Soil protection and sustainable land management practices for croplands are usually considered to be cost-effective. However, to date little economic information has emerged about these techniques and there is no comprehensive economic appraisal to effectively help guide investment decisions. This review proposes a new multidisciplinary approach for an economic assessment of soil protection practices at the farm level at selected European sites. It draws together and integrates economic data on a selection of measures based on information related to climate change, soil degradation and biodiversity research that are rarely investigated jointly. Out of the studies reviewed, quantitative and qualitative data from 26 scientific papers and technical reports were gathered into a database. For the quantitative data analysis, 14 of those studies were used. The main results show that most practices may not pass the cost/benefit test and that their benefits are not, as is often assumed, systematically higher than their costs. Specific quantitative results are not definitive but we find that estimation methods may have unintended consequences. They may well lead to ineffective investment decisions unless more holistic and multidisciplinary approaches to soil protection are taken.
Keywords: Costs and benefits; Multidisciplinarity; Soil degradation; Soil protection practices; Sustainable land management; Unintended consequences.
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