Documents

Poster with six key facts reveal Europe's soil crisis—erosion, contamination, sealing, biodiversity loss, carbon decline, poor health and the overall cost —highlighting the urgent need for sustainable soil management and protection.

This report addresses soil pollution in the EU, supporting the implementation of the EU's Soil Monitoring Law (SML) and Zero Pollution Action Plan. This document presents the outcomes of workshop with several EU Mission projects on soil pollution, including the SoilWise, ISLANDR, EDAPHOS, ARAGORN, and BENCHMARKS projects. The report provides a comprehensive approach to harmonization and standardization of soil pollution data, essential for effective policy-making and decision-support. The report also provides information on the development of new policy measures, such as the EU's Soil Strategy and proposed Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience. This report hopes to serve ongoing and future Soil Mission projects with data harmonization for a higher dissemination and policy impact. The harmonization of the data will help EU and national/regional policymakers to have a clear view on the state of the soil pollution and therefore reinforce their regulation on soils (e.g., Soil Monitoring Law).

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Healthy soils are essential for providing healthy food and achieving climate neutrality. The publication of the EU Soil Strategy for 2030, the proposed Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive and the Mission Soil marked major milestones for soil protection and restoration in the EU. Given this context, the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO) aims to be the principal provider of knowledge and data on soils at the EU-level and to underpin EU policies related to soils. This report highlights the main activities and outcomes of the EUSO in 2024. During this period, the EUSO provided policy support to a wide range of soil related areas, including the proposed Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive, the Carbon Removal Certification Framework and the Mission Soil. A highlight was the launch of the science for policy report ‘The state of soils in Europe’, in collaboration with the European Environment Agency, providing an in-depth examination of the pressures affecting soils across Europe. Furthermore, the EUSO updated its Soil Degradation Dashboard and launched a novel EU Soil Strategy Actions Tracker. The latter shows that almost 70% of the policy actions listed in the EU Soil Strategy for 2030 are completed. Next, the European Soil Data Centre, the leading web platform for sharing data and knowledge about EU soils, has grown significantly with 15 new datasets and a 20% increase in requests for datasets. Additionally, the EUSO contributed directly to advanced scientific knowledge on soils with the publication of 47 scientific papers, 10 technical reports, and 3 science-for-policy reports. Finally, the EUSO organised and contributed to activities to support stakeholder interactions and citizen engagement regarding soils. Highlights include the fourth EUSO Stakeholders Forum, the second Young Soil Researchers Forum, the European Mission Soil Week and the activities of the EUSO Working Groups. During 2025, the EUSO will continue to be the principal provider of soil-related data and knowledge while supporting the implementation of EU policy objectives in relation to soils.

Download the Report: https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/public_path//shared_folder/doc_pub/JRC141262.pdf

Soil pollution is a significant environmental and health concern in Europe, with potential links to cancer incidence. The Exploratory Research project “Understanding the links between SOil pollution and CancEr” (SOLACE)” aimed to investigate the complex relationships between soil properties, pollution, land use and human health, providing a foundation for further research and policy development, as part of the Joint Research Centre's (JRC) strategic scientific development.. The scoping review of the existing studies linking soil pollution and cancer identified the knowledge gaps in the fields. We also performed an ecological study across 26 EU countries, which releaved associations between the regional rates of lung cancer mortality and soil pollution with arsenic and cadmium. The SOLACE project underscores the importance of comprehensive soil monitoring to safeguard environmental and human health and emphasizes the need for continued investment in research, monitoring, and policy development to address the complex issues surrounding soil pollution and its impact on human health The SOLACE project achievements contribute to the goals of the JRC by supporting soil-related directives like the Soil Monitoring Law and the Zero Pollution Action Plan.

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Healthy soils are essential for our environment and society, as soils deliver crucial ecosystem services. The publication of the EU Soil Strategy for 2030 and the Soil Monitoring Law marked
major milestones for soil protection and restoration in the EU. In parallel, the Mission Soil aims to advance knowledge on healthy soils and establish 100 Living Labs and Lighthouses to co-create innovations for soil health. Contributing to a better EU soil health monitoring and a complete set of indicators at the EU-level are crucial components of the Mission Soil’s objectives. This report proposes a list of indicators for soil health in the EU, together with targets and thresholds for these indicators. Nineteen indicators are presented, representing the main soil degradation processes and monitoring the state of soil health at EU scale. The EUSO Soil Degradation Dashboard is proposed as the main platform for presenting these indicators, together with key results and statistics. The dashboards shows that, based on the proposed indicators, more than 60% of EU soils are currently unhealthy. Planned updates on the proposed indicator framework include: (i) refining, updating and adding new datasets for indicators, (ii) refining thresholds for the indicators, and (iii) developing a composite Soil Health Index. For these planned activities, close collaboration with the Mission Soil projects will be crucial.

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Land degradation is a complex socio-environmental threat, which generally occurs as multiple concurrent pathways that remain largely unexplored in Europe. Here we present an unprecedented analysis of land multi-degradation in 40 continental countries, using twelve dataset-based processes that were modelled as land degradation convergence and combination pathways in Europe’s agricultural (and arable) environments. Using a Land Multi-degradation Index, we find that up to 27%, 35% and 22% of continental agricultural (~2 million km2) and arable (~1.1 million km2) lands are currently threatened by one, two, and three drivers of degradation, while 10–11% of pan-European agricultural/arable landscapes are cumulatively affected by four and at least five concurrent processes. We also explore the complex pattern of spatially interacting processes, emphasizing the major combinations of land degradation pathways across continental and national boundaries. Our results will enable policymakers to develop knowledge-based strategies for land degradation mitigation and other critical European sustainable development goals..

A unifying modelling of multiple land degradation pathways in Europe | Nature Communications

Soil health is expected to be of key importance for plant growth and ecosystem functioning. However, whether soil health is linked to primary productivity across environmental gradients and land-use types remains poorly understood. To address this gap, we conducted a pan-European field study including 588 sites from 27 countries to investigate the link between soil health and primary productivity across three major land-use types: woodlands, grasslands and croplands. We found that mean soil health (a composite index based on soil properties, biodiversity and plant disease control) in woodlands was 31.4% higher than in grasslands and 76.1% higher than in croplands. Soil health was positively linked to cropland and grassland productivity at the continental scale, whereas climate best explained woodland productivity. Among microbial diversity indicators, we observed a positive association between the richness of Acidobacteria, Firmicutes and Proteobacteria and primary productivity. Among microbial functional groups, we found that primary productivity in croplands and grasslands was positively related to nitrogen-fixing bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi and negatively related to plant pathogens. Together, our results point to the importance of soil biodiversity and soil health for maintaining primary productivity across contrasting land-use types.

Soil health is associated with higher primary productivity across Europe | Nature Ecology & Evolution

Fire-induced geomorphic changes, such as enhanced erosion and debris-flow activity, are expected to increase with climate change owing to increases in fire activity and rainfall intensification. In this Review, we summarize how landscape attributes, rainfall and burn severity influence post-fire geomorphic responses over a range of temporal and spatial scales. Sub-hourly rainfall intensity and burn severity control the magnitude of many post-fire geomorphic process rates through their influence on ground cover and rainfall-runoff partitioning. Post-fire debris flows (PFDFs) make a substantial contribution to the post-fire sediment cascade, transporting sediment from hillslopes to channels, adjacent floodplains and alluvial fans. By the late twenty-first century, PFDF activity is estimated to increase in 68% of areas in which PFDFs have occurred in the past and decrease in only 2% of locations. Once altered by fire, geomorphic state variables — such as infiltration capacity, canopy cover, ground cover and sediment availability — can recover to their pre-fire value or be shifted to a new value. Improved understanding of the factors that influence these post-fire trajectories could support targeted management and intervention strategies. Additionally, monitoring that extends beyond the first 1–3 years after fire and deeper integration of ecohydrological processes into geomorphic models are needed to improve forecasts of post-fire geomorphic responses.

Fire effects on geomorphic processes | Nature Reviews Earth & Environment

Numerous hydrological applications, such as soil erosion estimation, water resource management, and rain driven damage assessment, demand accurate and reliable rainfall erosivity data. However, the scarcity of gauge rainfall records and the inherent uncertainty in satellite and reanalysis-based rainfall datasets limit rainfall erosivity assessment globally. Here, we present a new global rainfall erosivity dataset (0.1° × 0.1° spatial resolution) integrating satellite (CMORPH and IMERG) and reanalysis (ERA5-Land) derived rainfall erosivity estimates with gauge rainfall erosivity observations collected from approximately 6,200 locations across the globe. We used a machine learning-based Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) model to assimilate multi-source rainfall erosivity estimates alongside geoclimatic covariates to prepare a unified high-resolution mean annual rainfall erosivity product. It has been shown that the proposed rainfall erosivity product performs well during cross-validation with gauge records and inter-comparison with the existing global rainfall erosivity datasets. Furthermore, this dataset offers a new global rainfall erosivity perspective, addressing the limitations of existing datasets and facilitating large-scale hydrological modelling and soil erosion assessments.

GloRESatE: A dataset for global rainfall erosivity derived from multi-source data | Scientific Data

Modeling monthly rainfall erosivity is vital to the optimization of measures to control soil erosion. Rain gauge data combined with satellite observations can aid in enhancing rainfall erosivity estimations. Here, we presented a framework which utilized Geographically Weighted Regression approach to model global monthly rainfall erosivity. The framework integrates long-term (2001–2020) mean annual rainfall erosivity estimates from IMERG (Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission’s Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM) with station data from GloREDa (Global Rainfall Erosivity Database, n = 3,286 stations). The merged mean annual rainfall erosivity was disaggregated into mean monthly values based on monthly rainfall erosivity fractions derived from the original IMERG data. Global mean monthly rainfall erosivity was distinctly seasonal; erosivity peaked at ~ 200 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 month−1 in June–August over the Northern Hemisphere and ~ 700 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 month−1 in December–February over the Southern Hemisphere, contributing to over 60% of the annual rainfall erosivity over large areas in each hemisphere. Rainfall erosivity was ~ 4 times higher during the most erosive months than the least erosive months (December–February and June–August in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, respectively). The latitudinal distributions of monthly and seasonal rainfall erosivity were highly heterogeneous, with the tropics showing the greatest erosivity. The intra-annual variability of monthly rainfall erosivity was particularly high within 10–30° latitude in both hemispheres. The monthly rainfall erosivity maps can be used for improving spatiotemporal modeling of soil erosion and planning of soil conservation measures.

An integrated modeling approach for estimating monthly global rainfall erosivity | Scientific Reports

Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) confers benefits to soil health, biodiversity, underpins carbon sequestration and ameliorates land degradation. One recommendation is to increase SOC such that the SOC to clay ratio (SOC/clay) exceeds 1/13, yet normalising SOC levels based on clay alone gives misleading indications of soil structure and the potential to store additional carbon. Building on work by Poeplau & Don (2023) to benchmark observed against predicted SOC, we advance an alternative indicator: the ratio between observed and “typical” SOC (O/T SOC) for pan-European application. Here, “typical” SOC is the average concentration in different pedo-climate zones, PCZs (which, unlike existing SOC indicators, incorporate land cover and climate, alongside soil texture) across Europe, determined from mineral (<20 % organic matter) topsoils (0–20 cm) sampled during 2009–2018 in LUCAS, Europe's largest soil monitoring scheme (n = 19,855). Regression tree modelling derived 12 PCZs, with typical SOC values ranging 5.99–39.65 g kg−1. New index classes for comparison with SOC/clay grades were established from the quartiles of each PCZ's O/T SOC distribution; these were termed: “Low” (below the 25th percentile), “Intermediate” (between the 25th and 50th percentiles), “High” (between the 50th and 75th percentiles), and “Very high” (above the 75th percentile). Compared with SOC/clay, O/T SOC was less sensitive to clay content, land cover, and climate, less geographically skewed, and better reflected differences in soil porosity and SOC stock, supporting 2 EU Soil Health Mission objectives (consolidating SOC stocks; improving soil structure for crops and biota). These patterns held for 2 independent datasets, and O/T SOC grades were sensitive enough to reflect land management differences across several long-term field experiments. O/T SOC used in conjunction with several other physical, chemical and biological soil health indicators can help support the EU Soil Monitoring Law and achieve several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Benchmarking soil organic carbon (SOC) concentration provides more robust soil health assessment than the SOC/clay ratio at European scale - ScienceDirect

The present European Union (EU) Sewage Sludge Directive (86/278/EEC) is undergoing modifications aimed at enhancing its applicability in the agricultural sector. The Directive's existing limit values for heavy metal concentrations in soils are in the process of being revised. However, to comprehensively understand their effects on EU agricultural lands, additional evaluations are necessary. This is particularly important given that ecological risk assessments are often performed on a site-specific basis, potentially overlooking broader regional implications. The main objective of the current work is to introduce a methodological approach to quantify the impact of sewage sludge (SS) application on agricultural soils in the EU and the United Kingdom. Concentrations of heavy metals (HMs) (Cd, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb and Zn) in agricultural land from Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey (LUCAS) 2009 topsoil database were used as a baseline. Maximum quantities of SS that can be safely applied to agricultural lands were obtained by a modeling procedure was used to determine the maximum safe quantities of SS that can be applied to agricultural lands for each country within the European Member States and the United Kingdom. Accumulation of HMs in soils was modelled by using a representative SS composition, distributed over 10 successive years at 5 Mg ha−1 year−1 rate. Ecological risk impact was assessed by using both the single ecological risk index (Er) and the integrated potential ecological risk index (RI). Maximum quantities of SS applied on agricultural soils in EU + UK were estimated to be 45 Mg ha−1 at the country level. We found that 19% of agricultural land (around 28,471,900 ha) in the EU + UK shows a higher RI than moderate risk after long time application of the representative SS. We show that the combination of the HM concentrations from the LUCAS topsoil survey and assumptions on the SS composition and soil HM partitioning can be used to define the actual and potential soil pollution rate in EU + UK. We demonstrate that the proposed methodology can be used by policymakers, farmers, regional authorities and other stakeholders, with possible adaptions based on local in-depth soil and SS knowledge.

Ecological risk assessment of heavy metals from application of sewage sludge on agricultural soils in Europe - Yunta - 2024 - European Journal of Soil Science - Wiley Online Library