Soil-ecological risk assessment in connection with global environmental changes:
Methodological approaches in various geographic scales
Rozov S.Yu., Kust G.S., & Andreeva O.V.
Soil Science Faculty, Moscow Lomonosov State University,
Moscow, Russia
E-mail Sergei Rozov at: watcher008005@yandex.ru
ABSTRACT
In connection with the problem of global environmental/climate change, the issue of adequate
environmental risks assessment (ERA) is of a particular urgency due to the desertification/land
degradation. These processes are extremely acute problem particularly for the small islands,
where soil resources are quite limited. Despite the fact that ERA has been developed for over 40
years, common terminology and methodology in relation to soil and environmental risks were
not developed yet, even the term of "soil-ecological risk" was not determined until recently (Kust
et al, 2014). Simultaneously, the scientific developing of indicators for early warning and risk
assessment of soil degradation processes is proceeding, because soil degradation leads to the
reduction of productive land and biological resources, as well as to degradation of basic life
support components - air, fresh water and fertile land.
The authors introduce methodological approach named SERVE (Soil-Ecological-RiskVerification-&-Evaluation) consisting of comprehensive assessment of the overall environmental
risk, in order to underline soil-ecological risk. For different spatial scales, from the individual
farmers’ fields up to big areas in territories in Russia and adjacent countries, it has been shown
how SERVE approach can help to predict productivity losses when soil properties degrade in
response to the local and global environmental changes. SERVE methodology can also be used
on the small islands, where the sensitivity of natural- and agro-ecosystems to the global
environmental changes is much higher than on the continents. SERVE methodology application
requires its adaptation to small islands’ conditions and justifies targeted research in this area due
to the scale effects.