Title:	Assessing the soil capacity to produce food and biomass worldwide.
Authors:	ROSIN, N. A. MCBRATNEY, A. B. POPPIEL, R. R. ROSAS, J. T. F. AMORIM, M. T. A. FRANCOS, N. DEMATTÊ, J. A. M.
Affiliation:	NICOLAS AUGUSTO ROSIN, CNPS ALEX B. MCBRATNEY, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY RAUL ROBERTO POPPIEL, UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO JORGE TADEU FIM ROSAS, UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO MERILYN T. ACCORSI AMORIM, UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO NICOLAS FRANCOS, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY JOSÉ A. M. DEMATTÊ, UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO.
Date Issued:	2026
Citation:	Geoderma, v. 469, 117821, May 2026.
Description:	Soil security is a broad concept to address the role of soil in humankind’s well-being. We aimed to map the soil capacity to produce food and biomass worldwide with a soil security assessment framework (SSAF) based on the relationship between crop yield and soil attributes (in surface and subsoil layers) across the world’s ecoregions. The yield data for sugarcane, maize, rice, wheat, and soybean were transformed into a unitless utility value and used as target indicators, and clay, pH, soil organic carbon, and plant available water were used as potential indicators (PIs). The dataset was stratified by ecoregions. Utility functions were fitted between the target indicator and surface and subsoil data for each PI using generalized additive models (GAMs). GAMs were also fitted using all PIs. The final utility maps were predicted using digital soil mapping. The empirical bivariate utility functions reached an R2 of 0.01–0.36 and showed different behavior than those expected in the literature for some cases. The behavior of the pH was closest to that expected. The octavariate models using all PIs for the surface and subsoil had better accuracies with an R2 of 0.18–0.46. The predicted maps were related to the main crop yield for each region and enabled this information to be downscaled to 90 m and extrapolated for current non-agricultural uses. This study is the first approximation of the soil’s capacity to produce food and biomass on a global scale, and limitations due to several uncertainties should be considered.
Thesagro:	Segurança Alimentar Solo
NAL Thesaurus:	Food security Utility functions
Keywords:	Soil security Digital soil mapping Soil health Segurança do solo Mapeamento digital do solo
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2026.117821
Type of Material:	Artigo de periódico
Access:	openAccess
Appears in Collections:	Artigo em periódico indexado (CNPS)