# Developmental History of Soil Concepts from a Scientific Perspective
## 4 Discussion
### The Emergence of Soil Concepts
The important question of how to integrate fragmented knowledge on soil processes from various perspectives was addressed in the article [62]. The roots of the resilience concept can be found in ecology [63]. [PERSON], whose work was published in 1973, is considered to be the founder of modern ecological resilience by distinguishing ecological and engineering resilience [64]. However, [PERSON] et al. (2015) argued that the prevalent theory was not integrated with sociology as socio-ecological resilience [65]. This integral development has altered the earlier definition of the ecological resilience by a different view. Specifically, that resilience expresses the achievement of a new state or equilibrium after perturbations. [PERSON] (2018) considered sustainability from a biodiversity perspective and asserted that potential maximum ecological performance (MEP) is the measurable part of soil characteristics for sustainable management [66]. Three ecological stages were delineated in the framework: resistance, resilience, and regime. The threshold between the first two responses to a disturbance of the ecosystem is expressed by effective MEP, while the threshold between the last two is characterized by potential MEP. However, the sustainability framework is often rather holistic. [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2012) organized various indicator frameworks based on social, environmental, economic, and institutional dimensions [67]. The authors introduced hundreds of various indicators that would be aggregated into indices as measures of sustainable development. The measures of soil sustainability and resilience are still open for discussion. New techniques to quantify the functions or capabilities of soils through integration of existing information with communal consensus seem valuable in advancing the monitoring of soil resources for sustainable use. The soil care concept does not seem to be used often in scientific journal publications. The concept itself has not been discussed deeply, in terms of definitions, conceptual framing, and practical applications. Review papers were not identified in the database. However, the soil care concept may play a role as a foundation of various soil management strategies based on top-down and bottom-up approaches. [PERSON] (1996) defined the concept as \"the activity of selecting and implementing, locally and regionally, a system of soil and land use management suitable for maintaining and improving soil usefulness and quality for any selected purpose [8].\" [PERSON] also argued that knowledge on the topic also needs to be discussed deeply, quantified, and organized, similar to other soil concepts such as soil sustainability. However, [PERSON] (2019) addressed the act of care beyond ethical and practical commitments of securing matters by introducing attentiveness [7]. Attentiveness was described as a focal point to relational ethics as \"attending to the non-human other, of becoming response-able to them\" (p. 4). According to the author, this practice of attentiveness fosters ethical expansions and transformations through encounters between humans and non-humans. Forming care networks of interconnected entities whose existence enables the well-being of the primary object of care, soil is necessary. [PERSON] (2021) proposed a novel Pluralistic Integral Soil Ethics (PISE) framework of which one of the pillars is soil care [68]. The ethics of soil care (relational ethics) is rooted in cognitive empathy, which is what a person thinks and understands about soils and the environment, and emotional empathy, which is what a person viscerally feels in relation to soils. Purely cognitive empathy provides factual understanding about soils, while emotional empathy is an embodied experience. They both rely on each other to support action, but empathic concern is a necessity to bring forth compassionate actions (e.g., conservation management). In essence, soil care arises from a compassionate lived emotive relationship between carer (person/community) and cared-for (soil/land/nature).