Sustainable Environment

Soil Health for Sustainable Agriculture, Climate Resilience, and Land Restoration: Addressing SDGs 2, 13, and 15

The global challenge of achieving SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 15 (Life on Land) remains one of humanity's most pressing concerns. SDG 2 aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. SDG 13 aims to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. SDG 15 aims to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss. The key targets include Target 2.4 (sustainable food production systems and resilient agricultural practices that progressively improve land and soil quality), Target 13.1 (resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards), and Target 15.3 (restoring degraded land and soil toward a land degradation-neutral world). To support the realization of these targets, Sustainable Environment welcomes submissions for an Article Collection focused on innovative research addressing SDG 2, 13, and 15 challenges with a particular emphasis on soil health as the common foundation of Targets 2.4, 13.1, and 15.3.

Soil is a living, finite resource that underpins food production, stores more carbon than the atmosphere and vegetation combined, regulates water, and hosts a large share of terrestrial biodiversity. Yet intensive cultivation, erosion, salinization, contamination, and urban expansion continue to degrade soils worldwide, weakening their capacity to feed a growing population and to buffer droughts, floods, and heat. Because the same soil supports crop yields, carbon storage, and ecosystem functions, soil health offers an integrated lens for pursuing hunger, climate, and land goals together rather than as trade-offs. Realizing this potential requires robust indicators, mechanistic understanding of soil carbon persistence, context-specific management, and policies that treat soil as essential infrastructure.

This Collection invites original research and review articles that advance the science, practice, and governance of soil health in support of SDGs 2, 13, and 15. Studies from the Global South and interdisciplinary work linking soil processes to societal outcomes are especially welcome. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Soil health indicators, assessment, and monitoring
• Soil organic carbon formation, persistence, and sequestration, including particulate and mineral-associated organic matter and organo-mineral interactions
• Conservation and regenerative practices, organic amendments, and biochar, and their effects on productivity and greenhouse gas emissions
• Nutrient cycling and fertilizer innovation for food security
• Soil biodiversity and microbial functions
• Restoration of degraded, contaminated, and saline soils
• Urban soil health and nature-based solutions
• Soil policy, governance, and carbon farming

Keywords:

1. Soil health
2. Soil organic carbon
3. Sustainable agriculture
4. Land degradation and restoration
5. Climate change mitigation and adaptation

This Article Collection is part of Taylor & Francis's SDG Article Collection Series. This series is dedicated to publishing groundbreaking research that addresses global sustainability challenges while accelerating progress toward achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Articles published within this Collection will benefit from enhanced promotional activities across Taylor & Francis platforms, ensuring increased visibility and discoverability for your research.

This Collection supports the following SDG:

SDG 2 Zero Hunger (End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture)

SDG 13 Climate Action (Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts)

SDG 15 Life on Land (Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss)

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this Collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member).

Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is August 31, 2027.

Please contact Kara Roberts at kara.roberts@taylorandfrancis.com with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

Please select Environmental Resource Management from the list of available sections during submission. Failure to select the appropriate Article Collection or Section name can result in delays.

Guest Advisors do not declare any potential conflicts of interests in line with our Editorial Policies.

Yu-Ting Liu is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences at National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan, and a Senior Editor of Sustainable Environment. She received her Ph.D. in Soil Science from North Carolina State University and conducted postdoctoral research at Duke University. Her research focuses on soil organic carbon dynamics, organo-mineral interactions, and iron speciation, using synchrotron-based techniques such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy and micro-computed tomography. She also works on soil health governance, including urban soil health policy in Taiwan.