The highlighted paper “Representing soil landscapes from digital soil mapping products – helping the map to speak for itself” demonstrates how operational digital soil map products can enhance decision-making. By shifting focus from traditional point-based accuracy metrics to the spatial realism and visual structure of digital soil maps, this research addresses a gap in soil mapping practice. The approach ensures that soil maps meet statistical criteria but also more faithfully represent soil landscape patterns, making them more valuable and informative for end users such as land planners and environmental managers.

Annette Eltner et al. presented a very insightful and innovative study, which is exactly what is needed in erosion modelling. The high quality of the manuscript was underlined by both anonymous reviewers who were quite enthusiastic about it. Overall, it is a manuscript worth reading for new ideas in erosion modelling.

This is an important forum article highlighting the lack of awareness into plant physiology in global soil carbon research. This issue is highly relevant as much of soil carbon cycling is driven by plant activity, in particular in the rhizosphere or related to plant symbionts. Their results are clear—the large majority of soil carbon studies do not include plant physiology even though a plant physiological perspective could provide novel or more mechanistic insights on soil carbon processes and could inform a new direction in soil carbon modelling.

This article demonstrates that soil mineralogy, not just clay content, determines the radiocaesium interception potential of soils, i.e. the absorption of 137Cs and hence its bioavailability. It, therefore, highlights the need for recalibration of existing 137Cs bioavailability models to predict regional contamination risk, but also the need for more careful soil analysis at the regional scale.

As consumers demand to know more about the provenance of their food and the impact its production has on the environment, it is timely to consider the role that the supply chains of companies play in protecting soils from degradation. Soil degradation is increasingly considered as a commercial risk in supply chains, with soil quality a priority objective in retail-sector sustainability efforts. Many products and services rely on soils, and loss of productivity can be a significant risk. This interesting paper examines how soil sustainability features in accreditation schemes used by major food retailers and the potential influence these might have for soil protection. As many organizations and companies across different sectors are attempting to apply robust sustainability standards, it makes a timely contribution. It addresses four key questions: (i) To what extent are companies considering soil sustainability as part of their sustainability strategy? (ii) Do sustainability standards that companies use have a potentially meaningful impact on soil protection, and does that impact affect standards' market penetration? (iii) Are schemes that emphasize the environment more likely to have a stronger soil-related impact? (iv) What are companies' practical considerations in their application of soil protection criteria in voluntary sustainability standards?