Bodemleven, bodemkwaliteit en duurzaam bodemgebruik - verslag van de workshop 3 oktober 2002

3 October 2002 a workshop was held entitled "Life in the soil, soil quality, and sustainable land-use" (in Dutch: Bodemleven, bodemkwaliteit en duurzaam bodemgebruik). The workshop was organised by Wageningen University and Research Center, and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, under the authority of the Dutch ministries of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries, and Public Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. The aim of the workshop was to discuss developments in sustainable land-use and soil ecosystems with policymakers and scientists, in order to adjust current research projects. During almost 5 years, the so-called Biological Indicator for Soil Quality (BiSQ) is used for making an inventory of the soil ecosystem in the Netherlands, for example in the Dutch Soil Quality Network (DSQN). The first results indicate explicit relationships between intensity and type of land-use and changes in the soil ecosystem in agricultural areas (e.g. loss of biodiversity of soil organisms). This information is important for policy-making and land-management (for example farmers). The soil ecological data can be used to solve the questions from land management and soil policy. Current needs can lead to adjustments in the BiSQ and the monitoring program, possibly in the following directions: 1. Extension of the set of locations in the DSQN in order to include more combinations of land-use and soil-type. 2. Restructuring of the BiSQ in order to develop an instrument which can be used for site-specific measurements e.g. for farmers, and for local and regional authorities. 3. Attention is needed for indicators to quantify the potency for land-use change and relationship with sustainable land-use