Soil degradation is a short or long ongoing process that limits ecosystem services. Intensive land use, water scarcity, land disturbance, and global climate change have reduced the quality of soils worldwide. This degradation directly threatens most of the land in the Middle East and North Africa, while the remaining areas are at high risk of further desertification. Rehabilitation and control of these damaged environments are essential to avoid negative effects on human well-being (e.g., poverty, food insecurity, wars, etc.). Here we review constructed soils involving the use of waste materials as a solution to soil degradation and present approaches to address erosion, organic matter oxidation, water scarcity and salinization. Our analysis showed a high potential for using constructed soil as a complimentary reclamation solution in addition to traditional ones. Constructed soils could have the ability to overcome the limitations of existing solutions to tackle land degradation while contributing to the solution of waste management problems. These soils facilitate the provision of multiple ecosystem services and have the potential to address particularly challenging land degradation problems in semi and dry climates.

A review of the status of research on high mountain soils and their alterations caused by changes in the cryosphere in the European Alps is given. Soils of high mountain environments are not only exposed to atmospheric warming, rising CO2 levels, and changing precipitation patterns but also to climate-driven changes in the cryosphere. The massive reduction of glacier coverage as well as snow cover and (perma) frost extent can affect soils in various ways. We performed a comprehensive literature analysis and considered both the direct impacts (changes in surface coverage or ground thermal conditions) and indirect impacts (changing hydrosphere, lithosphere/geomorphodynamics, or biosphere) of cryosphere changes on soil. All considered studies had a multidisciplinary character: around 34% of the articles covered two spheres (cryosphere, pedosphere), 40% covered three spheres (cryosphere, pedosphere, and an additional sphere), and 26% covered more than three spheres. Most studies focused on initial soil formation in glacier forefields. The impact of changing geomorphodynamics on soils is underrepresented in literature, even though it is one of the major consequences of changes in the cryosphere. We therefore finally discuss possible consequences of changing geomorphodynamics due to changes in the cryosphere for high mountain soils.