Advancing sustainable soil management in China through innovative standardization

Soil, the living skin of Earth and finite natural capital indispensable for life, constitutes a critical foundation for climate change, agricultural resilience, and food security. Standardized soil conservation represents an imperative nexus for sustainable soil management. This study holistically elucidates the historical evolution, structural configuration, and functional integration of China’s Soil Management Standard System (SMSS) within the Soil Pollution Prevention and Control framework. Across four distinct developmental stages, the SMSS has synthesized international practices with context-specific innovations to form a scientifically classified, risk-tiered regulatory architecture, advancing sustainable soil governance for Eco-, Planetary, and Human Health. Current SMSS comprises 67 national, 358 industrial, 467 local, supplemented by numerous association/enterprise standards, demonstrating significant temporal dynamics and robust synergy with socioeconomic indicators and strong temporal associations with socioeconomic indicators. Functionally, the SMSS plays essential roles in life-cycle risk mitigation of polluted soil, from contaminant fingerprinting, and site classification to remediation engineering, and long-term monitoring. The SMSS also strengthens soil quality management, providing an institutional foundation for sustainable cropping systems by maintaining soil productivity, supporting environmentally responsible cultivation, and promoting the stable, high-quality production of industrial crops and their derived products. Nonetheless, persistent challenges remain, including gaps in addressing emerging pollutants and complex multi-contaminant scenarios, insufficient soil health management frameworks, and limited adaptability to complex soil conditions and evolving national strategies, such as the “Dual-Carbon” goals and the “Beautiful China” initiative. Ultimately, this work emphasizes the importance of integrating One Health concept for advanced SMSS and strengthening the links between soil, ecosystem, and human health, offering actionable insights and a replicable paradigm for global sustainable soil management.