Monitoring Soil Health in Agroforestry Systems: A Guide to Assessment

One output of the project is a study of methods for determining and accounting for soil health and greenhouse gas emissions within agroforestry systems (den Herder et al., 2026). The first half of that report describes the measurement and reporting of soil health across seven sites in Czechia, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The report that you are reading now was initially developed as an Annex to that report. The objective of this Annex report is to provide a harmonised guide that covers (i) sampling design in spatially heterogeneous agroforestry systems (isolated trees, row-based alley cropping, and areabased systems), (ii) field measurement protocols for a core indicator set spanning chemical, physical, and biological soil health dimensions, and (iii) laboratory analysis, calculation, and reporting steps. The core soil health indicators prioritised within WP3 include soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil pH (chemical), bulk density (physical), and earthworm abundance as a practical soil fauna indicator (biological), consistent with a previous produced Milestone report on DigitAF Methods for Carbon and Soil Health Assessments. Where resources allow, the guide also provides options to extend monitoring to microbial indicators such as bacteria and fungi, improving the completeness of soil biological assessment.

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