Soil data are widely used in various Earth science fields. We reviewed soil property maps for Earth system models, which can also offer insights to soil data developers and users. Old soil datasets are often based on limited observations and have various uncertainties. Updated and comprehensive soil data are made available to the public and can benefit related research. Good-quality soil data are identified and suggestions on how to improve and use them are provided.

Teaching and outreach of soils is often done with real-life snapshots of soils and sediments in lacquer or glue peels. While it may seem hard, anyone can make such a peel. Illustrated with handmade drawings and an instructional video, we explain how to capture soils in peels using readily available materials. A new twist to old methods makes this safer, simpler, and more successful, and thus a true DIY (do-it-yourself) activity, highlighting the value and beauty of the ground below our feet.

A large amount of descriptive information is available in geosciences. Considering the advances in natural language it is possible to rescue this information and transform it into a numerical form (embeddings). We used 280764 full-text scientific articles to train a language model capable of generating such embeddings. Our domain-specific embeddings (GeoVec) outperformed general domain embedding tasks such as analogies, relatedness, and categorisation, and can be used in novel applications.

Phosphorus (P) seems to be a limiting factor for forest nutrition. At many German forest sites, trees show a deficiency in P nutrition. However, total soil P is an inadequate predictor to explain this malnutrition. We examined if soil properties such as pH, SOC, and soil texture may be used to predict certain P pools in large forest soil inventories. Models using soil properties and P pools with different bioavailability are not yet adequate to explain the P nutrition status in tree foliage.

Some 30 years after peak pollution-related soil acidification occurred in central Europe, the forest ecosystem of a small V-shaped mountain valley, UDL, was still out of chemical balance relative to the concurrent loads of anions and cations in precipitation. The spatial variability in soil solution chemistry provided evidence pointing to substrate variability, C and P bioavailability, and landscape as major controls on base metal leaching toward the subsoil level in N-saturated catchments.

Afforestation on severely degraded volcanic soils/landscapes is an important process concerning ecological restoration in Iceland. These landscapes have a high potential to act as carbon sinks. We tested the soil (0–30 cm) of different stages of afforested (mountain birch) landscapes and analysed the quantity and quality of the soil organic carbon. There is an increase in the total SOC stock during the encroachment. The increase is mostly because of POM SOC. Such soils demand SOC quality tests.

This paper is original research done in north-western Tunisia; it presents the impacts of the topography (slope and aspect) and the land use systems in the SOC storage in a Mediterranean area. It provides a soil spectral library, describes the variation of SOC under different conditions, and highlights the positive impact of agroforestry as good management in improving the SOC. Therefore this finding is very important to support decision making and inform sustainable land management in Tunisia.

Policy to conserve thinning arable soils relies on a balance between the rates of soil erosion and soil formation. Our knowledge of the latter is meagre. Here, we present soil formation rates for an arable hillslope, the first of their kind globally, and a woodland hillslope, the first of their kind in Europe. Rates range between 26 and 96 mm kyr⁻¹. On the arable site, erosion rates are 2 orders of magnitude greater, and in a worst-case scenario, bedrock exposure could occur in 212 years.

There are surprising grey areas in the precise quantification of pathways that produce nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, as influenced by soil moisture. Here, we take a new look at a classic study but use isotopomers as a powerful tool to determine the source pathways of nitrous oxide as regulated by soil moisture. Our results support earlier research, but we contribute scientific advancements by providing models that enable quantifying source partitioning rather than just inferencing.

Vis–NIR spectrometry is often applied to capture soil organic carbon (SOC). This study addresses the impact of the involved data and modelling aspects on SOC precision with a focus on the propagation of input data uncertainties. It emphasizes the necessity of transparent documentation of the measurement protocol and the model building and validation procedure. Particularly, when Vis–NIR spectrometry is used for soil monitoring, the aspect of uncertainty propagation becomes essential.

In a world of increasing pressure on our environment, large-scale knowledge about our soil resources is in high demand. We show how five decades of collaboration between EU member states resulted in a full-coverage soil profile analytical database for Europe (SPADE), with soil data provided by soil experts from each country. We show how the dataset can be applied to estimate soil organic carbon in Europe and suggest further improvement to this critical support tool in continental-scale policies.

In the urban gardens of Kisumu we interviewed female farmers to determine the sources and scope of their agricultural knowledge. We assessed the impact of the knowledge by comparing the influence of two types of management on soil nutrients. While one type of management was more effective in terms of preserving soil nutrients, the other management type had socioeconomic benefits. Both environmental and socioeconomic effects have to be considered in agricultural training to increase their impact.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the largest terrestrial C stock. Andosols of volcanic areas hold particularly large stocks (e.g. from 24 to 72 kgC m⁻² in the upper 2 m of soil) as determined via MIR spectrometry at our Costa Rican study site: a 1 km² basin covered by coffee agroforestry. Andic soil properties explained this high variability, which did not correlate with stocks in the upper 20 cm of soil. Topography and pedogenesis are needed to understand the SOC stocks at landscape scales.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident in March 2011 resulted in the contamination of Japanese landscapes with radioactive fallout. The objective of this review is to provide an overview of the decontamination strategies and their potential effectiveness in Japan. Overall, we believe it is important to synthesise the remediation lessons learnt following the FDNPP nuclear accident, which could be fundamental if radioactive fallout occurred somewhere on Earth in the future.

Biofuel harvests from forests involve large removals of available nutrients, necessitating accurate measurements of soil nutrient stocks. We found that dilute hydrochloric acid extractions from soils released far more Ca, Na, and K than classical salt–extracted exchangeable nutrient pools. The size of these acid–extractable pools may indicate that forest ecosystems could sustain greater biomass extractions of Ca, Mg, and K than are predicted from salt–extracted exchangeable base cation pools.

Soil erosion has detrimental effects on soil fertility which can reduce carbon inputs coming from crops to soils. Our study integrated this effect into a model linking soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics to erosion and crop productivity. When compared to observations, the inclusion of productivity improved SOC loss predictions. Over centuries, ignoring crop productivity evolution in models could result in underestimating SOC loss and overestimating C exchanged with the atmosphere.

A widely overlooked source of carbon (C) in the soil environment is organic C of geogenic origin, e.g. graphite. Appropriate methods are not available to quantify graphite and to differentiate it from other organic and inorganic C sources in soils. Therefore, we examined Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and the smart combustion method for their ability to identify and quantify graphitic C in soils. The smart combustion method showed the most promising results.