Globally increased cropland soil exposure to climate extremes in recent decades
Soil quality is fundamental to nutrient-rich food production and the sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems. However, inappropriate agricultural practices often lead to persistent soil exposure to air and sunlight, which increases soil organic matter losses and erosion risks, particularly under climate extremes. Here, we provide a satellite-based mapping of daily soil exposure occurrence across global croplands from 2001 to 2022 and evaluate the associated degradation risks caused by extreme climate events. We find that while 57% of global croplands experienced a reduction in soil exposure duration in the past two decades, 86% are increasingly subjected to climate extremes. The areas exposed to increasing climate extremes tend to have higher soil organic carbon levels, indicating an intensified degradation risk of global nutrient-rich cropland soils. Our study offers spatio-temporally explicit insights into global cropland soil exposure and its vulnerability to climate extremes, providing evidence to support improvements in sustainable agriculture practices.
Authors
- Torbern Tagesson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3011-1775)
- Rasmus Fensholt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3067-4527)
- Jie Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1199-4261)
- Feng Tian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9686-2769)
- Wenxuan Shao
- Jonas Ardö (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9318-0973)
- Yirong Sang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7696-084X)
- Yumiao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0980-5353)
- Xiaoye Tong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9709-0633)
- Yujie Dou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8932-6175)
- Xiaoxin Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1071-3760)
- Luwei Feng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3181-6018)
Institutions
- Ningbo University (CN)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Lund University (SE)
- Government of Hong Kong (HK)
- Wuhan University (CN)
- Central China Normal University (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying Mapping and Remote Sensing (CN)
- Nano Carbon (Poland) (PL)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-05-10
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59544-1
- Citations
- 14
- Primary Topic
- Soil erosion and sediment transport
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 16.60
Funders
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
- National Key Research and Development Program of China