Urban Soil and Human Health

In cities, human health and well-being, socioeconomic status, food security, education, gender equity, employment, climate change, and biodiversity are interlinked, and one perhaps surprising common factor is urban soils. In this chapter we explore how a unifying framework for these interrelationships is presented by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs). The analysis in this chapter suggests that soils have a role to play in the first fifteen of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. We suggest ways in which the knowledge and use of soils by urban inhabitants can help to address poverty, maintain a stable food supply, sustain physical, emotional, and social health, provide opportunities for education, promote gender equality and empowerment of women and girls, generate employment, maintain water quality, moderate climate change, and slow biodiversity and habitat loss. The chapter also addresses other soil-related effects on human health such as soil remediation and acid sulfate soils and has a particular focus on environmental justice issues related to urban soil contamination.