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Articles | Volume 11, issue 2
Articles | Volume 11, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-11-1131-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Special issue:
https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-11-1131-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 11, issue 2
Forum article
 | 
22 Dec 2025
Forum article |  | 22 Dec 2025

Why a mechanistic theory of soils is crucially important: Another line of supportive argument exists, seldom invoked in soil science

Philippe C. Baveye

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Short summary
The objective of this Forum article is to argue that one of the key justifications for developing theories and models of soil processes is that these theories are needed to determine what it is relevant to measure in soils. Without these theories and models to guide us, in particular if we rely on machine-learning and artificial intelligence methods to make progress, we are navigating in the dark, and are likely to base decisions on mere correlations that do not reflect true mechanisms.
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Advances in dynamic soil modelling across scales