EU moves towards healthier soils in Europe

The European Parliament and EU Council have reached provisional agreement on a directive to improve monitoring and assessment of all soils within the EU.

Soil degradation and contamination pose significant risks to food security and safety, biodiversity, resilience to climate and extreme weather events. Currently 60 to 70% of soils in the EU are in unhealthy state. As an example, a billion tonnes of soil are washed away every year due to erosion, resulting in an estimated annual agricultural productivity loss of €1,25 billion. Costs associated with soil degradation are estimated at over €50 billion per year.

The Soil Monitoring Law will put the EU on a pathway to healthy soils for the benefit of citizens, farmers, land managers and the environment, says the Commission. “The agreement marks an important step in addressing the risks that the EU faces due to soil degradation for our food security, mitigating the impacts of climate change and socio-economic prosperity in all our regions and cities alike,” said Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall: “The law will particularly benefit our farmers and soil managers by providing them with support and better knowledge of soil conditions, while not imposing obligations on them.”

The new law will help to enhance the resilience of soils to natural disasters, heatwaves and extreme weather events, as well as other critical environmental challenges, such as erosion, contamination, and biodiversity loss.

The primary objective of the new directive is to introduce a framework to monitor soil health across the EU that is pragmatic and flexible, and based on national soil monitoring systems. Given the complexity of soil, the directive leaves a lot of flexibility to the Member States to adapt their approach to local soil conditions.

A stepwise and pragmatic approach is designed to keep the burden for Member States low. The agreement also extended most deadlines for the stepwise implementation of the directive proposed by the Commission. Those Member States in need will also be able to get the assistance of the Commission to undertake soil sampling, testing and archiving. The directive will not impose obligations on monitoring or improving soil health and resilience on landowners and land managers, including farmers.

The Parliament and Council agreement provides for the following key measures to be taken by the Member States:

• Establish a comprehensive and harmonised, yet flexible, soil health monitoring framework with criteria for healthy soil;
• Provide support to soil managers to improve soil health and resilience;
• Mitigate the impacts of land take, such as buildings and infrastructures, on soil’s capacity to provide other ecosystem services while not preventing the permitting of such activities;
• Identify potentially contaminated sites and manage them to eliminate risks for human health and the environment while respecting the ‘polluter pays’ principle.

EU Parliament and Council now have formally to adopt the new Directive before it can enter into force. It then enters into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU, after which Member States will be required to put in place national frameworks within 3 years for the directive to operate.

Source: EUbusiness