Pedogenesis still matters

Soils are increasingly recognized as central components of the Earth system in the Anthropocene, providing essential ecosystem services related to food production, biodiversity, climate regulation, and water quality. Paradoxically, at the very moment when soils are on the  global environmental agendas, the explicit consideration of pedogenesis, the formation and long-term evolution of soils, represents a progressively smaller fraction of soil research and risks losing visibility. Here, we argue that contemporary soil studies are progressively drifting toward a form of “soil science without pedogenesis,” characterized by functional, diagnostic, and even indicator-driven approaches that insufficiently account for soil genesis, inheritance, and long-term trajectories. Combining an open bibliometric analysis spanning several decades with a historical examination of the place of pedogenesis in soil science, we show that while pedogenetic research remains active within soil science sensu stricto, its relative weight is declining in soil-related studies sensu lato, in parallel with the rapid expansion of soil health and ecosystem service frameworks.

By situating this shift within a long-term history of soil science, from the implicit treatment of soil genesis before the emergence of pedology, through its foundational and structuring role, to its partial marginalization in recent decades, we highlight the epistemological and scientific risks associated with the dequalification of long-term perspectives. We argue that re-centering pedogenesis as a core principle of soil science is not a return to tradition, but a necessary step to restore explanatory depth and to improve our capacity to anticipate soil trajectories in the Anthropocene.