Thank you for the constructive comment! We agree that lack of data is an important issue. However, our contention is that soil policy is also needed in a world without perfect data, and that for policy purposes, data availability need not be perfect. Considering major policy objectives (e.g. land degradation neutrality by 2050, stop of biodiversity decline or climate change mitigation), the data availability is already relatively good with respect to the most relevant indicators, at least in Germany; for instance, we know pretty well that soil organic carbon levels are deteriorating (Riggers et al., 2021), and we have an idea which practices could improve the situation and which are ineffective or even counterproductive (e.g. Wiesmeier et al., 2020). Similarly for other soil functions and their link to management. This – though not perfect – is a fair basis for policy-making, even though you are right that really result-based policy at field and farm level is much more of a challenge, and data availability does play an important role here. Nonetheless, if we could act only in fields where we have data availability as desired by scientists, we would hardly have any environmental policy. In this sense, environmental policy is an art of making decisions and creating instruments in the absence of perfect knowledge and in a way that allows to adapt to new knowledge (adaptive governance). Moreover, policies only provide the framework for action and cannot address each specific case of the heterogeneous soils we have in Germany – this is subject to policy implementation – and local authorities and practitioners should know the local situation well.

To acknowledge the valid point of data availability, we will integrate it particularly under target adequacy (where choice of indicators is crucial) and instrument adequacy, when discussing result-based approaches.

References

Riggers, C., Poeplau, C., Don, A., Frühauf, C., Dechow, R., 2021. How much carbon input is required to preserve or increase projected soil organic carbon stocks in German croplands under climate change? Plant Soil. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04806-8

Wiesmeier, M., Mayer, S., Paul, C., Helming, K., Don, A., Franko, U., Steffens, M., Kögel-Knabner, I., 2020. CO2 certificates for carbon sequestration in soils: methods, management practices and limitations. BonaRes Ser. 2020/3. https://doi.org/10.20387/BONARES-NE0G-CE98

Thanks for the constructive comments!

Regarding the point on concepts and language: while revising the manuscript, we will pay attention to reducing jargon and better explaining concepts (and using more examples), including the Tinbergen rule.

Regarding the point on organic fertilization: any fertilizer, organic or synthetic, is problematic when applied in too large doses (as exemplified by the spatial co-occurrence of meat production clusters and nitrogen contaminated water bodies in North-Western Germany or the Netherlands). We will add a brief explanation on that.

As for our “weak” conclusions, they partly reflect the existence of many knowledge gaps and few practical experiences to build upon. Still, we will try to make the recommendations stronger. The suggested triad of monitoring, behavioural change and communication is a useful starting point and very helpful, thank you. Especially, monitoring also include the one major point addressed by the other reviewer, namely data availability.

We will happily strengthen the importance of behavioural change, which we consider very important (but apparently haven’t conveyed this perception sufficiently). We also agree that our interpretation of the GDF may somewhat underscore the importance of communication and knowledge transfer (it cannot be easily integrated in any of the four dimensions of the framework in an explicit way, though implicitly, it definitely plays a role in each of them, particularly target adequacy [communicating what is required/wanted], object adequacy [communicating trade-offs across policy domains and drivers] and behavioural adequacy [communication as essential “instrument” of behavioural change]). We won’t be able to substantially amend this in the already pretty long manuscript, but we will pick up your points 2 and 3 by adding to the discussion of behavioural adequacy insights from related contexts (broader AECM uptake research in Germany), showing that the complexity of programmes and lack of transparent information about compentencies and other administrative modalities of those programmes can significantly hinder uptake.

Regarding the adaptation of the GDF to the realities of soil legislation processes, we concur that this could be helpful – our paper’s aim has been to demonstrate how the GDF in its “complex” form can be applied, and simplifying it for specific purposes would be a next step. We will add this to the conclusion section.

Regarding Table 3: the “scoring” of cover crops is based on the review by Chapman et al (2018) and reflects an aggregation of results from different studies (some of which showed effects on CS, but only few). Regarding herbicides, we will add effects based on the reviews by Rose et al (2016) and Gunstone et al (2021).

The other two minor issues (SDG indicators and "other motivational factors") will be addressed accordingly when we revise.

References

Chapman, P.J., Eze, S., de Bell, S., Barlow-Duncan, F., Firbank, L., Helgason, T., Holden, J., Kay, P., Brown, C.D., White, P.C.L., Little, R., Reed, M., Ziv, G., 2018. Agricultural Land Management for Public Goods Delivery: iCASP Evidence Review on Soil Health. Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme (iCASP).

Gunstone, T., Cornelisse, T., Klein, K., Dubey, A., Donley, N., 2021. Pesticides and Soil Invertebrates: A Hazard Assessment. Front. Environ. Sci. 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.643847

Rose, M.T., Cavagnaro, T.R., Scanlan, C.A., Rose, T.J., Vancov, T., Kimber, S., Kennedy, I.R., Kookana, R.S., Van Zwieten, L., 2016. Impact of Herbicides on Soil Biology and Function. Adv. Agron., Advances in Agronomy 136, 133–220. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.agron.2015.11.005