Soil quality is essential not only for increased productivity, but also for the agro-ecosystem to provide its services and benefits such as biomass generation, water cycle regulation, greenhouse gas sequestration, source of raw materials and preservation of landscapes. Soil degradation has also a direct impact on water and air quality, biodiversity and climate change. Apart from its basic functions soil cannot be considered a renewable resource and therefore it is an asset to be preserved.
In this respect, different Community policies contribute to soil protection, particularly environment (e.g. air and water) and agricultural (agri-environment and cross-compliance) policy. Furthermore, to ensure an adequate level of protection for all soil in Europe, the Commission adopted a Soil Thematic Strategy (COM(2006) 231) and a proposal for a Soil Framework Directive (COM(2006) 232) on 22 September 2006 with the objective to protect soils across the EU.
Monitoring is the main tool used by governments to evaluate the status of soil quality. The different policies set a common approach for monitoring soil quality but do not specify the supplied methods. It is up to governments to decide the best method based on local conditions and existing national approaches. In this sense, emerging technology technologies in data and knowledge engineering provides excellent possibilities in monitoring soil quality regarding on land evaluation processes.
The present session focus on scientific and technical information that is available for monitoring and evaluating soil quality on each particular land and climatic conditions, in order to implement Community policies for soil protection.
This session will focus on:
a) Methodologies for accounting soil ecosystems services.
b) Technologies and case studies for evaluating soil capacity and vulnerability under scenarios of global change.
c) Frameworks for evaluating the socio-economic impact of soil-degradation.