![]() ![]() As soil compaction is persistent ( Keller et al., 2017 Seehusen et al., 2021), especially in the subsoil, the environmental effects are present in the long term. In addition, soil compaction results often in lower yields ( Arvidsson and Håkansson, 2014 Daigh et al., 2020). Therefore, compacted soils are more susceptible to surface water runoff and soil erosion ( Alaoui et al., 2018 Keller et al., 2019). Compared to an uncompacted soil, compacted soils have a lower air capacity, reduced water infiltration, lower air permeability, lower biological activity, reduced root and plant growth (e.g., Horn et al., 1995 Weisskopf et al., 2010 Destain et al., 2016 Szatanik-Kloc et al., 2018). Soil compaction is defined as an increase of bulk density while pore volume decreases ( Horn et al., 1995). Reducing soil compaction is therefore necessary to achieve the SDG 15 and to enable a sustainable soil use. Continued soil compaction, however, contradicts the sustainable development goal 15 (SDG15), which aims to achieve land degradation neutrality by sustainable land use management. This degradation process is expected to continue in the coming centuries due to intensive field traffic activities with heavy machinery ( Keller et al., 2017 Keller et al., 2019 Techen et al., 2020). Soil compaction is one of the main soil degradation processes on agricultural land worldwide ( FAO, 2015). Although the soil compaction risk analysis does not provide information on the actual extent of the compacted area, the identification of risk areas within a period may contribute to understand the dynamics of soil compaction risk in crop rotation at regional scale and provide advice to mitigate further soil compaction in areas classified as high risk. Additionally, 39.8% of the cropland was affected by “extremely high” soil compaction at least in one of the 5 years. Focusing on the complete 5-year period, 2.7% of the cropland area was identified as hot-spots of soil compaction risk, where the highest soil compaction risk class (“extremely high”) occurred every year. Contrary, high precipitation in 2017 increased the soil compaction risk considerably. The relatively dry years 20–2020 reduced the soil compaction risk even at high wheel loads applied to soil during maize and sugar beet harvest. The results showed the dynamic changes of soil compaction risk within a year and throughout the entire crop rotation. We calculated the soil compaction risk using an updated version of the SaSCiA-model (Spatially explicit Soil Compaction risk Assessment) for each single day of the period, with a spatial resolution of 20 m. Sentinel-2 images were used to derive the crop types for a 5-years crop rotation (2016–2020). Therefore, we selected a study area (∼2,000 km 2) with intensive arable farming in Northern Germany, having a high share of cereals, maize and sugar beets. The objective of this study was to analyze the spatio-temporal dynamics of soil compaction risk and to identify hot-spot areas of high soil compaction risk at regional scale. Thus, soil compaction risk is very dynamic, changes from day to day and from field to field. ![]() Both, soil strength and stress, are spatially and temporally highly variable, depending on the weather situation, the current crop type, and the machinery used. Soil compaction results whenever applied soil stress by machinery exceed the soil strength. 2Department of Geography, Earth Observation and Modelling, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.1Department of Geography, Landscape Ecology and Geoinformation Science, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.Michael Kuhwald 1*, Katja Kuhwald 2 and Rainer Duttmann 1
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