Long-term drivers and consequences of soil degradation: learning from the past to improve future soil health

Expected Outcome:

Activities under this topic will help progress towards the objectives and targets of the Mission Soil and the EU Soil Strategy for 2030. Moreover, activities should also contribute to meeting the ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals^[1].

Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:

• policymakers and other relevant stakeholders have improved access to knowledge and quantitative data on changes in soil degradation over the past centuries to millennia across different pedo-climatic regions, alongside projections for future soil health trends under different scenarios;
• policymakers, land managers and other relevant stakeholders have an advanced understanding of the long-term drivers (and the similarities and differences with short-term drivers) and long-term consequences of soil degradation processes including their role in the climate and biodiversity systems and in the water and nutrient cycles, both in the past and in the future;
• policymakers and other relevant stakeholders have an expanded comprehension of the social and cultural factors driving historical soil degradation and societal perceptions of soil degradation and soil health, as well as an enhanced understanding of the long-term socio-economic consequences of soil degradation processes, e.g. in terms of EU’s agricultural competitiveness, both in the past and in the future;
• citizens are more aware of the societal impacts of soil degradation and the lengthy recovery process, to foster an accelerated acceptance of sustainable soil management practices.

Scope:

Since the beginning of agriculture, human activities worldwide have contributed to soil degradation, including soil erosion, soil compaction and loss of soil organic carbon among others. This caused problems to farmers and landowners, as well as to society in general. However, our knowledge of changes in soil health over the past centuries to millennia is limited, and available datasets span only the past two or three decades. This knowledge gap hinders a thorough understanding of the long-term drivers and consequences of soil degradation, of improved future projections of soil health under different scenarios of climate and land management changes, of the long-term effects of soil management practices, as well as of how human behaviour can change to adopt measures to increase soil health. This is especially relevant in the context of future climate change.

Proposals should:

• study past soil degradation processes and their socio-economic, cultural and natural drivers and consequences across different pedo-climatic regions, based on multiple lines of evidence coming from, for instance, historical documents, historical records, archaeological data, sediment archives, buried fossil soils and archived soil and plant samples;
• apply, validate and advance the development of methodologies to study past soil health, using techniques such as ancient eDNA analysis, pollen, spores, environmental radionuclides and other proxy indicators, and implement a multi-scalar approach to integrate these data at the scale of pedo-climatic regions;
• utilise numerical models and digital tools to reconstruct past soil degradation patterns and predict future trends and develop trajectories for sustainable soil management;
• encourage citizen and stakeholder involvement through active participation in the data collection and data analysis with citizen science initiatives, as well as carry out communication and awareness raising activities on the long-term changes of soil health and the societal impact of soil degradation.

In carrying out the activities, consortia should work in an interdisciplinary way bringing disciplines, expertise and approaches from the soil sciences, environmental sciences and social sciences and humanities (including history, archaeology, sociology and social geography).

Due to the scope of this topic, international cooperation is strongly encouraged, in particular with China under the EU-China Food, Agriculture and Biosolutions (FAB) flagship initiative. Development of specific technologies above TRL 4 is out of the scope of this topic.

Proposals are expected to collaborate with and build on the results of the projects funded under HORIZON-MISS-2025-05-SOIL-02: Social, economic and cultural drivers, and costs of land degradation. Proposals should also demonstrate a route towards open access, longevity, sustainability and interoperability of knowledge and outputs through close collaboration with the EU Soil Observatory and the SoilWise project.

[1] In particular SDG 13 – Climate action, and SDG 15 – Life on Land.