The book “Impact of Agriculture on Soil Degradation II: A European Perspective,” edited by Paulo Pereira, Miriam Muñoz-Rojas, Igor Bogunovic, and Wenwu Zhao (2022), presents a comprehensive examination of soil threats that impact the properties and functioning of agricultural soils in Europe. It is crucial for readers to understand the context of these threats, particularly by considering the definition of land degradation provided by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD): “Land degradation is the result of human-induced actions which exploit land, causing its utility, biodiversity, soil fertility, and overall health to decline.”

This definition captures both known and emerging soil threats and underscores a topic of growing concern amid the intensification of climate extremes, increasing food demand, and land sealing due to logistics and urbanization. These factors have escalated over recent decades and demand attention as critical components affecting densely populated territories and rural areas that tend to be abandoned. Unlike unmanaged soils formed through natural processes, agricultural soils exhibit much higher spatial variability due to human management practices, which can, in turn, exacerbate soil threats. Across its 12 chapters, the book provides detailed analyses of soil degradation threats in 10 single countries and two multicountry case studies, offering a comprehensive perspective on the most critical issues facing soil sustainability.

The book covers the most crucial soil threats at present times. In the majority of cases, the chapters are supported by relevant (country-related) peer-review literature, including the primary driver of climatic conditions, tillage, land use changes, loss of organic carbon, erosion, compaction, overgrazing, salinity, contamination by chemicals and microplastics, structure loss, fire, acidification, flooding, and landslides (Figure 1).

A substantial portion of the book is dedicated to elaborating on general concepts of soil degradation, including erosion caused by water and wind, as well as policies aimed at mitigating these effects. It also delves into the changes in soil physicochemical properties and their change over time due to cultivation practices, which are crucial for understanding soil degradation as a significant threat and for developing strategies to adapt and remediate, where possible, to halt further soil degradation.

The book is well-presented, featuring informative and helpful diagrams, plots, and figures that succinctly summarize results from scientific peer-reviewed literature. Policy reports and directives are thoroughly referenced, adding to the resource's reliability. Each chapter begins with an introduction that provides a historical overview of agriculture, land conditions, and their impacts on soil traits within a specific country. These introductions highlight the most prominent or well-documented soil threat in the country under discussion. While the structure of each chapter is consistent, which aids the reader's comprehension, there is room for improvement in harmonization. Introducing the concept of each specific soil threat within the broader context of European soils could be advantageous before delving into country-specific research and remediation efforts on agricultural soils. The chapters cover a wide range of soil degradation issues, with diverse examples and in-depth analyses of soil processes, such as salinization in Croatia, Italy, and Hungary, erosion in Germany, Greece, and Portugal. In the Czech Republic, specific processes like soil structure loss, the impact of wildfire, flooding and waterlogging are examined. In Hungary, landslides are discussed, and Iceland presents a country-scale model to assess and monitor anthropogenic degradation. However, a comprehensive quantitative overview of the overall impact on the main physical and chemical properties of soils across Europe and their variability would have been a valuable addition.

Several chapters offer detailed explanations of the methodologies used to model soil erosion, measure soil compaction, and assess the impact of inorganic fertilizer loads. They describe the potential effects of soil degradation and include data collection methods for monitoring, spatial representation, and presentation of results with aggregated statistics using NUTS2 level regions. These regions serve as units for policy application and are governed by Regulation (EC) No. 1059/2003, which ensures the consistency of regional statistics over time.

The joint chapter on Greece and Portugal exemplifies how experts from multiple countries can collaborate using the same dataset for regional assessments. Out of 10 chapters, soil contamination from chemicals (critical issue in agro-ecosystems) is addressed extensively. The chapter on Germany discusses diffuse pollution from heavy metals, while those in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania focus on organic pollutants. Slovenia's chapter delves into industrial pollution aspects. These sections cover the primary pollutants of concern, their sources, dynamics in soils, and the factors influencing their concentrations, as well as methodological and legal/regulatory aspects. A summary table of typical concentrations for the most common pollutants in each chapter would be a beneficial supplement. Furthermore, two chapters present zonal statistics derived from the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC) dataset, based on LUCAS soil module, illustrating pan-European studies adapted from the ESDAC database (esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu).

The loss of organic carbon is a recurring theme throughout the book, yet it is only examined in depth in two chapters. Overall, there seems to be a limited focus on soil biological properties, which could be attributed to the scarcity of data available at the time of publication. Consequently, these biological aspects of soil degradation are not as prominently represented as other threats. Soil erosion is explored in several chapters from different perspectives.

The chapter on Ukraine addresses fewer soil threats compared to others, and the ongoing conflict's impact on agricultural soil risk assessment is noted as a topic that would deserve a dedicated sub-chapter in future editions. Chapter 3 underscores the significance of soils in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals SDGs, and then narrows its focus to the interplay between agricultural production and economic factors. There is, however, further potential for integrating soil threats monitoring within the framework of the SDGs. Chapter 11 provides a thorough review of the issues associated with overgrazing and the challenges that may arise from the cessation of grazing, such as bush encroachment. This chapter goes beyond agricultural soils, offering clear explanations of remediation processes and techniques. Although the focus is not exclusively on urban soils, a few relevant examples are mentioned. The chapter also discusses regulatory issues concerning contaminated soils, drawing comparisons across different countries.

Each chapter of the book concludes by addressing key topics of importance for both urban and societal challenges, including urban agriculture, climate change, soil protection, and land planning. The inclusion of a final glossary of terms is a thoughtful touch that enhances the book's utility. The comprehensive incorporation of peer-reviewed articles and national monitoring initiatives across all chapters positions the book as a valuable resource for environmental managers. While many publications of this nature claim to be accessible to students, certain sections of this book are highly technical and depend on a solid understanding of soil physics, chemistry, and scientific methodology. Despite this, the book provides a detailed overview of soil science aspects pertinent to the recognition and analysis of soil threats, in alignment with cutting-edge scientific literature.

Although some sections may lack country-specific information, often relying on EU datasets to summarize soil conditions, this could reflect a broader need for research in these areas rather than a limitation of the book itself. In summary, the book appeals to a diverse readership, including early career researchers, soil science students, and specialists from other disciplines involved in environmental monitoring.

In the context of the book review introductory chapter, it is worth mentioning the legacy of the methodologies developed for the assessment of land degradation, the MEDALUS (Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use) project. MEDALUS started in the late 1980's as part of the European Union's research programs to address environmental challenges in the Mediterranean region; being developed in the early 1990's, the input data needed for both natural and socioeconomic factors can now be easily retrieved. But it is still not used for country and continental scales (European Commission 1994; European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 1999).

Several other books and book sections investigate the land degradation and desertification topic either as monographic volumes (Imeson 2011) “Desertification, Land Degradation, and Sustainability” which can provide a technical overview of the phenomena at a global, regional, and local scale with a focus on human component mainly for scholars and professionals, and (Barrow 1994) with “Land Degradation, Development, and Breakdown of Terrestrial Environments” in which land degradation is characterized in the major biomes and processes are presented for university classes and technicians. Or as a compilation of several case studies and various topics for a large audiences (Zdruli et al. 2010) “Land Degradation and Desertification: Assessment, Mitigation, and Remediation,” or by specifically targeting assessment of land degradation in a land cover system (Panwar et al. 2022) “Land Degradation Neutrality: Achieving SDG 15 by Forest Management,” to mention a few. Additionally, a recent perspective paper by Chaplot (Chaplot 2021) highlights that the mining of nutrients by soil bacteria, contributes to the depletion of soil organic matter and multifunctionality, exacerbating land degradation and climate warming.

Regarding the decision of the authors to focus on some particular threats, although soil sealing is a threat that affects all the countries considered in the book, given the agricultural context, should have taken into account the expansion of agricultural facilities and related infrastructures that, given the context in which we live, grow in a very limited way, the same applies to floods and landslides. As a further remark, in an island, land cover change has been considered since the settlement (second half of the ninth century). Sweden's paragraph on the prohibition of slash-and-burn agriculture sounds a bit odd in the present-day EU configuration, but it is still a land degradation process in place that serves as a monitor for the EU and nearby regions; the landscape we have inherited has been highly shaped by these practices and the protection of natural remnant and extensive complex vegetation communities must not be seen as a high sensibility to the environment conservation or hyper protection but just as the right start to offset climate trends.

For future editions, it may be beneficial to consider each country individually. It would also be advantageous to clarify terms such as “unsustainable practices” and to base the quantification of the impact of agricultural practices on meta-analytic findings, as opposed to localized studies that may only depict specific, extreme conditions. While the book briefly mentions SDG 15, Target 3.1., which has been investigated at the EU level by (Schillaci et al. 2022), it does include essential discussions on chemical pollution and microplastics in each chapter. This approach broadens the analytical scope and emphasizes these issues significance and societal implications for human health.

保罗·佩雷拉 （Paulo Pereira）、米里亚姆·穆尼奥斯-罗哈斯 （Miriam Muñoz-Rojas）、伊戈尔·博古诺维奇 （Igor Bogunovic） 和赵文武 （Wenwu Zhao） （2022） 编辑的《农业对土壤退化的影响 II：欧洲视角》一书全面研究了影响欧洲农业土壤特性和功能的土壤威胁。读者了解这些威胁的背景至关重要，特别是考虑到《联合国防治荒漠化公约》（UNCCD） 提供的土地退化定义：“土地退化是人为剥削土地的行为的结果，导致其效用、生物多样性、土壤肥力和整体健康状况下降。

该定义捕捉了已知和新出现的土壤威胁，并强调了在极端气候加剧、粮食需求增加以及物流和城市化导致的土地封闭的情况下，一个日益令人担忧的话题。这些因素在近几十年来不断升级，需要引起关注，因为它们是影响人口稠密地区和农村地区的关键组成部分，这些地区往往被遗弃。与通过自然过程形成的未经管理的土壤不同，由于人类管理实践，农业土壤表现出更高的空间可变性，这反过来又会加剧土壤威胁。该书共 12 章，详细分析了 10 个国家的土壤退化威胁和两个多国案例研究，为土壤可持续性面临的最关键问题提供了全面的视角。

这本书涵盖了当今最关键的土壤威胁。在大多数情况下，这些章节得到了相关（国家相关）同行评审文献的支持，包括气候条件、耕作、土地利用变化、有机碳损失、侵蚀、压实、过度放牧、盐度、化学品和微塑料污染、结构损失、火灾、酸化、洪水和山体滑坡的主要驱动因素（图 1）。

本书的很大一部分致力于阐述土壤退化的一般概念，包括水和风造成的侵蚀，以及旨在减轻这些影响的政策。它还深入研究了土壤理化性质的变化及其由于耕作实践而随时间的变化，这对于理解土壤退化是一个重大威胁以及制定适应和修复策略至关重要，在可能的情况下，以阻止进一步的土壤退化。

这本书内容丰富，内容丰富且有用，图表和图表简洁地总结了科学同行评审文献的结果。策略报告和指令被彻底引用，增加了资源的可靠性。每章都以引言开头，对特定国家/地区的农业、土地条件及其对土壤特性的影响进行了历史概述。这些介绍突出了所讨论的国家中最突出或有据可查的土壤威胁。虽然每章的结构是一致的，这有助于读者的理解，但在协调方面还有改进的余地。在深入研究针对特定国家/地区的农业土壤研究和修复工作之前，在欧洲土壤的更广泛背景下引入每种特定土壤威胁的概念可能是有利的。这些章节涵盖了广泛的土壤退化问题，并提供了各种示例和对土壤过程的深入分析，例如克罗地亚、意大利和匈牙利的盐碱化，德国、希腊和葡萄牙的侵蚀。在捷克共和国，研究了土壤结构损失、野火、洪水和内涝的影响等特定过程。在匈牙利，人们讨论了山体滑坡，冰岛提出了一个国家规模的模型来评估和监测人为退化。然而，对整个欧洲土壤的主要物理和化学特性及其可变性的整体影响进行全面的定量概述将是一个有价值的补充。

有几章详细解释了用于模拟土壤侵蚀、测量土壤压实和评估无机肥料负荷影响的方法。它们描述了土壤退化的潜在影响，并包括用于监测、空间表示和使用 NUTS2 级别区域通过聚合统计数据表示结果的数据收集方法。这些区域作为策略应用的单位，并受第 1059/2003 号法规 （EC） 的约束，该法规可确保区域统计数据随时间推移的一致性。

关于希腊和葡萄牙的联合章节举例说明了来自多个国家的专家如何使用相同的数据集进行区域评估。在 10 章中，化学品造成的土壤污染（农业生态系统中的关键问题）得到了广泛的讨论。关于德国的章节讨论了重金属的扩散污染，而爱沙尼亚、拉脱维亚和立陶宛的章节则侧重于有机污染物。斯洛文尼亚的章节深入探讨了工业污染方面。这些部分涵盖了关注的主要污染物、它们的来源、土壤中的动态、影响其浓度的因素，以及方法和法律/监管方面。每章中最常见污染物的典型浓度汇总表将是一个有益的补充。此外，两章介绍了基于 LUCAS 土壤模块的欧洲土壤数据中心 （ESDAC） 数据集得出的分区统计数据，说明了改编自 ESDAC 数据库 （esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu） 的泛欧研究。

有机碳的损失是全书中反复出现的主题，但只在两章中进行了深入研究。总体而言，对土壤生物特性的关注似乎有限，这可能是由于发布时可用数据的稀缺。因此，土壤退化的这些生物学方面并不像其他威胁那样突出。在几章中，从不同的角度探讨了土壤侵蚀。

与其他章节相比，关于乌克兰的章节解决的土壤威胁较少，持续的冲突对农业土壤风险评估的影响被认为是一个值得在未来版本中专门撰写子章节的主题。第 3 章强调了土壤在实现联合国可持续发展目标 SDG 中的重要性，然后将重点缩小到农业生产和经济因素之间的相互作用。然而，在可持续发展目标的框架内整合土壤威胁监测还有进一步的潜力。第 11 章全面审查了与过度放牧相关的问题以及停止放牧可能带来的挑战，例如灌木丛侵占。本章超越了农业土壤，对修复过程和技术进行了清晰的解释。虽然重点并不仅仅放在城市土壤上，但提到了一些相关的例子。本章还讨论了有关污染土壤的监管问题，并对不同国家进行了比较。

本书的每一章都以解决对城市和社会挑战具有重要意义的关键主题作为结尾，包括城市农业、气候变化、土壤保护和土地规划。包含最后的术语表是一种深思熟虑的笔触，增强了本书的实用性。该书在所有章节中全面纳入了同行评审的文章和国家监测倡议，使该书成为环境管理人员的宝贵资源。虽然许多此类性质的出版物声称可供学生阅读，但本书的某些部分具有很强的技术性，并且依赖于对土壤物理学、化学和科学方法的扎实理解。尽管如此，本书还是详细概述了与识别和分析土壤威胁相关的土壤科学方面，并与前沿科学文献保持一致。

尽管某些部分可能缺乏特定国家的信息，通常依赖欧盟数据集来总结土壤状况，但这可能反映了对这些领域研究的更广泛需求，而不是本书本身的限制。总之，这本书吸引了不同的读者群，包括早期职业研究人员、土壤科学学生以及参与环境监测的其他学科的专家。

在书评介绍章节的背景下，值得一提的是为评估土地退化而开发的方法的遗产，即 MEDALUS（地中海荒漠化和土地利用）项目。MEDALUS 始于 1980 年代后期，是欧盟研究计划的一部分，旨在应对地中海地区的环境挑战;1990 年代初期开发，自然和社会经济因素所需的输入数据现在可以轻松检索。但它仍然没有用于国家和大陆尺度（欧洲委员会 1994 年;欧洲委员会研究与创新总局，1999 年）。

其他几本书和书籍部分研究了土地退化和荒漠化主题，要么作为专著卷（Imeson 2011）“荒漠化、土地退化和可持续性”，它可以提供全球、区域和地方尺度的现象的技术概述，重点关注人类因素，主要面向学者和专业人士，以及（Barrow 1994）与“陆地退化、发展和陆地环境的崩溃”一书中，土地退化在主要生物群落中具有特征，并为大学课程和技术人员介绍了过程。或者作为面向大量受众的几个案例研究和各种主题的汇编（Zdruli 等人，2010 年）“土地退化和荒漠化：评估、缓解和补救”，或者专门针对土地覆盖系统中的土地退化评估（Panwar 等人，2022 年）“土地退化零增长：通过森林管理实现可持续发展目标 15”，仅举几例。此外，Chaplot 最近的一篇观点论文 （Chaplot 2021） 强调，土壤细菌对养分的开采会导致土壤有机质和多功能性的消耗，加剧土地退化和气候变暖。

关于作者决定关注一些特定的威胁，尽管土壤密封是一种威胁，影响到本书中考虑的所有国家，但考虑到农业背景，应该考虑到农业设施和相关基础设施的扩张，鉴于我们生活的环境，这些基础设施的增长方式非常有限， 这同样适用于洪水和山体滑坡。进一步说明，在一个岛屿中，自定居以来（9 世纪下半叶）就一直考虑土地覆盖变化。瑞典关于禁止刀耕火种农业的段落在当今欧盟的配置中听起来有点奇怪，但它仍然是一个现有的土地退化过程，作为欧盟和附近地区的监控器;我们继承的景观在很大程度上受到了这些做法的影响，保护自然遗迹和广泛的复杂植被群落绝不能被视为对环境保护或过度保护的高度敏感性，而只是抵消气候趋势的正确开端。

对于未来的版本，单独考虑每个国家可能会有所帮助。澄清诸如“不可持续的做法”等术语，并将农业做法的影响量化为基础，而不是可能只描述特定的极端条件的局部研究，这也是有利的。虽然该书简要提到了可持续发展目标 15 目标 3.1.，该目标已在欧盟层面进行了调查（Schillaci 等人，2022 年），但它确实在每一章中都包括对化学污染和微塑料的重要讨论。这种方法拓宽了分析范围，并强调了这些问题的重要性和对人类健康的社会影响。