

4. 4  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD Worrying Trends for Food Security
• Declining growth of new arable and irrigated areas, even
in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, which have
untapped resources.
• Salinity and waterlogging of irrigated land, water
pollution, and overpumping of aquifers. Competition for
water between agricultural is rising.
• Fertilizer growth rates have fallen sharply, from 14.6
percent per year for 1961-71 to 5.3 percent per year for
1985-92 in the developing countries, and from 7.9 percent
to -0.4 percent over the same period in the developed
countries.
• Tractor use growth rates have declined by more than 50
percent everywhere since 1980.
• Environmental pollution and health hazards mean
stringent controls on pesticide use.
• Food prices at an historic low, discouraging investment
and research.

5. 5  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD
An input that exists as a stock providing services that
contribute to production. The stock is not used up in
production, although it may deteriorate with use, providing a
smaller flow of services later.
1798, Thomas Malthus, “An essay on the principles of
population”. Land is limited, BUT ‘prudential constraint’ can
maintain productivity.
1817, David Ricardo introduced quality differences into
analysis, the Ricardian rent, surplus paid to high quality
resources.
1848, John Stuart Mill, Ricardian scarcity arising from need to
exploit infertile land will exert pressures to protect and ensure
service flows.
The next wave of resource availability concerns (1890-1920)
was led by conservationists. There was no appropriate
economic theory and the soil was forgotten.
Land and Soil as the Original Factor of
Production

6. 6  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD
•Limits to Growth (Meadows & Meadows) – re-stimulated
Malthusian debate.
•Concerns about the direct and indirect impacts of population,
agricultural intensification, industrialisation on ecosystem
functioning and future economic growth – concept of sustainable
development.
•Increasing acceptance of the role of “ecological services” as an
essential factor of production – environmental economics. With
focus on products and materials and in particular energy.
Continuing debate over weak vs. strong
sustainability…
Since then….

7. 7  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD
•Food for people
•Food for animals
•Forest products – fuelwood
and lumber
•Industrial crops
•Urban
•Recreation
•Filter, buffer, transform.
3 Eco-services
a) Energy & Biomass production
b) Filter, buffer, transform
c) Habitat
3 Socio-economic services
a) Physical basis
b) Raw materials
c) Memory of “geogenic and
cultural history”, (Blum, W.H.)
• Sustain plant and animal productivity
• Maintain or enhance water and air quality
• Support human health and habitation
Land A Unique Factor of Production

8. 8  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD
Soil is clearly important so why the lack of wider concern ?
Weak position:
“We can substitute for most if not all of the services provided by
‘natural’ soils.”
“The Kuznets curve predicts we may even be better off later if
we cash in our ‘natural balance’ today.”
“Using modern methods I can increase productivity levels, so
why not use them, all of them, regardless?”
“The technological advances of tomorrow will pay for the clean-
up exercise tomorrow, when priorities have changed”.
Weak vs. Strong Sustainability

9. 9  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD
a) The soil is a renewable, non-renewable resource.
b) It is spatially and temporally dynamic (both naturally and
in response to impacts).
c) It is complex, non-linear and unobservable.
d) Traditionally the soil is considered dirty.
e) The soil is resilient.
f) The soil is owned and subject to property rights. Not
entirely the “Tragedy of the Commons”? Or is it, I’ll do as
I please ?
g) Soil is a “cross-cutting multifunctional medium”.
A unit of soil provides a variety of eco-services to the
wider community. Whether economically productive or
not, it is for this community to decide amongst the range
of alternate land uses they will accept.
Characteristics of the soil

10. 10  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD
1. A classification based on stakeholders uses and needs.
Stakeholders include all members of society.
2. A dynamic classification reflecting socio-economic
condition and technological level.
3. Recognises all require the soil indirectly, while certain
profit directly from soil eco-services. Both parties are
‘responsible’.
4. Differs from eco-services and socio-economic services
grouping by recognising the role of of soil eco-services in
generating economic wealth.
Direct Services – a unique monetary value can be attributed
to the services provided. AWARE.
Indirect Services – complex, uncertain processes and results.
Include risk avoidance, stability, predictability, spiritual,
political (positive externalities). UNAWARE.
Direct and Indirect Soil Eco-Services

11. 11  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD The Soil Energy Concept: Health and
Resilience
Soil health is simply the “soils capacity to function”.
Soil resilience the ability of a disturbed system to return to its
original state.
Soil health and resilience can be understood in energy terms.
The soil is a pool of energy at the Earths surface. There are 3
energy sources,
1. Gravity – movement of solid, gases, liquids.
2. Orogenic - from the parent material.
3. Solar – quick (fluxes of gas and liquid), slow
(stored in soil biomass and organic matter).

12. 12  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD More on Health and Resilience
• Soils are unique containing inherited orogenic energy as well
as renewable solar energy.
• As soils weather they gain in entropy and lose energy.
• Soils differ in their energy levels as a result of historical
dynamics (land use).
• Soil functions are the result of: a) flows of energy and
materials; b) transformations; c) changes in quality and
quantity of energy.
• Soil resilience to disturbances can be related to the level of
energy of the soil – physical, chemical or biological.
• Soil resilience has thresholds beyond which recovery is not
possible.
• Measures of soil resilience provide a way to assess the state
of the soil system.
• Research into the underlying dynamics are necessary to
forecast future impacts of alternate land use decisions.

13. 13  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD Operational Measures of Impact and
Resilience
The energy concept provides a way of comparing the relative
resilience of at a very general level (temperate vs. tropical soils).
The energy concept can be used to assess the ‘work’ that the soil
is capable of performing to return the soil system to its original
state, following a given impact.
Biological, chemical and physical measures are needed.
A simple chemical example: Buffer Capacity is controlled by:
Beware the system is dynamic and non-linear !
a) Carbonate dissolution dynamics (pH > 7),
b) Variable charge capacity (pH 5.5 - 7), determined by
organic matter and metal oxides and base cations (i.e.
Ca2+)
c) Silicate buffer range (pH 4.5 – 5.5).

14. 14  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD Boosting Functionality Within Resilience
Boundaries
Sustainable agricultural intensification is the process of
boosting soil functionalities of economic relevance, i.e. the
amount of useful work that the soil provides.
Exogenous energy inputs are used to enable the soil to perform
additional work and to maintain the soil within acceptable
resilience boundaries.
Useful work Exogenous
inputs,
management
Resilience
Non-linear and sudden changes are the norm !
time time

15. 15  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD Land Use and Climate Change: SOM energy
Climate change will affect soils in the landscape, because their
risk of erosion will alter with changes in plant cover (land use),
rain and wind. The associated changes in primary production
will also result in changes of organic material inputs to the soil.
Changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration may lead to
changed soil organic matter quantity and type. In particular it
may lead to changes in the amounts of photosynthate allocated
below-ground.
Changes in land-use have far reaching, and often rapid, effects
on soil physical structure (eg. erodibility) and fertility. The
interaction of land-use change with the other global change
drivers of climate and atmospheric composition is not so well
understood.

16. 16  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD Hazards of Agricultural Intensification: soil
work and efficiency losses.
The following major loss of soil work efficiency are
associated with intensification in high potential areas:
1. Intensive use of irrigation water can cause waterlogging
and salt accumulation. (24 percent worldwide). Loss of
gravity flows of energy.
2. Flooding (continuous rice culture) leads to micronutrient
deficiencies and soil toxicities, hardpans, and reduced
ability to supply nitrogen. Use of increasing amounts of
fertilizer over time simply to maintain existing yields. Loss
of chemical efficiency.
3. Excessive and inappropriate use of fertilizers and
pesticides can alter soil organic matter dynamics and work
performed by soil biota. Loss of capacity.
4. An increasing reliance on a few carefully bred crop
varieties leads to the build-up of soil pathogens. Pathogens
will reduce the efficiency of the biotic component of the
system.

17. 17  CMER-INSEAD 2001
Title
CMER
Centre for the Management
of Environmental Resources
INSEAD Summary, for the future.
1. Engender awareness of soil as a fundamental factor of
production.
2. Understand the complex feedback dynamics between soils
and the wider environment. Essentially flows of matter
and energy.
3. Promote concept of the efficiency of soils use.
4. Investigate non-linearity and resilience thresholds.
5. Seek win-win situations that exploit the multi-functionality
of the soil and optimise delivery of both direct and indirect
eco-services.
6. Reveal the (historical ) contribution of indirect and direct
soil services to economic output.
7. Elaborate scenarios for the future, focussed on soil:-
a) North-South equity, living standards and the soil.
b) The effects of climate change on land use and
impacts on soil functions.
c) New forms of stakeholder participation.