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BonaRes Assessment Framework 

The BonaRes assessment framework has been developed to study impacts of soil management practices on societal targets. It is designed for agricultural systems in industrialised countries where both yield gap and contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) are low.

 

The BonaRes assessment framework is based on the DPSIR framework and the six steps of impact assessment. It links driving forces and management decisions to soil reactions, changes in soil functions and their impacts on societal targets. Impacts within the categories of resource use efficiency and ecosystem services are analysed. These two assessment perspectives are considered complementary and strongly correspond with requirements of the German bioeconomy strategies. Likewise, they are related to a number of targets under the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Application of the BonaRes assessment frameworks helps to structure research, define impact areas and indicators and to identify research gaps. 

 
What is the BonaRes Assessment Framework? 

The BonaRes assessment framework is an analytical structure to guide research of impacts of soil managmement and soil function changes on societal targets. In doing so, it helps to structure research, to define impact areas and indicators and to identify research gaps.

 

The BonaRes assessment framework (Helming et al., submitted; Fig. 1) is inspired by the DPSIR framework (Gabrielsen and Bosch, 2003) and the six steps of impact assessment. It has been developed to study impacts of soil management practices in industrialised agricultural systems characterised by low yield gaps and representing a low share of their countries GDP (gross domestic product), as is the case in most industrialized countries. Societal goals for soil management in these systems are often characterised by an ecosystem services perspective, i.e., increasing biomass production while maintaining the contribution of soil functions to the other ecosystem services, and by a perspective of resource use efficiency, i.e., an optimal return from invested resources. It is important to note that for other agricultural systems (e.g., small holder farming in developing countries) additional and/or different assessment perspectives are appropriate, e.g., motivated by societal targets of nutrition, poverty alleviation or rural development. 

 

The BonaRes framework allows two modes of interaction between soil management (key pressure) and impacts: soil-borne via changes in soil processes and soil functions (solid arrow in Fig. 1) and management induced irrespective of changes in the soil system (thin arrows in Fig. 1). 

Figure 1: Analytical Framework for impact assessment of soil management and soil functions in BonaRes. Numbers refer to the five steps of the DPSIR framework: Drivers (1), Pressures (2), States (3), Impacts (4), and Responses (5).  

The linkage between impacts of soil management and societal targets has only recently gained attention in scientific and policy debates. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic approach to an impact assessment of soil management and soil functions on societal targets within the context of a sustainable bioeconomy has yet been developed. The BonaRes analytical framework links driving forces and management decisions to soil reactions, soil functions changes and their impacts to societal targets. Impacts within the categories of resource use efficiency and ecosystem services are analysed. These two assessment perspectives are considered complementary and strongly correspond with requirements of the German bioeconomy strategies. Likewise, they are related to a number of targets under the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

 

The concept of ecosystem services aims to demonstrate the value of nature to human societies and specifically refers to the ‘final’ outputs of ecological systems, i.e., the goods and services directly consumed or used by people. The importance of managing soil functions to support ecosystem services is widely acknowledged. However, the operationalisation of linkages between soil management, soil functions, and ecosystem services remains a challenge, e.g., where studies use un-linked single indicators. 

 

Resource use efficiency is defined as the ratio of benefits generated by a product or process divided by the amount of resources used for that purpose. Few assessments documented in the literature explicitly address the role of soils, although assessment results often implicitly reflect changes in soil functions due to the fundamental role of soils for crop growth. Within the context of research for sustainable bioeconomies, it is necessary to determine how soil functions affect resource use efficiencies and additionally, to what degree soil management can increase efficiencies independent from soil functions.

 

Results from applications of the framework will help to systemically assess and compare the opportunities and threats of soil management practices from the perspective of societal goals at different spatial and temporal scales. Insights gained in this way will help to strengthen the science-policy interface. They can be applied in stakeholder decision-making processes and used to inform the design of governance instruments aimed at sustainable soil management within a bioeconomy. 

The BonaRes assessment framework is the basis for the BonaRes impact assessment platform you are currently visiting. In particular, it is used to guide the development of a toolbox based on state-of the art research that provides indicators, metrics and other information for soil management impact assessment. Systemising and testing will reveal comprehensiveness and complementarity of the developed tools and identify further research needs of impact assessment.  

Gabrielsen, P, Bosch, P. 2003. Environmental Indicators: Typology and Use in Reporting European Environment Agency: Copenhagen, Denmark

 

Helming, K., Daedlow, K., Paul, C., Techen, A., Bartke, S., Bartkowski, B., Kaiser, D.B., Wollschläger, U., Vogel, H-J. Managing soil functions for a sustainable bioeconomy – assessment framework and state of the art. Submitted to Land Degradation and Development. 

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