Exploring Soil Management Pathways for Germany - Applying the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways to Soil Management Futures

Abstract

Sustainable and climate-resilient agricultural management depends on sustaining soil multifunctionality, the foundation of all agricultural production. As demand for agricultural and bio-based products rises due to population growth, dietary shifts, and the bioeconomy transition, scenario-based approaches can guide long-term decision-making under uncertainty. This study presents five German Soil Management Pathways (DE-SMPs), developed through a combined sectoral and geographical downscaling of the Shared Socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture and food systems. The methodology integrates stakeholder-driven trend identification across demographic, economic, technological, institutional, and environmental drivers with expert-based narrative construction to derive national and sector specific scenarios. The resulting pathways reveal contrasting futures for soil health and demonstrate that soil multifunctionality outcomes depend critically on the interplay between policy and governance, technological trajectories, and societal priorities. Technology emerges as a necessary but insufficient condition, effective only when embedded in supportive policy and institutional frameworks. The results emphasize that soil multifunctionality is fundamentally interconnected with broader societal choices regarding environmental governance, trade, technological investment, and commitment to sustainability transitions.

Introduction

Projections for the next decades show that the demand for agricultural produce and bio-based products will increase (Olsson et al. 2019), especially in industrialized countries where fossil fuels are continuously phased out (BMBF and BMEL, 2020). At the center of bio-based industrial production are sustainably and long-term managed natural resources. In agricultural contexts, soil resources play the foundational role, as biomass production originates from soils (Helming et al. 2018).

Soils and their multifunctionality play a crucial role in ecosystem services provisioning, including biomass production, matter cycling, carbon sequestration, water filtration and buffering, and habitat for biological activity (Helming et al. 2018; Vogel et al. 2019a, 2019b). While potential soil functions are determined by site conditions, soil-forming factors, and biological, chemical, and geophysical processes, soil management has an influence on soil dynamics and the actual soil functions observed in the present (Vogel et al. 2019a, 2019b). Soil functions underpin a multitude of processes, and humans are relying on and benefiting from them in the form of soil ecosystem services (Paul et al. 2021; Veerman et al. 2020).

However, soils in Europe are increasingly degraded, with 61 percent affected (European Environment Agency (EEA) 2023). In Germany, where more than half of the land area is used for agriculture, intensification during the twentieth and twenty-firstst centuries has led to higher usage intensities of soils (Seeger 2023). While intensification raised yields per hectare through reliance on external inputs, increased soil threats in the form of erosion, organic matter decline, compaction, salinization, contamination, biodiversity loss, and soil sealing have been observed (Ginzky 2024; Glæsner et al. 2014; Seeger 2023). Notably, current soil protection legislation does not effectively protect against these threats or prevent further degradation. Climate change further amplifies these degradation processes, as it already impacts agricultural soil productivity today and is projected to continue in the future (EEA 2023; Olsson et al. 2019). Remedies are sought in sustainable soil management approaches that maintain the ecosystem provisioning services of soils (Costanza and Daly 1992; Strauss et al. 2023) and reduce societal losses and economic damages in the long-term (Keesstra et al. 2016).

The management practices fitting this category are in the literature categorized as ecological intensification (MacLaren et al. 2022), sustainable soil management (Strauss et al. 2023), conservation agriculture (Cárceles Rodríguez et al. 2022), and regenerative agriculture (Schreefel et al. 2020). These categorizations share a common aim: managing agricultural soils in ways that maintain or increase their multifunctionality.

In the search for solutions to maintain soil multifunctionality, technology and science are frequently assigned a pivotal role: “leveraging advancements in science and technology to address the complex challenges faced by modern agriculture” (Srivastava et al. 2024, 2). Techen and Helming (2017, 64) argue that this is driven by “[…] technological development towards lighter machines and more precision management, by research that is increasingly uncovering positive effect of soil improving production methods on soil quality and yield development, and by a societal will to support sustainable production methods […]”. Technology in soil management, and its adoption in these examples (Srivastava et al. 2024; Techen and Helming 2017) appear in the techno-futuristic paradigm as a continuous part of a trend in European agriculture (Puig de La Bellacasa 2015). This is a trend which Martin and Pan-Montojo (2025) describe for mid-twentieth century agricultural transformations as shaped by interconnected factors including state intervention, global commodity markets, shifting societal expectations of farming, emergent transnational institutions, increasingly intricate supply networks, and evolving dietary patterns. This historical embeddedness of technological change within agricultural transformation suggests that soil management pathways cannot be understood through technological adoption alone. Understanding the future of soil management therefore includes an understanding of scientific and technological developments but also an understanding of trends and combinations of socio-economic conditions especially farmers’ decision-making processes (Prager and Posthumus 2010), and environmental drivers (Techen and Helming 2017).

The complexity of these interacting drivers causes a high degree of uncertainty. Scenario development offers a systematic approach to embrace this uncertainty and to make it explicit by exploring multiple plausible pathways for soil management (Wright et al. 2013). The participatory scenario development approach in this study therefore specifically focused on the role that technological innovations play and how they are positioned within broader socio-economic scenarios.

To this end, the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) offer a widely used framework for exploring such futures. The SSPs originally served as qualitative storylines on socio-economic conditions (i.e., demographic change, urbanization, population growth, economic development, and technological progress) for the IPCC’s modeling of the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) (Kriegler et al. 2012; Moss et al. 2010). The SSP framework positions pathways according to challenges for climate change mitigation and adaptation, creating a two-dimensional space that characterizes distinct socio-economic futures. Qualitative extensions have since integrated regional trends into the global framework of the SSPs (Zandersen et al. 2019), ranging from fully bottom-up approaches (emphasizing case studies, localized data, and participatory methods) to fully top-down approaches (relying on broader conceptual constructs and incorporating global SSP narratives into existing local or regional scenarios) (Absar and Preston 2015; Kok et al. 2019), or combinations thereof (Pedde et al. 2025).

For European agriculture, the Eur-Agri-SSPs protocol (Mitter et al. 2019) has been applied to develop country-focused scenarios for Finland (Lehtonen et al. 2021), Austria (Karner et al. 2024), and specific production systems within regional contexts in Switzerland (Nishizawa et al. 2023). These extensions offer greater flexibility in envisioning futures and incorporating diverse perspectives (Schrijver et al. 2016). Participatory scenario approaches have increasingly supported environmental decision-making by integrating scientific assessment with stakeholder knowledge and perspectives (Alcamo and Henrichs 2008; Patel et al. 2007). In soil management contexts, participatory methods have proven valuable for validating assumptions, refining context-specific elements, and ensuring scenario relevance for end-users (Wadoux and McBratney 2023). However, the level of stakeholder involvement varies, from consultation on predefined elements to full co-creation of scenarios (Patel et al. 2007).

Despite these advances, existing SSP extensions have focused either on sectoral specification (e.g., agricultural systems) or geographical downscaling (e.g., national contexts), but not their combination with respect to soil management technologies and soil multifunctionality. This gap limits understanding of how global socio-economic pathways translate into specific soil management futures at national scales, particularly for countries pursuing bioeconomy transitions that depend fundamentally on soil resources. As Germany pursues its national bioeconomy strategy (Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft 2021), understanding how different socio-economic, technological, and environmental conditions affect soil management becomes critical for ensuring sustainable bioeconomy development.

To fill this gap, our approach involves stakeholders in contributory and collaborative roles (Wadoux and McBratney 2023), validating and refining storyline elements originally developed through desk research and expert input, positioning stakeholders as knowledgeable reviewers who evaluate the trends of individual storyline elements for German soil management contexts. The results section presents five distinct German Soil Management Pathways (SMPs) with detailed storyline elements across population, economy, policy, technology, and environment, demonstrating how different socio-economic conditions translate into divergent trajectories for soil functions and management practices by 2050. The discussion examines implications for Germany’s bioeconomy transition, analyzes governance requirements for achieving improved soil multifunctionality outcomes, and reflects on the methodological contributions and limitations, and guides future research into relational aspects and values of extending the SSP framework for national soil management futures.

Methodology for Scenario Development and Participatory Approach

The participatory scenario process followed established frameworks for stakeholder engagement in environmental assessments (Mitter et al. 2019). For the German Soil Management Pathways, we designed a scenario development process (Alcamo and Henrichs 2008) situated at the levels of contribution and collaboration (following the distinction of Wadoux and McBratney 2023) in which stakeholders evaluated trend directions for storyline elements, discussed the scenarios and gave feedback on the process and what they had learned.

This level of involvement sits between basic consultation and full co-production, with stakeholders contributing specialized knowledge to refine predefined scenario components rather than generating scenarios from scratch. Figure 1 details where stakeholders participated in the process.

Figure 1.

Nine step protocol for the development of the German soil management pathways (adapted from Mitter et al. 2019).

The Eur-Agri-SSPs provided boundary conditions for population and urbanization, economy, and policy and institutions. We developed 42 additional storyline elements for technology and innovations as well as environment and natural resources through desk research, drawing primarily on comprehensive foresight studies (Techen and Helming 2017) and expert consultation. Combined with elements adopted or minimally adapted from the Eur-Agri-SSPs, this resulted in 90 total storyline elements across five categories: population and urbanization, economy, policy and institutions, technology and innovations, and environment and natural resources. A core group of scientists was responsible for storyline development, workshop design, result interpretation, and writing, with feedback from a supporting group of scientists and stakeholders.

Five workshops conducted between December 2020 and March 2021 engaged 94 stakeholders in defining trend directions for storyline elements by 2050. Stakeholders were recruited from five groups: research (most represented), state authorities, industry, civil society and NGOs (second most represented), and agricultural associations and farmers. Each four-hour online workshop covered all five SSP scenarios. Stakeholders assessed each storyline element using five trend directions: definite increase, tendency to increase, remains constant, tendency to decrease, and definite decrease. Individual votes were aggregated by simple majority to determine trend directions. When consensus proved difficult or votes were tied, researchers facilitated discussion to clarify scenario context and element definitions. Votes from multiple workshops evaluating the same elements were combined to produce final trend assignments for each storyline element in each scenario.

Following stakeholder workshops, consistency checks and analytical assessments verified scenario quality. Vertical consistency with Eur-Agri-SSPs was evaluated through systematic comparison of German-level assumptions with the broader European framework, with documented divergences reflecting nation-specific contexts (detailed in Methods and Materials). Internal consistency was assessed using a causal loop diagram (CLD) adapted from Mathijs et al. (2018), which mapped how newly developed storyline elements for soil management and technological innovations integrate within the broader agricultural system. The CLD identified reinforcing and balancing feedback loops governing system behavior across the five pathways (detailed descriptions in Supplemental Material I).

Scenario differentiation was verified through two complementary analyses. First, trend directionality was quantified by counting the frequency of each trend type (definite increase, tendency to increase, remains constant, tendency to decrease, definite decrease) across all storyline elements per pathway. Second, Kendall’s tau (τ) correlation analysis assessed whether the scenarios represented sufficiently distinct pathways. Trend directions were converted to numerical values (definite increase = 2, tendency to increase = 1, remains constant = 0, tendency to decrease = −1, definite decrease = −2), and pairwise correlations were calculated between all scenarios (detailed calculation in Methods and Materials). This statistical assessment ensured the scenario set captured meaningful variation across the uncertainty space rather than representing redundant futures.

The participatory process provided five distinct German Soil Management Pathways, each characterized by unique combinations of socio-economic drivers, technological trajectories, and environmental outcomes for soil management futures to 2050. The analytical process provided deeper understanding of why combinations of storyline elements differentiate the scenarios.

Results

The participatory process enabled the core group to define five scenarios. The summarized scenarios are outlined in this section; the full scenarios are in Methods and Materials. They address the uncertainties and challenges related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, outlining plausible pathways for soil management in Germany until 2050. The pathways include: SMP1: Sustainable path, SMP2: Slow changes path, SMP3: Nationwide path, SMP4: Divided path, and SMP5: High-tech path (Figure 2) and are described hereafter.

Figure 2.

Nesting and downscaling of the German soil management pathways.

German Soil Management Pathways

The five German Soil Management Pathways represent distinct futures for agricultural soil management in Germany by 2050. Figure 3(a)–(d) offer illustrative impressions of each pathway, generated with AI image tools (Midjourney) to offer a vision of the broader character of each scenario before the detailed descriptions in the following sections and in the supplemental material.

Figure 3.

Illustration of soil management pathway (1): Sustainable path. (a) Illustration of soil management pathway (2): Slow changes path. (b) Illustration of soil management pathway (3): Nationwide path. (c) Illustration of soil management pathway (4): Divided path. (d) Illustration of soil management pathway (5): High-tech path

DE-SMP1: Sustainable Path

Sustainable Soil Management in a Green and Diverse Environment

The stable economic conditions (including German agricultural production) follow a sustainable path that is associated with the implementation of environmental policies and the wide use of green technologies. High social and environmental awareness among consumers, as well as high respect for the farming sector, is accompanied by improved rural-urban linkages. Production, food standards, and labeling assure transparency and trust along the food value chain. The environmental policies support the principle of circularity, include support for sustainable soil management practices, and allow flexible differentiations across German geo-biophysical conditions. Low-environmental-impact agricultural production and plant-based consumption are preferred and affordable for the population by implementing the principles and practices of circular agriculture, bioeconomy, and informed consumption. The relationship between low environmental impact production and consumption is seen as an important precondition for human health. Soil management integrates technological advances with regenerative principles. Food and biomass production are balanced with the improvement of all soil functions.

DE-SMP2: Slow Change Path

Slow Changes in the Current Soil Management Practices

Agriculture and soil management practices continue following a path of slow changes. Reinforced market integration and globalized market concentration in the up- and downstream sectors leads to a decrease in the diversity of agricultural systems and to reinforced consolidation of the agricultural sector. The image of the farming business remains low but societal demand for environmental services increases following improved education levels. Environmental standards and policies follow the business-as-usual development with some planned adjustments at a moderate pace. A moderate shift towards plant-based diets combined with the implementation of more resource-efficient technologies opens opportunities for improved environmental standards. Agricultural subsidies continue to focus on area-based payments with slight increase in support to agri-environmental concerns. The distribution of agricultural public goods to society is uniform. Soil practices aim to improve resource use efficiency but do not exploit the biological potential of soil-improving measures.

DE-SMP3: Nationwide Path

Soil Management to Sustain National Food and Energy Security in a Highly Isolated Environment

A decrease in open international cooperation and trade leads to declining economic growth. A decline in environmental awareness follows from a lack of knowledge and technologies. The German population declines because of decreased immigration, and the pace of urbanization decreases. Food self-sufficiency at the national level is prioritized, leading to constant national production with established practices and declining research with limited new technological development. Dietary preferences and production practices are comparable to today’s. Reduced imports of fertilizers, pesticides, and fodder may reinforce the circularity of production and the use of livestock-based fertilizers in crop production. Regarding soil functions, this may mitigate the decreasing public support for environmental standards. However, most soil functions decline under the pressure of intensified production systems with limited technological advancement.

DE-SMP4: Divided Path

Soil Management in Unequal Environments of Large-Scale Industrial Farms and Local Agro-Food Initiatives

High urbanization rates as well as the divide between urban and rural living conditions remain constant, leading to decreased urban-rural linkages as well as decreased environmental awareness, followed by low ambitions for environmental policies and standards. The agricultural sector is divided into large-scale, globalized farming systems that provide cheap, low diversity commodities to most of the population, while small and diverse niche farming systems serve a sustainability-oriented, prosperous elite. Global high-tech enterprises dominate the agri-food system, leading to reinforced consolidation of the agricultural sector. Cheap and low-quality food produced on large-scale farms attracts low- and medium-income consumers, while local agri-food initiatives are accessible and satisfy the demands of high-income consumers. The challenges to adaptation are high due to ineffective institutional procedures and priorities, with agri-environmental payments increasing to the benefit of large-scale operations.

DE-SMP5: High-Tech Path

High-Tech Industrial Soil Management in a Globalized Environment

Both rapid and robust economic and population growth occur in Germany, which is boosted by technological advances. The pace of urbanization is reinforced, and most of the population is disconnected from rural and environmental realities, hindering environmental awareness among the population despite overall increased education levels. Agricultural subsidies decrease while policies support technological advances and the efficient use of resources, despite continued high reliance on fossil fuel resources that pose high challenges to mitigation. Soil management practices reflect technological advances such as no-till and smart farming in favor of saving resources for economic efficiency of production, while systemic soil management changes such as cropping and landscape diversification are not favored.

Descriptions and Trends of Storyline Elements in the DE-SMPs

The two subcategories of Technology and Innovation and Environment and Natural Resources were expanded to specify the sectoral and national downscaling (Mitter et al. 2020). This led to the identification of 42 new storyline elements. For innovation and technology, we specified farm operationalization and management, social innovations, technology acceptance, speed of agricultural technology development, and soil management practices. For Environment and Natural Resources, we specified resource depletion, status of soil functions, and occurrence of invasive species. For the remaining major categories (economy, policy, and institutions), we made minor changes as described in the methodology section. In total, we present 90 storyline developments across all five major categories (Table 1). A complete differentiation of trends in the scenario elements is provided in the Supplemental Material: Material and Methods.

Table 1.

Storyline elements and trend directions for the category ‘Population and urbanization’ in the German Soil Management Pathways (excerpt). For the complete table covering all five categories, see Table 1 in Materials and Methods (Definite increase (↑); Tendency to increase (↗); Remains (→); Tendency to decrease (↘); Definite decrease (↓))

Category/Source	Storyline element	Trends in DE-SMPs
		SMP1	SMP2	SMP3	SMP4	SMP5
Population and urbanization Mitter et al. (2020)	Population size (Samir and Lutz 2017)	→	→	↓	→	↑
	Percentage of people living in urban areas (Jiang and O'Neill 2017)	↑	↑	↑	↑	↑
	Pace of urbanization (Jiang and O'Neill 2017)	↑	→	↓	→	↑
	Infrastructure development in rural areas	→	↓	→	↓	→
	Urban-rural linkages	↑	→	↓	↓	↓
	Levels of social tension and conflict	↓	→	↑	↑	↓
	Environmental awareness of citizens	↑	↑	↓	↓	↓
	Average education level of society (Samir and Lutz 2017)	↑	↑	→	→	↑
	Individual farmers’ social status in society	↑	→	→	→	→
	Average age of farming population	↓	→	→	→	↓
	Average education level of the farming population	↑	↑	→	→	↑

Conceptual System Integration

To conceptually show where the introduced storyline elements would connect to the agricultural production system, we adapted a CLD of the Eur-Agri-SSP (Mathijs et al. 2018). The expanded categories of technology and innovation, and environment and natural resources, represent the primary differentiation from the Eur-Agri-SSPs, which provided boundary conditions for population, economy, and policy but lacked sectoral resolution for soil-specific practices and technological developments. Figure 4 shows the five main parts interacting through reinforcing (green) and balancing (red) feedback loops. The Innovation Cycle (R1) drives technology-led growth through investment, management improvements, soil health, and production. Soil Degradation (B1) represents the environmental constraint where intensive production degrades soil health. Economic Constraint (B2) shows how capital limitations and financial constraints limit the decision space for farm and soil management.

Figure 4.

Abstracted causal loop diagram of key assumptions and interactions in the DE-SMP.

Additional feedback loops (R2: Capital Accumulation, R4: Innovation Ecosystem, B3: Market Price Regulation, B4: Knowledge Retention) operate within each system part and are detailed in the comprehensive CLD in the Supplemental Materials. This systems perspective reveals how different combinations of boundary conditions affect technology adoption and activate distinct feedback dynamics across the five pathways. The trend direction is detailed in Table 1 and described below.

Technology Innovation Patterns and Soil Management Practices

Technology trends show widespread uptake in precision agriculture and digital tools across most pathways, though SMP3 exhibits technological stagnation in farming operations, while SMP5 achieves the highest technology adoption rates combined with weak environmental safeguards. SMP1 shows a strong increase in most areas except for the use of irrigation (stagnant), and due to the diversity of crops and landscape elements, natural regulating mechanisms are restored, leading to a decline of mineral inputs, pesticides, intensity of tillage, and machinery weight. This aligns with a restoration of soil functionality. SMP1 and SMP5 show both show a strong increase in all elements of speed of technology development.

SMP3 and SMP4 show mixed trends in technologies, with SMP3 maintaining existing technologies at constant levels while research and development declines. Technology acceptance categories indicate an increase in policy and information-sharing tools across all scenarios except SMP3, where policy regulation on agriculturally related technology remains stagnant. The speed of technological adoption is projected to increase strongly in SMP1 and SMP5, remain stagnant in SMP2, and decline in SMP3.

Soil management practices reveal contrasting futures across pathways. SMP3 to SMP5 indicate a decline in agricultural landscape diversity, reduced integration of intercropping and agroforestry, and decreased diversity in crop rotations, while SMP1 demonstrates increases across all conservation-oriented practices including reduced tillage intensity, decreased pesticide use, and enhanced organic input application. SMP2 shows intermediate trends with increases in landscape diversity and intercropping adoption. Crop and cover crop diversity is expected to rise in SMP1 and SMP2, with no increase in SMP3-5, except for crop diversity in SMP5. Subsoil management is not projected to increase in any scenario and is not expected to play a substantial role in the future.

Environmental and Soil Function Outcomes

Environmental and natural resource conditions show substantial divergence across pathways, particularly regarding soil functions. SMP1 demonstrates improvements across multiple soil functions, with definite increases in carbon sequestration, water filtering and storage capacity, and nutrient storage and recycling. Habitat provision for biological activity shows a tendency to increase. SMP3 exhibits declines in water filtering and storage, carbon sequestration capacity, and biodiversity habitat provision, reflecting the pressures of intensified production systems. SMP5 presents mixed outcomes, with increases in biomass production but concurrent declines in carbon sequestration despite technological advancement. SMP2 and SMP4 show stable or declining trends in most soil functions, with SMP2 experiencing decreased water storage capacity.

Resource depletion patterns differ markedly between pathways. Agricultural land conversion to urban areas increases most strongly in SMP5, with moderate increases in SMP2 and SMP4, while SMP1 shows declining land take. Land transfer to nature conservation areas increases only in SMP1, remains stable in SMP2, and declines across SMP3 to SMP5, indicating competing pressures between production intensification and conservation objectives.

Invasive species and pest pressure trends vary substantially. SMP1 shows declining weed abundance and disease incidence, reflecting diverse cropping systems and reduced chemical dependencies. SMP2 and SMP3 experience increasing pest and disease pressure, with SMP3 showing vulnerability despite or perhaps because of production intensification. Disease incidence increases across SMP3 to SMP5, suggesting that technological approaches in SMP5 do not adequately address biological pest management. Wildlife migration through agricultural landscapes increases only in SMP1, while declining or remaining stable in other pathways, indicating reduced landscape permeability under intensification or technological transformation scenarios.

Economic and market dynamics

The economic development trends show market integration across most scenarios. The pathways differ in who participates in economic activity, as in SMP5 the concentration in up- and downstream sector is increasing, SMP1 suggests a more distributed participation in economic activity and a less horizontally and vertically integrated sector. Economic growth is projected only in SMP4 and SMP5. Trade volumes are increasing in SMP2, SMP4, and SMP5, but decreasing in SMP1 and SMP3. This aligns with SMP1’s tendency towards greater diversity in agricultural supply chain products and a stagnant pace of structural change, while SMP4 and SMP5 see greater and expanding international trade opportunities.

National meat demand is either declining or stagnating in all scenarios. Conversely, the demand for feed is rising, and the demand for non-food agricultural products is increasing in all scenarios except SMP4, which might be explained by the exportation of surplus meat products. Prices, costs, labor, and productivity are rising in SMP1, while mixed trends are seen in SMP2 to SMP4. Skills requirements, labor productivity, and relative prices for natural resources are increasing or remaining stable across all scenarios.

Policy Effectiveness and Subsidies

Policy effectiveness is strongest in SMP1 and SMP2, with increasing trends except for international trade agreements and the relative importance of European agri-food policy, which remain stagnant. SMP3 to SMP5 show a negative trend in policy effectiveness, except for a strong increase in trade agreements in SMP4 and SMP5. Standards and labeling are increasing significantly in SMP1 and SMP2, while stagnation or decline is observed in SMP3 to SMP5. SMP5 also sees stronger regulation of waste and environmental standards. Subsidies and financing are increasing in SMP2, while SMP1 experiences a decrease in direct payments but a significant increase in payments for technology, rural development, and agri-environmental measures. Technology adoption is increasing in all scenarios, particularly in SMP5, which sees strong payments for technology but a decrease in other payment categories.

Distinctiveness and Similarity Analysis of the DE-SMPs

We analyzed the distinctiveness of each scenario to show the trend distribution across storyline elements. Each pathway exhibits different patterns in the magnitude and direction of changes, with some scenarios showing increasing trends while others show mixed or declining trajectories across categories. Therefore, we counted the frequency of each trend direction per SMP. SMP1 shows the strongest increases (51 definite increases, more than any other pathway), while SMP5 shows the most total increases (48 combined definite and tendency to increase). SMP3 exhibits the highest count of definite declines (20 elements), while SMP4 shows stable trends in 35 elements, the highest count of stable trends. SMP5 exhibits the fewest declines (7 definite decreases) (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Distribution of trend directions across storyline elements in the German soil management pathways. Symbols indicate: ↑ definite increase, ↗ tendency to increase, → remains stable, ↘ tendency to decrease, ↓ definite decrease.

To better understand the relationship between the pathways, we calculated Kendall’s Tau. Kendall’s Tau is useful for understanding ordinal correlation between ranked variables, providing insights into the relative ordering of trends within scenarios. The relationship matrix reveals which scenarios have trends that tend to move together or in opposite directions in Figure 6 (see Methods and Materials for details of the calculation).

Figure 6.

Kendall’s Tau correlation between the five German soil management pathways.

The correlation analysis reveals that the five pathways represent sufficiently distinct futures for German soil management. SMP1 shows moderate positive correlations with SMP2 (τ = 0.23) and SMP5 (τ = 0.25), indicating shared elements despite different sustainability orientations. In contrast, SMP1 correlates negatively with SMP3 (τ = −0.14) and weakly with SMP4 (τ = −0.07), reflecting fundamentally different development trajectories. SMP3 exhibits the most distinctive pattern, showing weak to negligible correlations with all other pathways except SMP2 (τ = 0.19). The strongest positive correlation occurs between SMP4 and SMP5 (τ = 0.28), suggesting convergence in their technological and governance approaches despite different narrative framings.

The correlation patterns reveal interesting deviations from the original SSP framework positioning. As expected, SMP1 (corresponding to SSP1 - Sustainability) and SMP3 (corresponding to SSP3 - Regional Rivalry) show negative correlation (τ = −0.14), reflecting their diagonal placement in the mitigation/adaptation challenge space. However, SMP4 (corresponding to SSP4 - Inequality) and SMP5 (corresponding to SSP5 - Fossil-fueled Development) exhibit the strongest positive correlation (τ = 0.28), contrary to expectations based on their distinct positions in the SSP framework. This convergence can be explained by the German soil management context: both pathways prioritize technological advancement and economic efficiency, though for varied reasons. SMP4 emphasizes technology for intensive production systems serving high-income consumers, while SMP5 focuses on high-tech solutions for rapid economic growth. Both pathways show similar trends in reduced environmental governance, decreased focus on soil health as a public good, and technology-driven rather than ecology-driven management approaches. This finding suggests that when downscaled to specific national contexts and sectoral applications, the distinctions between certain SSPs may converge along dimensions not captured in the original framework.

Discussion

The German Soil Management Pathways provide a set of plausible futures, with a particular focus on technology and the environment. Our scenarios show how different technologies interact with the agricultural system, in relation to soil as a valuable resource in agriculture. Positive development for soil functions can only be attributed to the future, as described in SMP1 and SMP5. Even though the two scenarios follow different paths towards improved soil functions, the focus of this study is on agricultural research and technology development. In combination with the technology catalyst reinforcing feedback loop of the CLD (Figure 4; Mathijs et al. 2018), this domain is largely responsible for the expected changes in the entire system.

As the emphasis of both (SMP1, SMP5) is the adoption of technology (Fisher 2000), SMP1 integrates technological advances with regenerative principles, enhancing soil health by promoting better nutrient cycling, water retention, and reduced erosion. In contrast, SMP5 focuses on industrial efficiency through high-tech solutions like precision agriculture, artificial intelligence, and robotics, which can optimize inputs and reduce environmental impacts but might not address the broader ecological functions of soils comprehensively. This finds expression in the decline or non-adoption of agroforestry, diversity cropping, and intercropping. The assumed decline in agricultural landscape diversity limits the multifunctionality of soils and landscapes.

SMP2 represents path dependency and institutional inertia where existing structures persist despite growing recognition of environmental challenges. It is the “drift” scenario where slow adjustments occur, but fundamental transformation is avoided, resulting in neither the regenerative outcomes of SMP1 nor the severe degradation of SMP3. In comparison, SMP3, characterized by limited technological uptake, struggles to maintain soil functions while prioritizing biomass production through high external inputs, leading to soil compaction, nutrient depletion, and reduced biological activity. SMP4, having the highest count of stagnant scenario elements (Figure 5), indicates continuation of present trajectories, as most current trends are maintained without substantial change. Soil in its current form is undergoing degradation; therefore, this scenario and SMP3 cannot be deemed to be a desirable future from a soil multifunctionality perspective (Helming et al. 2018). SMP4, as a continuation of the current trajectory, could therefore be the scenario with the highest costs to soil functionality due to the higher pressure on natural resources.

The implications for the bioeconomy transition are far reaching. For example, increased use of crop residues such as cereal and oilseed straw, sugar beet tops, and maize stover may limit soil functionality and ecosystem services derived from soils, as these co-products are not returned to the fields (Andrade Díaz et al. 2024; Sarkar et al. 2020). The goal of simultaneously maintaining soil functions while increasing productive potential and removing more biomass from fields is envisioned in the bioeconomy strategies (Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft 2021) and therefore requires strengthening soil functionality through adjusted soil management. This has direct implications for German soil management. SMP1 and SMP5, both projecting improved soil multifunctionality outcomes, implicitly require decisions on bioeconomic transitions to compensate for the utilization of removed biomass from agricultural fields. SMP5 requires the constant resource-intensive updating of high precision technologies, substituting the natural regulation processes of soils. SMP1 is the only pathway which maintains soil functions by activating the regenerative potential of soils and relying less on large-scale precision agriculture in fields.

Achieving the soil multifunctionality outcomes projected in SMP1 and SMP5 requires distinct governance strategies (Juerges and Hansjürgens 2018). SMP1 emphasizes policy coordination around diversified cropping systems and conservation practices that enhance soil biological processes, while SMP5 prioritizes technological investment in precision agriculture and digital monitoring. Both pathways necessitate societal acceptance of trade-offs between soil conservation costs and long-term functionality (Jagustović et al. 2021). Concrete policy levers include reformed Common Agricultural Policy payments that explicitly reward soil multifunctionality (Siemons et al. 2025), mandatory soil monitoring as recently introduced by the EU (COM(2023, 416) and Panagos et al. (2025), integrated with farm advisory services (Higgins et al. 2023; Prager et al. 2017) and increased public investment in soil-conserving technologies and infrastructure (EEA 2023).

However, the practical implementation of these policy instruments confronts multiple governance challenges. Policy approaches may include market-based approaches such as ex-post payments upon verification of achieved outcomes or action-based payments for a particular practice. Ex-post payments entail the commodification of soil ecosystem services, which ignores the distribution of finance (Coffey 2016). The dominance of framings such as natural capital and ecosystem services may obscure alternative conceptualizations of human-environment relationships and privilege market-based governance mechanisms over other forms of environmental stewardship. Considering the current state of market-based (e.g., carbon credits) approaches, the feasibility is questionable regardless (Wang et al. 2024). Action-based payments for a practice are more prescriptive in nature, limiting farmers’ choices and questioning their knowledge of soil management and agricultural farm management (Ingram 2008). However, when practices align with values already embraced by the farming community, such rejection could be avoidable (Higgins et al. 2023; Strauss et al. 2023).

These implementation challenges operate within broader structural conditions that extend beyond individual policy instruments. Further deciding factors in each of the scenarios appear to lie in the interconnectedness and the telecoupled nature of a globalized world (Lenschow et al. 2016). These factors are strengthened or weakened by the dominant international trade regime, the policy sphere, which is decided at the European Union level (Daugbjerg and Feindt 2017), and consumer demand decisions. Trade and policy decisions have direct consequences for the technologies promoted and, hence, adopted by farmers. However, without further integrating the debate with quantitative tools, such as system dynamics modeling (Stave and Kopainsky 2015; Sterman 2001), the leverage points (Abson et al. 2017; Visser et al. 2019) to a sustainable food system transition (Roberts and Geels 2019) remain speculative. Even with a quantitative modeling approach, not an isolated change in one category is sufficient to change the trajectory of the food system to remain within the planetary boundaries (Richardson et al. 2023; Struben et al. 2025).

Understanding these multiscale dynamics requires acknowledging both the analytical strengths and limitations of our approach. Despite these limitations, we contend that technology represents a fundamental mediator in human-soil relationships and merits explicit attention. Historical analysis demonstrates that human interactions with soils have been profoundly shaped through technology over millennia (Winiwarter 2014). Agricultural technologies, soil amendments, mechanization, and digital innovations are not only tools but embody and enact specific ways of knowing, valuing, and relating to soils. Germany’s agricultural systems, with their high degree of mechanization and integration into EU regulatory frameworks, exemplify how technology both constrains and enables forms of soil stewardship and care (Krzywoszynska 2023). Rather than representing a single technocentric vision, our scenarios span a range of technological orientations, from high-tech precision agriculture to more ecologically integrated approaches (Techen and Helming 2017), each embodying different socio-technical relationships with soils (Puig de La Bellacasa, 2015). By making these technological dimensions explicit, our work contributes to ongoing debates within soil science (Brevik and Hartemink 2010) about the role of innovation in sustainable soil management.

This discourse is also relevant for integrated environmental assessment models. While their basic assumptions have advanced, they have been critiqued for insufficiently incorporating cultural and relational dimensions of human-nature interactions (Guerry et al. 2015) as well as human-environmental behavior (Rajah et al. 2025). We acknowledge that our scenario framework, which emphasizes biophysical processes and socioeconomic-technological drivers, does not explicitly foreground all dimensions of these critiques, particularly regarding ethical dimensions of soil care (Puig de La Bellacasa 2015) or the full spectrum of relational values beyond instrumental framings (Jax et al. 2018). Future research could address these dimensions through integration with complementary frameworks. When comparing the SSP and the Eur-Agri-SSP framework with other modelling and scenario development frameworks such as the Nature Futures Framework (Lundquist et al. 2021; Pereira et al. 2020), an extension of the SSPs seems in order to incorporate a pathway which includes a future where biodiversity loss and deterioration of regulating ecosystem services are halted due to a change in relational perspective and value shifts (Pereira et al. 2020). The possibility of opening the scenario elements and trend analysis for all scenarios where for example a value space is further refined, and oriented towards the Nature for Nature, Nature as Culture and Nature for Society categories, would give rise to research streams in which the (Eur-Agri)-SSPs and the participatory methodologies employed would serve as an inductive, empirically valid, methodology for adding storyline elements identifying missing scenario elements related to value-reflection of Nature’s Futures (Kim et al. 2023). This step could truly enhance participatory scenarios with higher creative potential and more flexibility in their visioning, especially in place-based, regional future scenarios (Pedde et al. 2025).

Generally, a reflection on the (Eur-Agri)-SSPs concerns their applicability beyond their original disciplinary home in integrated assessment modeling and land use and agricultural systems modeling. Opening up to participatory methods allowed for scenario refinement and transdisciplinary validation by incorporating multiple perspectives, thereby strengthening scenarios’ credibility. At the same time, Fiala and Jacob (2024), in a comparable participatory scenario process for German food systems, found that their bottom-up scenarios showed considerable overlap with SSP-based and other expert-driven scenarios, suggesting that the two methodologies tend to produce similar content. The difference between expert-based and more creatively oriented scenario approaches may therefore lie less in the content produced, which tends to converge, than in the process itself. Participatory scenario exercises can become instruments of collective sense-making and agency, in which the act of envisioning futures together builds the capacity for change (Roehl 2012). With this aim integrated into the research process, other facilitation formats become imaginable that use more illustrative visioning approaches (see Figure 3(a)–(d)). Stakeholders could first illustrate scenarios or desired futures using AI tools or drawings, and in a second step scenario storylines and trend analyses could follow to show stakeholders which elements need to be considered to achieve the future they envisioned in step one. A further possibility could be to explicitly engage with the narrative turn in socio-ecological research by examining how stakeholders’ underlying assumptions, values, and mental models shape their interpretation of plausible soil futures, for instance through methods such as Causal Layered Analysis (Inayatullah 2015; Milojević and Inayatullah 2015).

A further possibility could be to explicitly engage with the narrative turn in socio-ecological research by examining how stakeholders' underlying assumptions, values, and mental models shape their interpretation of plausible soil futures, for instance through methods such as Causal Layered Analysis (Inayatullah 2015; Milojević and Inayatullah 2015).

Such extensions would build on the methodological approach employed in this study, which combined expert-driven and stakeholder knowledge to enhance scenario validity. Integrating diverse perspectives enabled us to distinguish plausible futures and articulate uncertainties, producing results relevant for policy and decision-making. Methodologically, combining participatory foresight with causal loop diagrams and statistical validation (Kendall’s Tau) generated rigorous insights while acknowledging the limits of online stakeholder engagement, simplified system representations, and ordinal correlation metrics.

Our approach relied fundamentally on narrative construction, using storylines to articulate alternative futures for German soil management. Scenarios are not neutral descriptions of objective futures but rather narratives shaped by stakeholder worldviews, values, and framing practices (Milojević and Inayatullah 2015). Each pathway constructs narrative logic connecting current conditions to 2050 outcomes. For instance, SMP1 narrates policy-driven transformation through strengthened environmental governance, while SMP5 tells a story of technological solutions pursued under weak environmental regulation. These contrasting narratives make visible how different assumptions about governance, technology adoption, and societal priorities lead to divergent soil futures.

The participatory validation process enabled stakeholders to evaluate whether these narrative logics resonated with their understanding of system dynamics and plausible trajectories. However, because storyline elements were predefined, our approach focused primarily on constructing internally consistent narratives rather than deeply interrogating the worldviews or cultural frames underlying different narratives (Alcamo and Henrichs, 2008).

Conclusion

This study presents a combined sectoral and geographical downscaling of the Eur-Agri-SSPs, developing German Soil Management Pathways, which address a critical gap in understanding how European agricultural socio-economic futures translate into national soil management contexts. Through participatory validation with 94 stakeholders across agricultural associations, civil society, the private sector, policymakers, and researchers, we established five plausible scenarios that reveal fundamentally different futures for German soil functionality.

Our analysis demonstrates that soil multifunctionality outcomes depend critically on the interplay between policy frameworks, technological trajectories, and societal priorities. Technology emerges not as an isolated driver but as a fundamental mediator of human-soil relationships, embodying specific ways of knowing, valuing, and managing soils across all pathways. Only scenarios combining either strengthened environmental governance with diversified agricultural practices (SMP1) or substantial technological investment with supportive policy frameworks (SMP5) project improved soil functions. The remaining pathways, including continuation of current trends (SMP4), indicate ongoing or accelerated soil degradation.

For Germany’s bioeconomy transition, these findings underscore that sustainable bio-based production cannot be achieved through technological innovation alone but requires coordinated policy reform, institutional transformation, and societal engagement with soil stewardship. Future integration of the DE-SMPs with complementary frameworks such as the Nature Futures Framework would further an understanding of how cultural and relational values shape soil management futures, strengthening the evidence base for decision-making in an era of environmental change.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Exploring Soil Management Pathways for Germany - Applying the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways to Soil Management Futures

Supplemental Material for Exploring Soil Management Pathways for Germany - Applying the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways to Soil Management Futures by Lukas Bayer, Marie Arndt, Alevtina Evgrafova, Joseph MacPherson, Alma Thiesmeier, Michael Löbmann, Johannes Schuler, Birgit Kopainsky, Hermine Mitter, and Katharina Helming in World Futures Review

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Exploring Soil Management Pathways for Germany - Applying the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways to Soil Management Futures

Supplemental Material for Exploring Soil Management Pathways for Germany - Applying the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways to Soil Management Futures by Lukas Bayer, Marie Arndt, Alevtina Evgrafova, Joseph MacPherson, Alma Thiesmeier, Michael Löbmann, Johannes Schuler, Birgit Kopainsky, Hermine Mitter, and Katharina Helming in World Futures Review