Toward a community-engaged framework for urban soil research

Researchers in urban environments sample where people live and work. However, there is limited extant guidance available to scientists engaging with community stakeholders to sample soils in urban settings. Leveraging our cumulative experiences, insights gained from community collaborations, and interdisciplinary literature, we present a community-engaged framework for urban soils research. Community-engaged research frameworks emerged over the past two decades to foster trust and respect between communities and researchers as a response to historical exploitation of communities by the academy. Today, these frameworks have become standard for social and public health researchers investigating the physical well-being of communities. However, there is no equivalent framework for scientists studying the soils that underpin the physical and ecological well-being of the same communities. Here, we present the first such framework for soil scientists that incorporates nuanced aspects that are often overlooked. Our proposed framework recognizes the iterative nature of collaboration with community stakeholders and highlights the significance of ethical considerations throughout the research process by emphasizing protection of community stakeholders from harm, involvement of all parties in decision-making processes, maintaining informed consent, and fostering mutual accountability among researchers throughout the research and sampling process. We address the limited guidance for engaging with community stakeholders when conducting urban soil research. Our approach goes beyond technical methodologies to foster trust, reduce harm, and recognize community contributions. This approach seeks a nuanced understanding of urban soils by contextualizing sociopolitical impacts. Community engagement involves transparency and effective communication to address community needs and aspirations. Empowering communities as experts on their environment enriches the scientific investigation through knowledge sharing.