‘Soil health’ has become a dominant, pervasive phrase in soil and environmental sciences. But despite its ubiquity, the concept remains elusively ambiguous, largely because ‘health’ here is a metaphor, not a literal scientific construct. So we ask: can this imagery nevertheless still advance research toward stewardship of soils globally? To address this question, we here define soil health as: ‘the vitality of a soil in sustaining the socio-ecological functions of its enfolding land.’ By this definition, soil health reflects not the composition of soil per se, rather its capacity to promote the pertinent functions of the land in which it is embedded. This means that the term has little meaning for a soil divorced from its ecosystem, and that properties conferring such health depend on place and time. From this view, we consider the metaphor's strengths and pitfalls for stewarding soils, and proffer some ways to elevate its use, mostly to spur conversation. We propose that the point of pursuing the soil health metaphor is not merely to assign a number to the ‘goodness’ of soil, but to generate understanding of relational mechanisms and thereby lead us to better nurture attributes that catalyze valued functions, now and perpetually. In the end, the continuing usefulness of the soil health metaphor depends, not on whether or not we can finally entrap it numerically, but whether it propels us to greater reverence for soil, deeper insight into its beneficial processes, and wiser ways of managing it. In time, when the health metaphor can no longer carry this prodigious weight, we may seek a worthy successor; a good metaphor produces good science, and good science produces ever better metaphors.

在土壤和环境科学中，“土壤健康”已成为一个占主导地位的普遍词组。但是，尽管这个概念无处不在，但仍然难以确定，主要是因为这里的“健康”只是一个隐喻，而不是字面的科学构造。所以我们问：尽管如此，这种影像还能继续推动全球土壤管理的研究吗？为了解决这个问题，我们在这里将土壤健康定义为：“土壤在维持其周围土地的社会生态功能方面的生命力”。根据这个定义，土壤健康并不反映土壤本身的组成，而是反映其促进土地相关功能的能力。嵌入其中。这意味着该术语对于脱离其生态系统的土壤没有多大意义，赋予该健康状况的特性取决于地点和时间。从这种观点出发，我们考虑了隐喻在管理土壤方面的优势和陷阱，并提出了一些提高其使用率的方法，主要是为了促进对话。我们提出，追求土壤健康隐喻的目的不仅在于为土壤的“良善”分配一个数字，还在于建立对关系机制的理解，从而使我们更好地培育现在和永久地催化有价值的功能的属性。最后，土壤健康隐喻的持续有用性，不取决于我们是否最终可以用数字来圈定它，而是取决于它是否促使我们更加崇尚土壤，更深入地了解土壤的有益过程，以及更明智的管理方式 随着时间的流逝，当健康的隐喻不再能承受如此巨大的压力时，我们可能会寻求一个值得继承的继承者。好的隐喻产生好的科学，好的科学产生更好的隐喻。