• The soil monitoring directive approved by the European Parliament aims to achieve healthy soils by 2050.
• To this end, member states will be required to establish monitoring systems and promote sustainable soil management solutions.
• Today it is estimated that 60–70 per cent of European soils are degraded due to factors such as urbanisation and agriculture.

Last 23 October, the European Parliament gave its final approval to the soil monitoring directive (Soil monitoring law), concluding a process that began in July 2023 with a proposal from the European Commission. This legislation recognises for the first time soil as a vital resource to be protected, on a par with water and air, with the ambitious goal of achieving healthy soils across the entire European Union by 2050.

What the soil directive provides for

The directive establishes a common regulatory framework for monitoring the health of soils across the EU. Member states are required to:

• establish monitoring systems that assess the physical, chemical and biological condition of soils, using a standardised EU-level methodology to ensure comparable data;
• identify potentially contaminated sites (including those affected by emerging contaminants such as PFAS, pesticides and microplastics) and manage them to eliminate risks;
• adopt measures for sustainable soil management and to mitigate soil consumption.

Member states have three years from the entry into force of the law to transpose the new rules into national legislation, working to improve soil resilience, manage contaminated sites and counter the degradation that, according to estimates, currently affects 60–70 per cent of European soils. Degraded soils reduce the supply of ecosystem services such as food, timber, carbon sequestration, pest control and water regulation. The loss of these essential soil ecosystem services costs the EU at least 50 billion euros per year.

Threats to soil

The threats to soil are numerous and varied: erosion, flooding, loss of organic matter, salinisation, compaction, sealing, loss of biodiversity. To protect soil, action will need to be taken, for example, at the urban planning level, as well as in the agricultural sector. Healthy soil contributes to safe food production and to combating climate change.

The state of soil in Italy

According to the latest Ispra report, in Italy in 2024 almost 84 square kilometres were covered by new artificial surfaces, a 16 per cent increase on the previous year. With over 78 square kilometres of net soil consumption, this is the highest figure of the past decade. Against just over 5 square kilometres returned to nature, the picture remains imbalanced: every hour, a patch of land equivalent to around 10,000 square metres is lost.