Soil Health Management Under Drought: Carbon Sequestration, Microbiome, and Structural Resilience

Drought is increasingly recognised as a systems-level stressor that compromises the biological, physical, and biogeochemical foundations of soil health. Its effects are not limited to short-term water deficits for crops; rather, drought reorganises the pathways through which soils store carbon, sustain microbiome function, and retain structural integrity. This review synthesises the current understanding of soil health management under drought through the linked lenses of carbon sequestration, soil microbiome dynamics, and structural resilience. The literature for this review was selected through structured searches in Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, and PubMed. Searches were conducted for publications from 2005 to 2026, with additional earlier seminal or foundational papers considered when necessary for conceptual framing. The article argues that drought resilience emerges not from any single soil property but from the interaction among plant-derived carbon inputs, microbial physiological responses, organo-mineral stabilisation, aggregate turnover, pore continuity, and management history. Recent literature shows that drought can reduce plant carbon inputs, constrain microbial activity through diffusion limitation, alter microbial carbon use efficiency, and increase the vulnerability of stored organic matter during drying–rewetting cycles. At the same time, management can moderate these risks. Practices that increase continuous carbon supply, protect habitat heterogeneity, reduce mechanical disturbance, and enhance aggregate stability can improve resistance during drought and recovery after rewetting. Particular emphasis is placed on the rhizosphere, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, microbial necromass formation, biochar-mediated aggregation, and the role of diversified management in preserving microbial and structural functions. The review concludes that drought-oriented soil health management must move beyond the narrow aim of increasing soil organic carbon stocks and instead target the quality, spatial protection, and functional resilience of carbon within living and structured soils. An integrated framework is proposed in which resilient soils are those that maintain carbon inputs, buffer microbial stress, and preserve a physically connected yet hierarchically aggregated architecture under repeated moisture stress.