Session: Special Session Symposium--Soil and National Security

Title: Special Session Symposium--Soil and National Security

Session Description: There is a glaring need in the government and national security sectors for examples of how soil quality and its effect on food and climate security impacts national security via migration, riots, and other forms of social unrest. Additionally, the national security sector must be able to identify near and longer term environmental threats to our security, and develop strategies and policy needed to effectively prepare for, or remediate, these issues. To begin to develop research and review articles that address these critical and under-studied issues, we organize this special symposium on Soil and National Security. Some examples of topics of interest include: case studies of historical analyses of land degradation and food prices/security through history, assessment of the impacts of legacy land degradation (5000 to 2000 BP) on present soil quality and productivity; methods of quantitatively defining and mapping soil degradation on regional to global scales; quantitative studies of how soil management changes crop yields, water balance, etc.; key near term and decadal scale soil-related threats and challenges to national security. A fundamental goal of this session is to initiate quantitative information that will be of use to policy makers in state, defense, and intelligence communities, and to work to create work that it deliberately geared to bridge the science-policy divide.