Links Between Soil Security and the Influence of Soils on Human Health.

Soils are important to human health because of 1) food availability and quality (food security), 2) human contact with various chemicals in soil, and 3) human contact with soil organisms, both beneficial and pathogenic. The five dimensions of the developing concept of soil security each have ties to soils and their influence on human health. Dimension 1 – Capability is related to the ability of soils to produce adequate and high quality food sources and filter waste products to provide a clean environment, particularly clean, safe water supplies. Dimension 2 – Condition influences the nutritional quality of agricultural products produced in a given soil. Dimension 3 – Capital recognizes that there is a value to the services soil provides in terms of promoting human health, a cost associated in situations when soil constituents are detrimental to human health, and that there is value to products such as medications that come from soil. Dimension 4 – Connectivity recognizes that societal interactions with and perspectives of soil influence the value we place on soil and the management practices we use, and this in turn influences human health through the condition dimension. Dimension 4 also recognizes that loss of land as a public good may negatively influence human health as described by recent studies indicating potential health benefits from contact with healthy soil. Dimension 5 – Codification has typically focused on soil and water conservation rather than directly on human health. However, these conservation policies have led to improvements in water quality and reduced need for water treatment for human consumption and increased soil health, leading to the production of better agricultural products produced in those soils. Therefore, there are significant opportunities to advance soils and human health studies and our understanding of these relationships under the soil security concept.