A tremendous effort has been already invested in soil monitoring in Europe, at country and at EU levels. However, there is no comprehensive and updated body of knowledge for identifying healthy soils and those that are degraded and require protection.
Soil is a vital component of natural capital, hosting rich biodiversity and providing critical ecosystem services, such as food production, water purification and carbon storage. However, European soils are under increasing pressure and comprehensive monitoring to asses soil health is lacking. Published today, a European Environment Agency (EEA) report presents a core set of soil indicators and critical limits for soil health.
This table presents explanations of terms used to understand the management of contaminated sites.
This table presents the definition of six management steps (site status) which characterise the management status of contaminated sites.
The figure shows the spatial variation in nitrogen (N) surplus (left map) and phosporus (P) surplus (right map) for all agricultural land in the EU-27 in 2010 (excluding the United Kingdom and Croatia).
The surplus for N is calculated as the sum of N inputs to land (fertiliser, manure and biosolids, atmospheric N deposition, biological fixation and net mineralisation) minus crop removal (offtake). The surplus for P is calculdated as the sum of P inputs to land (fertiliser, manure and biosolids, atmospheric P deposition) minus crop removal (offtake).
In the two maps, regions with higher N and P surpluses are coloured in shades of orange and red (with red colours representing N surpluses over 150 kg/ha/yr and P surpluses of 12 kg/ha/yr, respectively). Regions with lower N and P surpluses are shown in shades of green. N surpluses occur in nearly all regions, and are highest in areas with high livestock densities such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Brittany in France and the Po valley region in Italy. Because P is adsorbed by the soil, P surpluses can be negative in areas where crop uptake exceeds P input and P inputs are completely eliminated (so-called P mining), such as in parts of France, Germany, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary.
The maps and the supporting information are adapted from De Vries, W., Romkens, P., Kros, H., Voogd, J.C.H., Schulte-Uebbing, L., 2022, Impacts of nutrients and heavy metals in European agriculture. Current and critical inputs in relation to air, soil and water quality, ETC-DI Report 2022/01, European Environment Agency.
Cadmium (Cd) in agricultural top soils (upper 20 cm)
This is the result of the 2016 questionnaire commissioned by the Eionet Thematic Group Soil, EEA and the European Commission Joint Research Centre, for the revision of the Indicator "Progress in the management of contaminated site in Europe". The 2016 results have been quality-controlled and corrected in 2022, serving as the basis for this indicator update. The Eionet Thematic Group Soil (formerly National Reference Centres Soil) consists of experts from EU Member States as well as EFTA countries, and EU candidate and potential candidate countries (EEA-38).
This data set contains current nitrogen (N) and critical phosphorus (P) concentrations and their exceedances of the current and required Nitrogen Use Efficiencies (NUE) in Europe. This data set has been compiled by the European Topic Centre on Urban, Land and Soil Systems (ETC/ULS) in the context of a study on metal and nutrient dynamics where the fate and dynamics of the most abundant heavy metals and nutrients in agricultural soils were investigated. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts of agricultural intensification in Europe, and to understand its environmental impact.
Soils can both remove carbon from the atmosphere or emit greenhouse gas emissions. According to a European Environment Agency (EEA) briefing, published today, European soils are currently a net source of greenhouse gas emissions and, if not addressed, this could pose a risk to the European Union (EU) climate targets. Mitigation actions can reduce the loss of carbon and have important co-benefits on biodiversity, but some actions can also have trade-offs such as emissions of other greenhouse gases.
The European Union has embarked on ambitious plans to drastically reduce emissions and pollution over the coming decades. Part of this includes the recently launched Zero Pollution Action Plan which will focus on cutting air, water and soil pollution to levels no longer considered harmful to human health and the environment. We sat down with Ian Marnane, EEA environment, health and well-being expert working on an upcoming EEA report on Zero Pollution, which is expected to be published later this year.
Dashboard (Tableau)
04 Nov 2021
This interactive data viewer provides accounts of imperviousness, i.e. land surface sealing status in Europe (EEA39 and EU27+UK) for the year 2018. Sealing is measured by the high resolution (10m) dataset "Imperviousness "of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service.
The viewer facilitates the understanding and assessment of soil sealing, which can be queried by administrative region or the degree of urbanisation as well as by ecological units such as floodplains and coastal zones or protected areas. All disaggregated assessment level allows the query of countries and land cover classes as well.
Indicator Assessment
22 Mar 2021
Monitoring the pressure from soil moisture deficits can warn of potential impacts on plant development and soil health, supporting the assessment of drought-tolerant, resilient and vulnerable ecosystems. In 2000-2019, soil moisture in the growing season was several times below the long-term average in the EEA member countries plus the United Kingdom. The largest soil moisture deficits occurred in 2003, 2017 and 2019, affecting over 1.45 million km 2 in 2019. Soil moisture content was also low in 2012, 2015 and 2018, contributing to increasingly frequent and intense drought pressure.
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