Environment Top 5: Water and Soils for World Water Day

In this episode of EnvCast, we discuss the Environment Top 5 things to consider about Soils and Water ahead of World Water Day 2025. We cover glaciers, soil management, impact of water on soils, the importance of collaboration and much more.

This World Water Day special episode of EnvCast features two Chartered Environmentalists active in the SocEnv Soils and Stones project, a cross-sector network of current and aspiring registered environmental professionals. Since 2019, the project has helped to raise the profile of soils as a pressing environmental issue for policymakers and contributed towards a growing catalogue of guidance to improve practice on the ground.  

Speaker bios: 

Jonathan Atkinson CEnv MIEnvSc is Technical Director at CL:AIRE (Contaminated Land: Applications in Real Environments). He has worked on risk assessment of developed closed landfill sites, landfill engineering and environmental controls enforcement on permitted sites, and a variety of land contamination projects. He is a longstanding contributor to the SocEnv Soils and Stones project and Member of the Institution of Environmental Sciences.  

Robert Earl CEnv FIWater is a retired environmental governance and risk specialist with extensive water industry expertise in pollution prevention and waste management. He is a longstanding contributor to the SocEnv Soils and Stones project and a Fellow of the Institute of Water.  

Professional registration:

Registered status as a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv), Registered Environmental Practitioner (REnvP) or Registered Environmental Technician (REnvTech) are available. To find out more about our registrations visit: https://socenv.org.uk/professional-re... 

environment, soils, soils and stones, soil management, water, world water day, environmental, environment, sustainability, conservation, eco-friendly, green living, ocean conservation, forest conservation, sustainable development, natural resources, green technology, carbon, biodiversity, environmental policy, chartered environmentalist, professional development, educational, environment education, green jobs, green business, green skills.

Check out our other platforms:

YouTube: Society for the Environment //
Website: socenv.org.uk // LinkedIn: society-for-the-environment

Chapters

• 3:01 Topic Number One
• 16:51 Topic Number Two
• 25:17 Topic Number Three
• 31:20 Topic Number Four
• 42:24 Topic Number Five

Transcript

0:00
 Beyond that, there needs to be increased flood defences if we wish to keep the capital.

 0:04
 Your water bills go down if you have healthy soil.

 0:08
 There's going to be water scarcity if we don't manage our water resources better.

 0:15
 Welcome to the Society of the Environment EnvCast, where we feature special guests highlighting an environment top five each month.

 0:22
 Each month we welcome 2 environmental professionals to explore what they believe to be the top five things to consider within a particular topic.

 0:30
 Topics range from climate to leadership, agriculture to AI and everything in between.

 0:38
 Look out for some curveballs in the top five each month and remember, we can't cover every important thing within a topic.

 0:44
 Our aim is to uncover how you can be part of the solution, to learn from the experts, and to sometimes think outside of the box as we strive for a sustainable future.

 0:55
 Enjoy the episode.

 1:01
 Hello and welcome back to EnvCast.

 1:03
 We've had a few months off, but we're back and full of enthusiasm.

 1:07
 I'm Phil from the Society for the Environment and your podcast host for today.

 1:13
 As you will have gathered from the intro, we've changed the format.

 1:16
 In the last 40 odd episodes.

 1:18
 We've talked to chartered environmentalists, registered environmental practitioners or technicians about their career, why they do it, and how they got there.

 1:26
 So please do listen back.

 1:28
 There are some fascinating stories to inspire you.

 1:31
 But now we're going topical.

 1:35
 We'll still be talking to registered environmental professionals, but exploring topics from different perspectives each month to expand our collective knowledge and make more impact.

 1:47
 Our first episode in the new format is focused on water to align with World Water Day 2025.

 1:55
 We're joined by two chartered environmentalists today active in our Soils and Stones project, which is a cross sector network of current and aspiring registered environmental professionals.

 2:08
 And since 2019, the project has helped to raise the profile of soils as a pressing environmental issue for policymakers and contributed towards a growing catalogue of guidance to improve practice on the ground.

 2:26
 Their biographies are in the podcast description.

 2:29
 But as an extremely short introduction, I'm very pleased to be joined by Jonathan Atkinson, who is a chartered Environmentalist via his membership of the Institution of Environmental Sciences, and Robert Earl, a Chartered Environmentalist via his membership of the Institute of Water, where he's also a fellow.

 2:47
 So welcome, welcome.

 2:51
 It's very nice to have you here.

 2:52
 Both familiar faces, which is always good to kick things off in a new series.

 2:56
 So let's go straight into the top five.

 3:00
 We're going to alternate between Jonathan and Robert for the 1st 4.

 3:05
 Then the final item is for them to agree as a as the top thing to consider for water and environment.

 3:12
 The key take away for our listeners.

 3:15
 So the first one we're going to go into and we're going to directly link to the global theme for UN World Water Day 2025, which is preserving glaciers or glaciers depending on which part of the world you're from.

 3:29
 And I'm going to hand straight over to Jonathan if that's OK, Right.

 3:33
 OK, well, let's let's kick this off.

 3:36
 One could ask what are people on the Soil and Stones group doing talking about water or glaciers for that matter?

 3:44
 But actually, as you'll see, as we go through the, the theme of the talk today, things are interconnected and certainly the environmental services and impacts provided by how glaciers operate has been significant both in the past and in today, today's world and, and also into the future, there will be significant changes.

 4:07
 Glacier melt as as glaciers degrade and retreat in some cases is a risk that is more and more prevalent as global warming impacts our weather patterns and our temperature ranges around the globe.

 4:21
 And we've been losing ice from glaciers and ice sheets for some significant time now.

 4:28
 And the impacts of that grow wider every year, as is were reported by the specialist media in many cases.

 4:34
 And in some cases when we talk about icebergs breaking off from the Arctic ice sheet and Greenland's glaciers changing and the big Antarctic ice sheets that that that break off into the Southern Ocean, it hits mainstream news.

 4:48
 But anywhere where glaciers change or ice sheets change, there is a knock on effect on the wider environment.

 4:56
 And melting glaciers particularly lead to higher flow rates in in the downstream rivers and this can impact soils throughout the catchments either because of higher rates of erosion.

 5:07
 As melt waters shift the sedimentation rates downstream and then in the lower areas of the catchments create that change in catchments quite significantly by depositing those sediments in different areas and changing the the water profile and the river profiles downstream those changes have impacts on water and water chemistry.

 5:31
 So where people use water for drinking supplies and so on.

 5:34
 The erosion of soils into the watercourse can have a significant impact on how water is able to be used downstream below the glacial catchments.

 5:44
 And that also effects as glaciers and floodwaters spill out over surrounding land in the estuaries and the higher reaches of the catchment that can have an impact on soil chemistry as well by by impacting changes in the in the soil chemistry as you have additional flow patterns and intermixing from various flood events and and glacial melt events.

 6:07
 So this effects society really all the way downstream, right down the catchment from where the glacier's in the mountains right down to the oceans below.

 6:15
 And in fact, we were talking this morning at the Soils and Stones meeting, One of our colleagues brought up that his colleague has actually been doing a mega run through the Himalayas and looking at glaciers and, and how they're, they're interacting with global warming and talking to, as a sociologist, talking to the people that, that are impacted by those changes.

 6:38
 And we're hoping that there'll be a, a further podcast on exactly that topic so that we'll, we'll learn a bit more about what society in the Himalayas is impacted by and how they feel about the changes that are happening to their glaciers and their surrounding environments as a result.

 6:54
 But just looking at it from a British Isles perspective at the moment, obviously in the past, the British Isles were impacted by significant ice sheets during the last Ice Age.

 7:03
 And the resulting subsequent withdrawal of those ice sheets to the north generated significant impacts to our underlying materials in terms of grinding up the bedrocks and the materials that were there.

 7:18
 And that's one of the reasons that we have over 700 different types of soil across the British Isles.

 7:24
 And the types of soils that we've been left with are critical both to our landscape profiles that, you know, U shaped valleys where glaciers previously were, but also in the deposit of those soils across catchments.

 7:37
 And the impact that that has on the applicability and capability of those soils to put to enable food production in specific parts of the country.

 7:47
 And we have a wide variety of arable farming, for instance in this country as a result of the many different soil types we have.

 7:55
 And part of those were down to the the changes that occurred as as the ice sheets withdrew and our soils changed in in character because of the impact of what those ice sheets had done as they moved South initially and then withdrew to the north in time past.

 8:12
 So we know that it's affected soils in the past and we know that it's affecting soils now as ice sheets melt and we get increased erosion and sedimentation and different impacts across the catchments.

 8:25
 And we know that will carry on.

 8:26
 That impact will carry on to the point when, you know, glacial melt will lead to our sea level rises.

 8:33
 That will also impact our coastal communities and coastal soils and arable lands and the communities that live there and the impacts on their food production and the availability of land for living and infrastructure and so on.

 8:47
 And so all of that is really ties back to what's happening with our glaciers and our ice sheets.

 8:52
 And it impacts further on the water quality and the soil quality and the availability of land downstream.

 8:59
 So that's the setting.

 9:00
 And that's why the Rob and I from the Soils and Stones group are talking about this issue today, because these things are interlinked.

 9:07
 And maybe I'll just ask Rob to step in there and see if he's got any views on on what we've just been talking about.

 9:14
 Yeah, I think just to dispel any ideas that glaciers retreat, regroup in the hills.

 9:20
 They don't.

 9:21
 They melt.

 9:22
 And when they melt, they release a lot of water, an awful lot of water.

 9:26
 So at the highest point of glaciation, sea levels were 120 meters larger than they are today.

 9:34
 If we look at the end of the century, the worst prediction of sea level rise is 2 meters, which doesn't sound a lot.

 9:43
 But what that will do is jeopardize a lot of our aquifers, for example, and a lot of our best farmland.

 9:49
 by salination. The the melt water, if it all goes, if all of the ice goes, it's 70 meters rise in sea level.

 10:03
 That's not just the the fact that you've got more water there, it's that the earth becomes warmer because it absorbs more energy.

 10:10
 The albedo of the earth is lowered, and of course then the seas expand as well.

 10:16
 So you've not only got melt water, but you've also got expansion of the water that's already there.

 10:22
 So it just is worse.

 10:24
 And if it does go as well, you turn off this Atlantic Meridian,

 10:29
 I can never say Meridian often this Amor.

 10:32
 Basically it's the engine that drives the currents that bring warmth to to the higher latitudes, Britain.

 10:41
 And ironically, as the earth warms up, Britain might actually get colder, which will then affect our ability to feed ourselves and our soils.

 10:50
 The other thing of course is that it has big effects politically with parts of the earth becoming difficult to live in, if not uninhabitable.

 11:01
 How do you think that large population movements and it shifts agriculture towards places like Canada and Russia and those big political changes could be more significant than the changes physically on in the Earth, certainly for humans.

 11:23
 I won't say it was a big turn off being prophets of doom here.

 11:28
 But I mean, there are consequences of glaciers melting to sorts to the climate, to limited politics.

 11:36
 And yeah, I think you make some, you know, good points there.

 11:40
 You know, you talk about the impact on salinization.

 11:43
 You know, if we increase the saline intrusion from oceans and seas near our shores, then yes, that certainly impacts the ability for us to grow crops in the lowlands.

 11:53
 And places like the Netherlands could be significantly impacted, as it indeed will places like Bangladesh and our lowlands on the eastern side of our country.

 12:03
 But I think you're right to point out the fact that, you know, when people start talking about climate change and a global warming, it isn't easy to just point the finger at this is what the impact will be.

 12:15
 It will increase sea levels.

 12:17
 You're right to say, look, hang on, there's a much bigger geopolitical and social framework that we sit within, which means the changes that will occur will be significant for everybody.

 12:28
 And you know, you say even 2 meters sea, sea level rise that that will impact on that huge number of major cities throughout the world, which which will be, you know, either struggling with their existing flood defences or having to significantly change their flood defences at significant cost.

 12:44
 Or else some cities, as has happened in the past, will disappear beneath the waves and you know, things will have to move.

 12:51
 So even if you look at London, you know, we're already talking about by 2070, there will need to be a new Thames tidal barrier of some kind because the existing one wouldn't cope with the significant rises that are expected by the end of the century.

 13:04
 It will manage up to a certain point, but beyond that, there needs to be increased flood defences if we wish to keep the capital as it is.

 13:12
 So all of these things do interrelate and as you say, when you start adding them up and adding the implications up, the geopolitical implications become quite significant even above what we're seeing in the world today, which is frightening and frightening enough.

 13:27
 Well, given that was the the first of our five topics that we're going to be the subtopics around water and soils that we're going to be talking about.

 13:34
 That is quite a lot to unpack already.

 13:36
 It's fair to say we've covered a lot of ground.

 13:38
 So I was going to ask some more practical questions around that.

 13:42
 You said 700 soil types, for example.

 13:46
 I guess from a practical point of view, obviously in the UK specifically, there aren't any glaciers, but the difference in soil types will, I assume, bring it back to water will affect people's decisions around what they can do from in terms of water, what the drainage is like there and that kind of thing.

 14:09
 They're the kind of practical steps that professionals would need to think about when managing the situations.

 14:14
 And indeed the, you know, our sandy silty soils have been ideal growing conditions for the east of the country for a long period of time.

 14:22
 But you know, a lot of that land was drained fundamentally because it was the Fenland and that that drainage has enabled that to be dry land for crop growth in a particularly good loamy soil, sandy, silty loamy soil.

 14:38
 Other parts of the country have have been farmed in the past where perhaps they shouldn't have been farmed.

 14:42
 So we talk about the, the wheel clays in Kent, for instance.

 14:45
 And after the war, you know, the get back to the land and farming for the future.

 14:50
 And all this sort of stuff drove really arable agriculture in some places where perhaps it shouldn't have been.

 14:57
 And as a result of that, you know, some farmers have really struggled.

 15:00
 But out of that has come some positives.

 15:02
 Because if you look at the Kneep estate down in Sussex, you know, they, they stopped farming because it was difficult to make ends meet on, on a heavy clay soil.

 15:11
 And, and basically without significant subsidies, they weren't going anywhere.

 15:14
 So they changed their whole pattern of, of land ownership and, and went to the first sort of big rewilding project in the country.

 15:21
 And that is now significantly held up as a flagship of what you can achieve for biodiversity and nature recovery because it's looking at a different use of the land that that works with the soils rather than just works on the soils.

 15:35
 And a lot of our, it's now recognised, you know, with the, the, the force of regenerative agriculture coming through more and more and organic farming and better use of livestock management that actually, you know, a lot of commercial agriculture in the past, driven by the big mega companies has actually destroyed our soils across catchments.

 15:54
 And we haven't benefited from that at all, which has quite the impact on water.

 15:58
I think there's a big sea change there in how soils are going to be managed going forward into the future.

 16:04
 And all of the forms that are under the Defra environmental improvement plan, looking at those initiatives of nature recovery, rewilding, regenerative agriculture, organic approaches, you know, livestock management on areas of country where we perhaps shouldn't have as much livestock as we currently have.

 16:21
 And all of that feeds into our diets and, and what should food look like?

 16:26
 What should our food production look like in the future?

 16:28
 And now in terms of health, that has a knock on effect to the NHS and stuff.

 16:32
 So all of these things are interlinked, but it's really important, I think to consider them all not just as pieces, but as pieces of a big jigsaw.

 16:41
 Quite right.

 16:42
 And all those pieces could form a podcast on their own.

 16:44
 I imagine, I suspect so, but if I'd going to move swiftly on to our subtopic #2 for water in the environment and I'm going to hand over to Robert for that one, if that's OK.

 16:56
 Yeah, fine.

 16:57
 It's about water resources and the services that are provided by soil for water resources.

 17:06
 I should say we've welt on this idea that there's a symbiotic relationship between soils and climate.

 17:12
 And by capturing carbon in soils you do have a benefit of a climate.

 17:20
 I think there are lots of different ideas about that.

 17:23
 But let's look at the way it's gone.

 17:26
 Protecting soils hasn't been high on the agenda of anybody because it just got put into the too difficult box for the 2021 Environment Act.

 17:35
 So we don't have, actually, we don't have a unifying policy on soils and we don't have any environmental targets on soils.

 17:42
 We do have them for biodiversity, for air to water, but not for soils.

 17:47
 And soils are fundamental and everybody talks about benefits of healthy soil, but nobody's yet provided a metric.

 17:54
 The government said it needed more data before those indicators for soil health could be developed.

 18:00
 Can we get the feeling they've knocked it into some environmentally friendly long grass there?

 18:04
 But anyway, I asked the farmer recently what he thought a healthy soil was.

 18:09
 He said, oh, it's soil that smells right.

 18:12
 A bizarre comment and it took me back a little bit.

 18:16
 But, you know, he has a point.

 18:18
 Guy has to deal with this stuff every day.

 18:20
 So, you know, he knows what it looks like.

 18:22
 So you know it when you've got it.

 18:25
 So good soil health does have a benefit to water resources and it has it in three ways.

 18:31
 One is quality, 2 is quantity, and one is cost.

 18:36
 So the third is cost.

 18:37
 So with water quality, good soil, healthy soil does filter out nutrients and pollutants that that that basically come from the air, these atmospheric nutrients and nitrogen and so on.

 18:52
 And it turns them into biomass.

 18:53
 It turns them into biomass, which becomes part of the soil.

 18:56
 And so it does capture carbon by doing that.

 19:00
 One of the things that surprised me early in my career was that looking at nitrate migrations through the chalk aquifer in East Kent, there wasn't a spike in the interstitial water in the chalk as you can track it on its way down through the aquifer.

 19:19
 There wasn't an increase in nitrates because of artificial fertilizers being put on.

 19:25
 That spike came as a result of plowing up grassland.

 19:29
 So basically you released soil carbon into the aquifer and soil nitrates into the aquifer.

 19:37
 That's what began the the nitrate problems of the chalk aquifers in East Kent.

 19:43
 It also surprisingly retains stuff like microplastics.

 19:48
 So you've now got actually microplastics being found in Roman levels in York.

 19:54
 So the soil that that was in entombed 2000 years ago now contains microplastics, which is a bit alarming, but at least you know that they're not getting into the aquifer.

 20:06
 Unfortunately, if we don't do something about microplastics, they will. In relation to water quantity,

 20:13
 soil absorbs water.

 20:15
 It stays in the land rather than running into the sea.

 20:19
 So that prevents rapid runoff and erosion.

 20:21
 And of course, rapid runoff and erosion takes away the soil and just dumps it in the rivers and silts them up.

 20:27
 It prevents downstream flooding.

 20:29
 And there's been a big issue around that over the last few years because getting more extreme weather events, a lot of rain falling in a very short time.

 20:37
 But for farming, certainly you don't need to irrigate so much If you've got the water in the soil in the first place, it doesn't dry out so quickly.

 20:47
 The cost, which is my third Point, your spending goes down.

 20:51
 So your water bills go down if you have healthy soil because you're spending less as a water company on nutrient removal from groundwater water.

 21:03
 Groundwater is actually quite cheap until you have to clean it up.

 21:06
 Water companies spend much less on removing silk from the river abstractions that they have.

 21:12
 And you know, again, if you have erosion, you've got more silt in the water that you abstract.

 21:19
 One of the big topical issues of course is CSO pollution.

 21:23
 And if you're retaining the water, it's not going rapidly into the sewers.

 21:28
 So you're spending less on managing CSO pollution as combined storm overflows and retention also means that you're not using as much water and so you're not having to spend it.

 21:42
 Spend your money on expensive resource options like desalination.

 21:47
 Now in the industry, groundwater is the cheapest option.

 21:49
 You don't have to clean it up so much.

 21:51
 The next one up would be river water.

 21:54
 You do have to spend a lot more per cubic meter treating that.

 21:56
 But desalination, the cost goes through the roof and you need then to have a lot of energy.

 22:01
 So you know, there, there, there you are.

 22:03
 There are three, three issues: quality, quantity and cost.

 22:07
 And while it's not obvious from what I've just said, there's a symbiosis also between glaciers and the soil in the glaciers regulate the climate and the weather that promotes healthy soil.

 22:20
 And it stop sea levels rising to drown our best soils, some of our best souls of peat, and they're below sea level at the moment.

 22:28
 And then healthy soils absorb carbon dioxide, which by mitigated global warming protects glaciers.

 22:35
 And I think Jonathan might have something to say about that.

 22:39
 Yeah, well, there's a lot you've packed in there.

 22:41
 And, you know, I think this idea again, of looking at things on a catchment basis and talking about soil as a sponge that both captures runoff and allows water to infiltrate, which helps the farming of that soil because it keeps moisture in the soil rather than it flashing off into rivers.

 22:58
 But also, if it flashes off into rivers, you don't get as much seeping into the groundwater.

 23:02
 And our aquifers are key reservoirs, if you like, for water resources.

 23:07
 And going forward, there's going to be water scarcity if we don't manage our water resources better.

 23:11
 And managing our soils enables those aquifers to fill much more productively during the wetter months of the year.

 23:19
 And instead of it running off into the rivers and the rivers running down to the sea and we're losing a lot of volume of water immediately.

 23:26
 If we can make sure that soils act as a sponge and they act as an infiltration sponge that enables our aquifers to be replenished every winter, then we're also safeguarding our water resource, both for not just domestic supply, but industrial use and all the other uses that we need to use it for across the board in terms of agriculture and heating and so on.

 23:47
 so it's really important that we do consider soils and all their functionality, across things.

 23:53
 It's not, it's not just about, you know, we need nice soils to grow and it'd be good if they were a bit moist.

 23:59
 Uh, it's much more about the whole catchment approach, what the soils do, they enable us to manage our water resource and our water flow and our flooding much better if we look after them than they would do if they don't otherwise.

 24:13
 And if we don't look after them, as we've seen in some of the extreme events, as you said, Rob, now the higher runoff rate, you know, causes significant damage in cities and towns downstream.

 24:24
 And the costs of managing that subsequently are going up and up and up.

 24:28
 And some areas are, you know, you're not able to get insurance anymore because of the flood risks unless you're part of one of these schemes that enable everybody else to pay your higher flood risk.

 24:38
 But you know, we're still in some respects building the new developments in floodplains.

 24:44
 And we're not managing our floodplains as floodplains, We're just managing them as concrete channels for rivers to flow through.

 24:50
 And that there's a high risk of that going to the future unless we manage the whole catchment.

 24:55
 And that means managing the soils across the catchment as much as it means managing the water, yes, quite right.

 25:00
 And building on floodplains, which is always good fun.

 25:03
 But that catchment management side of things sounds extremely important.

 25:07
 I have so many questions, I must admit.

 25:08
 But the whole point of this podcast is to have snapshots.

 25:11
 And we're going to quickly move on if that's OK and cover some more ground if we if we possibly can.

 25:17
 But we're going to hand back over to Jonathan.

 25:19
 I think we're going to be talking about carbon again, which I think Rob's already led us into this a little bit.

 25:25
 But you know, soils are a significant store of carbon and and I think people don't realise as much how important they are.

 25:33
 They there is bigger sink, second biggest sink after the oceans to drawing carbon out of the atmosphere.

 25:41
 But that's only as their living functional soils.

 25:43
 If you degrade soils and you get rid of the biodiversity within the soils, then you know you significantly degrade that carbon sequestration capability.

 25:54
 A good live healthy soil will have more microorganisms in it than there are people on the planet in a very small quantity a handful of soil or a spoonful of soil even some say.

 26:06
 So, you know, managing soils so that they are living in healthy is, is critical really to, to this business of being able to draw down carbon.

 26:15
 We can talk about carbon capture from industrial sites and, and you know, putting capture carbon down into deep sea wells and stuff like this.

 26:24
 But actually, we could achieve far more if we just managed our soils in a productive and healthy manner so that they all became carbon sequestering.

 26:34
 And you know, the more organic soils that we have, the more that that can take place.

 26:40
 The corollary of that is if we allow our peatlands to dry out and our wetlands to dry out, we will release more carbon from the soils than is currently going into them.

 26:49
 And if we keep cutting down our forests and so on, the same applies.

 26:52
 You know, it's not just about the carbon that's held in the plant matter above ground.

 26:57
 You look at a lot of trees and you can see beautiful diagrams of this on on the FAO website and others.

 27:03
 You know, the amount of above ground biomass that you see is triplicated underground by the huge root mass and interweaving of the micro fungal links that there are from tree roots and into the soils and into the other microorganisms that exist within the soil mass.

 27:22
 So this ability to look at things, we do need to look underground, we need to look at what's beneath our feet, we need to look at what's beneath our trees.

 27:30
 We don't need to just consider the above ground biomass.

 27:33
 We really do if we want to be serious about carbon management is actually looking at how we manage soils so that they can help both in nature recovery, but also in carbon capture and because they are of significant potential for carbon capture.

 27:47
 And we need to do that both within our catchments  in terms of green land, but also the same applies to some respect with managing our coastal ecosystems and the carbon capture element of you know, things like seagrass and and so on.

 28:03
 Bringing that back to water.

 28:05
 Does the water retention of soil or the water management within soil, does that affect the the carbon sink ability of water?

 28:15
 Yes, Yeah.

 28:16
 Because if you have very dry soils, they quickly dry up and become arid and can blow away as dust and particularly if they're disturbed.

 28:25
 And so if you're losing that organic matter within soils, then you're losing the ability of the soil to sequester carbon.

 28:32
 If we dry out soils by not managing them properly, then potentially, yes, that carbon release occurs rather than carbon sequestration.

 28:42
 So it's, and this is what's happening in some of the arid lands and that's why a lot of the focus in the arid lands is, is how you capture water to increase carbon content in soils and then enable those soils to become growing media that supports growth.

 28:57
 And then that changes local microclimates and it changes crop growth and it changes food production and it changes society around them.

 29:04
 And the Greenbelt being built across the middle of Africa on the southern, southern edge of the Sahara is a classic example of that.

 29:10
 By managing soil and managing water, you're increasing the ability for society to support its needs.

 29:17
 But if you don't manage it, it dries up and blows away.

 29:20
 And that's the example there was the the reinstruction of vegetation across central Africa.

 29:25
 Is that right?

 29:26
 Yeah.

 29:26
 And that's being done by First off managing the soil, creating little little mini dams, soil dams, and by increasing the amount of water that therefore infiltrates and the amount of organic material that's retained rather than flashed off across the land, which whilst has a very stark impacts straight away, you can see it in kind of desert land anywhere across, you know, the UK for example.

 29:48
 Different soil management techniques will bring huge amounts of benefits, I would imagine, not just turning desert into green areas, but it's different kind of, but it again, you know, agricultural practices of, of chases.

 30:00
 I remember doing a soil on water engineering postgrad at Silso National College of Agricultural Engineering, as it was at the time.

 30:06
 It's now part of Cranfield.

 30:08
 But you know, we were taught that you don't plow up and down the hill, you, you plow on the contours.

 30:14
 And for that was, that was something that was rigorously applied in in 3rd world countries where we were providing consult, consultancy and expertise.

 30:22
 But you know, you go across many parts of our country and because of health and safety issues and the size of tractors that we now have, you're not allowed to plow across the contour.

 30:31
 You have to plow up and down.

 30:32
 But if you plow up and down immediately, you're going to increase the soil run off and you're going to soil erosion and you increase sedimentation in the downstream catchment stitches and so on.

 30:41
 And it's almost, it flies in the face of reality.

 30:45
 And there are certainly there are some slopes that have been farmed in this country under sort of commercial agriculture, which should never be tilled at all.

 30:52
 They should be, you know, managed in a completely different way.

 30:56
 Where in effect, yeah, you're creating nutrient and water slides where it can all disappear and wash away.

 31:03
 OK into the local river or whatever, whatever's down at the bottom of the hill.

 31:07
 OK, So that was subtopic #3 all to do of carbon, zinc, carbon sequestration moving on to #4 we're getting through this rapidly.

 31:18
 But we've covered, like I said, we've covered a lot of ground here.

 31:22
 Back over to Rob and I think we're going to be talking to about professional collaboration.

 31:28
 Yes, we are.

 31:30
 The only way to get soil out of this too difficult box that the government put it in is through professional collaboration.

 31:38
 Unfortunately, professions and there are lots of them that are involved with soil, civil engineers and you know, even the Institute of Water, they don't agree on a definition of soil even, let alone a measure of soil health.

 31:54
 So you go ask some people what soil is.

 31:56
 They talk about topsoil.

 31:57
 Other people talk about profiles where it's simple.

 31:59
 Engineers remember soil is everything, sometimes 14 meters deep on some of the jobs that I was working on.

 32:06
 So whatever you dig out from there is, you know, is soil and it's not, it's some of it's basically just sediment that's been there for 10,000 years or so.

 32:17
 In 2023, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Soil Health Inquiry did ask the government to have soil health indicators ready by December 2024.

 32:32
 And as I said earlier, the government said, oh, don't have enough data, get some more data together.

 32:39
 Yeah, we need this because most of the the policies that we need for it are going to rely on on having a measure and having a metric.

 32:48
 And you can't knock this into the long grass.

 32:50
 You can't.

 32:51
 It's just without it, you're going to have problems.

 32:57
 Society for the Environment saw the need for a policy ahead of having all the R&D detail, because I don't think you need to worry too much about the detail before you've actually got an overarching policy.

 33:14
 And for the policy you do need collaboration.

 33:17
 So we saw collaboration as our first, you know, our first target and that policy for us in the Society for the Environment of having a collaboration plan we developed by December 2024 anyway.

 33:31
 So we're well into it at the moment, but what we need is a policy on soils and primary legislation to protect them.

 33:44
 That would be absolutely wonderful because at the moment there are bits here and there everywhere and you can't really see an explicit soil protection policy anywhere.

 33:57
 We need agreed standards for soil health and standards that can be monetized by the private sector.

 34:03
 I'm talking here about the offset markets, offsets for carbon, offsets for biodiversity, particularly biodiversity net gain.

 34:11
 Soils don't feature in biodiversity net gain, but soils contain more than half of the world's biodiversity.

 34:19
 Yeah.

 34:20
 So we only concentrate on what's above ground, not what's below it, but half.

 34:24
 More than half of the Earth's biodiversity is underneath, and we need governance as well.

 34:31
 And that means a lot of people have got to agree on those government standards to make sure the improvements in soil health are met.

 34:40
 And those governance standards, if they're tied to the monetization of soil health, of course, will be financial governance standards.

 34:47
 For that you need experts, you need chartered environmentalists and others to go out there and enforce those rules in much the same way as we do with the rules on let's say ISO 14,001 and all those environmental management standards.

 35:04
 So really the, the soil related professions really do need to achieve that through a common goal, agreeing a common goal, what we're going to do.

 35:14
 And then they can align their individual focus by identifying duplication of effort you don't really need with our limited resources at the moment, but different groups doing the same thing, resolving conflicts of opinion.

 35:30
 And I have to point out that with the Society for the Environment's approach to this, focusing on economic growth, that didn't go down well with everybody.

 35:41
 But if we don't have economic growth, we don't have the money pays basically.

 35:44
 So you know, economic growth can be achieved by nature based solutions and all of those other areas where soil can be monetized.

 35:56
 And then we have the issue of choosing the right people to fill in the knowledge gaps.

 36:00
 And that's where the R&D comes in because we'll need standards written, we'll need various measurement techniques or all the all these other things that go in that we need experts to work on.

 36:12
 But that doesn't have to be done ahead of having a policy in my opinion, what we can't afford to do.

 36:19
 So these are the negatives.

 36:21
 We can't afford to whine and dwell on the problems rather than the solutions.

 36:25
 We need solutions.

 36:27
 We've can't ignore the what's in it for me factor, the Witham factor as I call it.

 36:32
 So basically everybody's got a big gain from this.

 36:34
 Everybody's going to see the benefit farmers and industrialists, the whole, the whole good luck.

 36:39
 You know, they can see that they're offsetting their carbon and they they can see that we can work together and not be criticising each other.

 36:49
 Frankly, I don't like seeing people blame farmers or other specific groups for poor soil health when in fact it's policy that has driven those farmers.

 36:59
 They need to put food on the table.

 37:02
 I don't think we can hold out a hat for public money that isn't there.

 37:05
 So we need to look at private sector investment as well.

 37:10
 And I don't think that we should ignore the opportunities for economic growth through nature based solutions, sustainable land use.

 37:17
 Jonathan touched earlier on some of those ideas, but regenerative farming means you don't have to plough so much minimum tillage.

 37:25
 You've still got to produce food, you've still got to turn the soil.

 37:29
 And there may be situations where, for example, heavy rainfall has contracted sandy soils and they need to be turned.

 37:38
 But you reduce the, the, the amount of ploughing.

 37:41
 My local farmer here has actually sold the plough.

 37:43
 They don't, they don't have a plough anymore.

 37:45
 And they're very proud of that, those opportunities for economic growth.

 37:51
 And they are a profitable organization locally.

 37:54
 You know, giving up the plough hasn't meant their profit margins have gone down.

 37:57
 It meant they've improved because you don't have those overheads.

 38:02
 So there are solutions there, money saving solutions and money generating solutions.

 38:11
 I'd point out as well, going back to the carbon thing, how much do you think the government over the next 25 years is going to be spending on the technology of carbon capture, utilization storage?

 38:26
 Oh, good few hundred quid.

 38:27
  £21.7 billion, that's nearly a billion pounds a year of your money that they're going to be spending on this untried technology which currently captures only .1%.

 38:43
 Now if you look at the internet, it will tell you all sorts of crazy stuff about how much carbon soils can capture.

 38:49
 I think Jack Hannan has given a more conservative view on this and she said that with improved soil health, you can get about 10% of the world's current global emissions captured by soils annually.

 39:06
 10%.

 39:07
 So by 2050, how much does carbon capture, utilization, storage, how much is that predicted to to capture?

 39:15
 8%

 39:17
 That's means developing a lot of untried technology, most of which has only been successful when it's being used to extract more oil from the ground because you're pumping carbon dioxide in to force more oil out.

 39:30
 So you're basically investing billions of pounds on untried technology when in fact you could improve soil health.

 39:38
 Well, now, now society for the environment has already put forward things like the 10 principles.

 39:45
 It's put forward a soil use hierarchy.

 39:47
 All these things will help now to start capturing carbon because the opportunities are being missed.

 39:55
 When you say soils are depleted, because they are so depleted, it means there's a massive potential for them to capture more carbon.

 40:03
 And we can do that within perhaps a harvest year by improving soils through regenerative farming and yeah, basically improving soil health.

 40:16
 And if you put those billions into the farming community and the nature community and and enabled real significant change into the way we produce food and how we produce food and what we produce in terms of food.

 40:28
 Then it starts achieving that and and we talk about the economic side of things and people pood the idea that, oh, you've got to have economic growth.

 40:37
 If we don't do this right, the economic implications longer term are enormous.

 40:43
 Yeah, the costs involved with relocating and, and having to do different types of food production and importing food from all over the world, etcetera.

 40:51
 Dealing with the immigration problems because we've destroyed land in certain parts of the world because of, you know, they are huge.

 40:58
 It's not just about wildfires, it's not just about floods, it's about migration, it's about whole continents having to change the way people move around and how economic systems and social systems will work.

 41:12
 Absolutely.

 41:13
 It's the root cause of the problem, isn't it?

 41:15
 Absolutely to the root cause of the problem and that's a pun.

 41:18
 But I'm sorry, it is around what's under the ground.

 41:21
 So getting a policy together is one of the key things and that's a delay in getting a policy.

 41:29
 It's not rocket science.

 41:32
 Well, it's not just do it please.

 41:34
 It's not compliant with one of those key rules that we had from Europe when we were part of Europe and which we still hold dear in many cases is the precautionary principle.

 41:45
 We don't need to wait till we have all the data and all the evidence to say this particular route is going to be brilliant.

 41:53
 All we need to know is this particular route is going to be extremely helpful on a precautionary basis.

 41:59
 Head down that route rather than the other way of just carrying on, carrying on carrying on destroying and degrading and creating problems until we have evidence to say that that's going to be a mega problem anyway.

 42:10
 Jonathan and I are collaborating.

 42:12
 We both agree what everybody else can fall in behind us.

 42:16
 Well, the concept behind this podcast is all about collaboration, bringing two different perspectives to the topics that we're talking about.

 42:25
 It sounds like don't let the perfect be the enemies of good was kind of what Jonathan was getting out there.

 42:31
 And I feel like we've also moved quite swiftly into the final topic, topic #5 we've probably touched on about that already, haven't we?

 42:40
 Which still to do with opportunities for a sustainable future.

 42:44
 And how many have we talked about already?

 42:46
 Yeah, no, I think you're right.

 42:48
 I mean, I think we've moved into that and this is symptomatic of of the the issues around once you start discussing soil and you start discussing catchments and you start discussing society and whether that's in relation to flood events or crop production or whatever.

 43:03
 All of these things interweave.

 43:04
 And we do need to take that precautionary principle.

 43:08
 We need to act more actively now, all of us, not just government, not just government and bringing forward new legislation and bringing forward new policy and strategy, but everybody.

 43:18
 And I've been really encouraged by the change in across different sectors, how people are regarding soils and sustainable soil management and sustainable farming across the board over the last 10 years.

 43:31
 It's a much more positive outlook.

 43:33
 And that's recognised globally as well in, in some of the initiatives on soil health and soil protection and soil management.

 43:39
 We do need to act now.

 43:40
 They're all of us.

 43:41
 We all need to play the part that we have.

 43:43
 And as chartered environmentalists, we should be leading the fray on that.

 43:47
 We have highlighted some key issues today and there's some key opportunities there for collaboration in terms of learning from things like the, the Society's Soils and Stones reports.

 43:57
 But if you haven't read those, I encourage you to do so.

 44:00
 Looking at the 10 principles, in particular in managing your projects, looking at the, the, the management opportunities for managing soils sustainably, particularly in the construction sector, using things like the Eclair definition of waste code of practice and promoting soil management.

 44:15
 Looking looking to Defra to produce that, that the next IEIP and, and what it's going to say there about soils, both in the agricultural setting and in the urban setting.

 44:27
 Looking to have a construction code of practice for soils management, getting that into planning regimes as the Lancaster task group suggested, and actually having plan relevant planning conditions about not just individual site soils, but like like biodiversity net gain.

 44:42
 You're not talking about just what's happening on a small site, you're talking about the interlinkage between different sites and between nature and biodiversity across the board, stepping stones across our land.

 44:52
 We need to look at all of these things in a multifunctional approach and therefore we need all the specialists not to work in their silos, but to work in a collaborative point of view.

 45:02
 And that's been one of the joys of the SocEnv group

 45:05
 We've included that with the silo to soils group that's been producing some information that will come up on the IES on the SocEnv website shortly.

 45:14
 That's about, you know, who's doing what, what is current guidance out there, what is good practice out there, what organisations are involved so that we, we actually find our way through the mess of the underground and work out to get to the right stations when we need to a tube map to, to collaboration, if you like.

 45:31
 But we need to everybody think about the, the multifunctionality of this thing and start working in an environmental system and across sectors.

 45:40
 We are, after all, part of an environmental ecosystem.

 45:43
 The globe is an environmental ecosystem and we are part of that, you know, whether we like it or not.

 45:49
 I think in the past we've stood outside it and tried to manage it and and decide that we're the stewards and it'll do what it's told sort of thing.

 45:56
 No, we're very much a part of the ecosystem as we've shown by some of the damage that we've done and and some of the ways that we've we've created problems by chopping down forests etcetera, etcetera.

 46:07
 We cannot continue on the route that we are at the moment.

 46:09
 We need to steer a multifunctional multimedia path to change if we're going to avoid catastrophic failure in the future in our global ecosystem, of which we are very much a part.

 46:19
 And we we ignore the ground and the soil beneath our feet at our peril.

 46:23
 And if we don't manage the water in our catchments and in our glaciers and our rivers and oceans better, then the environmental system that supports all of us will begin to degrade and collapse.

 46:35
 And as Rob said, you know, we could well end up with a warming climate leading to England having winters like Poland or the Arctic.

 46:43
 So, you know, it will affect all of us.

 46:45
 And we all need to therefore understand it, play our part and and manage within the social and economic systems that we have a betterment rather than a further turning a blind eye and kick it into that long grass that Rob talked about earlier here, here.

 47:01
 I think that's great.

 47:02
 Look in this soils and stones group that we've been working on since .

 47:06
 Goodness me, 2019, we had annual targets and, and this year we intend to.

 47:13
 Here we go.

 47:14
 Ace it, right?

 47:16
 ACE it, Advocate, collaborate, educate.

 47:19
 So we're going to advocate for policies which recognise the value of soil and stones, the value of soil and stones, the monetary value of soil and stones.

 47:27
 By advocating, we'll be answering some government consultation documents, but we're pestering the government with what we want.

 47:34
 We're going to collaborate to find solutions and shape and share best practice.

 47:39
 So some practical steps towards getting documents that will help.

 47:42
 And today we came across a great thing that Middle years of the Midland Land events has produced to tie up a lot of these disparate best practice guidance into one document.

 47:54
 Yeah, that's silo to soil.

 47:57
 And yeah, silo to soil.

 47:59
 So look, look that up #silo to soil.

 48:03
 And we're going to educate people through published articles, CPD events, and podcasts like this one, like this one.

 48:08
 You know, this is how we're going to educate.

 48:13
 One of the things that I think we ought to be doing is, is identifying the operate, the opportunities for government, particularly governments.

 48:22
 Government at the moment is looking for growth, economic growth.

 48:25
 And we've got to be sensitive to what's in it for them.

 48:29
 And we've been telling them this, I think since 2021.

 48:32
 Different government, but here we go.

 48:34
 Economic growth can be achieved through soil biodiversity, net gain and soil carbon offset markets.

 48:41
 It can be monetized through a cryptocurrency tied to the natural capital of soil.

 48:48
 You can get innovations that the United Kingdom can market to other countries, best practice, expertise and services, chartered environmentalists going out there and being evangelists for soil.

 49:03
 So in terms of soil resource efficiency, which one of one of Jonathan's areas of expertise, soil health governments, BNG metrics, the biodiversity net gain metrics, they do need to be developed for soil.

 49:18
 And something that we've been talking about since 2021, vertical farming solutions where you're reducing food miles and reducing the pressure on soils for intensive agriculture.

 49:28
 So these are vertical farms in cities that that work off solar energy and also things like effective nature based solutions, flood mitigation, regenerative agriculture, and Anthrasol technology that is well soil made by humans.

 49:47
 This technology is 6000 years old easily.

 49:50
 Friend of mine did some work in Orkney on them but basically you put biochar back into soil from the pyrolysis of organic matter.

 49:59
 I mean, it's one of the solutions, but it's actually something that does work and ties up carbon long term in the soil as well as soil fertility long term.

 50:11
 Terra Rossa down and I think that there's a paper on that on the socEnv website that you can read.

 50:17
 Government also has cost savings that they could look at.

 50:20
 You have reduced fertilizer and pesticide inputs.

 50:23
 You have reduced water treatment and wastewater management costs.

 50:26
 You have reduced energy consumption as well if you go through the more nature based solutions than the technological ones.

 50:35
 But I think one of the things the government does need to look at long term is the benefits of resilience through better soil management and having a decent policy.

 50:43
 You get improved food and water resource security, you get less exposure to extreme weather, and you get a reduction of the global risks.

 50:53
 You're looking at the root cause of some of those by addressing soil health, the loss of this, this engine that drives this current that brings us heat.

 51:06
 We're looking at the sea level rise, resilience against sea level rise, the resilience against political instability.

 51:12
 So taking Jonathan's point that everything on this planet is interlinked, I think a simple shift in policy on soils will not only generate economic growth, but it also protect water resources, which is where I come for.

 51:27
 Guaranteed food security, which is very close to my heart, but I don't want to go hungry.

 51:31
 Thanks.

 51:33
 And it was Save the Earth's Glaciers, which is where we came in.

 51:36
 So, you know, sermon over.

 51:38
 I'll get off my soapbox.

 51:41
 I was going to stop you at some point, but we are flying over our time now, absolutely soaring.

 51:46
 But I'm very pleased you mentioned glaciers there.

 51:49
 Which brings us full circle back to where we started with the World Water Day theme.

 51:56
 But there's some strong call to actions there throughout.

 51:59
 I was worried when we came up with this new format that five top five would be too narrow.

 52:05
 We'd miss so many things.

 52:06
 But I feel like we've covered an extraordinary amount there.

 52:11
 And maybe I might limit it to three.

 52:12
 I'm not sure.

 52:13
 We'll see how things go.

 52:14
 It's  giving you the seeds for plenty of other podcasts.

 52:18
 This is true.

 52:19
 This is very true.

 52:20
 Yeah.

 52:20
 So thank you very much for that.

 52:21
 More work to be done, but yeah strong call to action for collaboration and to act now, it's fair to say.

 52:28
 And we've mentioned a good amount of resources there for you to learn from.

 52:33
 Learning from trusted resources is key to knowing what you're doing and finding out what good practices out there.

 52:39
 So hopefully you'll continue to listen to the EnvCast podcasts, which will have guests like Jonathan & Robert every month throughout this year at least.

 52:48
 But also Robert mentioned, sorry, it's Jonathan that mentioned the IES event coming up on the 23rd of June to give that a plug, which is dialogue between disciplines.

 52:59
 Go ahead to the the Institution of Environmental Sciences website to find that.

 53:03
 We'll also put some useful links in the description of this podcast.

 53:08
 So thank you very, very much to our guests today.

 53:12
 We have covered a lot.

 53:14
 As said, I trust that listeners will hopefully have found it valuable.

 53:20
 If you have any ideas, the listeners, this is of what could have been in your top five for water in the environment.

 53:27
 Let us know in the comments.

 53:29
 We're keen to keep this conversation going.

 53:31
 The more we talk about it, hopefully the more action or the more well we turn talking into action.

 53:38
 But the more people know about it, the more action we'll start to get.

 53:42
 And finally, that's like I said, please check out the links and resources in the podcast description to keep on learning.

 53:48
 Thank you very much.

 53:49
 Again, thank you very much for the help to our guests, and we shall see you in the next podcast.

 53:56
 If you've made it this far, Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening to this episode so you don't miss the next one.

 54:02
 Also, rate our podcast and leave a comment to help us reach more people.

 54:06
 Thank you very much for listening or watching on YouTube.

 54:09
 We look forward to the next episode next month.

 54:12
 See you then.