Soils are a unique resource providing a wide range of services for ecosystem functioning and human well-being. Despite more than a hundred years of soil science history, we still do not fully understand the dynamics and status of the world's soils, and efforts to protect, conserve and sustainably manage this valuable resource have always been limited by knowledge.In an effort to improve understanding of the status of this resource and to identify threats and activities leading to its degradation, the Intergovernmental Technical Panel of Soils (ITPS) supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and its Global Soil Partnership (GSP) embarked in 2014 on the preparation of a global assessment to enable countries to better understand what actions should be taken to promote sustainable soil management. The Report on the Status of the World Soil Resources (SWSR) 2015 is a reference work and a milestone among the documents assessing global soil quality and soil health change. Its publication was possible thanks to the work of the first ITPS. Ten years later, in 2026, the ITPS and the GSP secretariat publishes a second edition of the SWSR where all the scientific documents and publications reporting on the evolution of the status of soils and of the different soil threats will be taken into account, together with regional assessments, to know what has been the trend of the status of soils in these 10 years and where are we facing to.

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