Implications of soil complexity for environmental monitoring

International proposals for national soil and environmental monitoring lack adequate awareness of the diversity and complexity of soils. These need to be considered in sampling and reporting. This paper provides examples of the diversity and complexity of soil and environmental conditions in Bangladesh and Ghana, including differences between physiographic regions, within soil toposequences, between and within neighbouring fields, and in areas of shifting cultivation. These examples show that large numbers of sites would need to be sampled and monitored to provide the information required for the national environmental accounting envisaged. Detailed studies are needed in countries with relevant soil monitoring capacities to determine the scale of sampling required and the feasibility of conducting national monitoring. Where the latter is considered infeasible, the contribution that more limited measures could make to environmental monitoring needs to be examined. There is scope for useful academic studies to be made of environmental variability and practical monitoring techniques.