Engagement with urban soils part I: applying Maya soil connectivity practices to intergenerational planning for urban sustainability

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dc.contributor.authorVis, Benjamin N.
dc.contributor.authorEvans, Daniel L.
dc.contributor.authorGraham, Elizabeth
dc.date.accessioned2023-04-18T11:44:49Z
dc.date.available2023-04-18T11:44:49Z
dc.date.issued2023-04-15
dc.description.abstractUrban soil security depends on the means and social practices that enable multiple generations to maintain and improve soil resources. Soils are pivotal to urban sustainability yet seem absent from international planning advisories for sustainable urban development. Subsuming soils under broad and unspecific categories (ecosystem, environment, land, etc.) leaves soil interests indeterminate and largely ignored in urban planning. The absence of soils in sustainable urban planning advice permits planning guidelines that cause increasing land-use conversions which seal soils. Urban patterns of sealed and distanced soils, preventing access to and direct enjoyment of soil benefits, generate disengagement from soils. Despite fierce land-use competition, urban areas offer the greatest potential for soil connectivity exactly because people concentrate there. Based on previous work we accept that everyday opportunities to encounter and directly engage with soils in Pre-Columbian lowland Maya urban life rendered soil connectivity commonplace. Here, we review how the two original routes towards soil connectivity, knowledge exchange and producer–consumer relationships, reinforced and supported regular soil engagement in Maya urban practice. We frame our interpretation of Maya cultural values and urban practices in terms of leading insights from environmental psychology on pro-environmental behaviour and stakeholder attitudes and the principles of building resilience. This allows us to recognise that Maya urban soil connectivity functions thanks to the structural involvement of the largest societal stakeholder group, while imparting soil knowledge is entangled in shared socio-cultural activities rather than a task for a minority of soil specialists. The emerging Maya model for a socially engaged soil-aware urban society combines bottom-up practices and top-down social–ecological cultural values to increase resilience, to diminish reliance on long-distance supply chains, and to maintain productive human–environment relationships over the long term. As such it becomes a primary task for urban planning advice and guidelines to enable and support a widely shared and enduring culture of soil care. Urban sustainable development may only be successful if underpinned by a broadly carried increase in soil knowledge and awareness of intergenerational soil dependency.en_UK
dc.description.sponsorshipNatural Environment Research Council (NERC): NE/X018326/1 Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): AH/N006240/1 European Union funding 101063202en_UK
dc.identifier.citationVis BN, Evans DL, Graham E. (2023) Engagement with urban soils part I: applying Maya soil connectivity practices to intergenerational planning for urban sustainability, Land, Volume 12, Issue 4, April 2023, Article number 892en_UK
dc.identifier.issn2073-445X
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.3390/land12040892
dc.identifier.urihttps://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/19500
dc.language.isoenen_UK
dc.publisherMDPIen_UK
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.subjectsoil connectivityen_UK
dc.subjecturban soilsen_UK
dc.subjecturban planningen_UK
dc.subjectapplied archaeologyen_UK
dc.subjectPre-Columbian Mayaen_UK
dc.subjectMaya urbanismen_UK
dc.subjectenvironmental psychologyen_UK
dc.subjecturban sustainable developmenten_UK
dc.subjectNew Urban Agendaen_UK
dc.titleEngagement with urban soils part I: applying Maya soil connectivity practices to intergenerational planning for urban sustainabilityen_UK
dc.typeArticleen_UK

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