Mapping soil multifunctionnality for urban planning and development: from research to "no net land take"

The French R&D MUSE project developed a methodology to map the potential multifunctionnality of unsealed soils based on existing data at national scale, in order to consider this information in urban planning. This method gives a partial idea of soil health. The data on rural areas allow mapping 4 ecological soil functions: potential of carbon storage, water storage, agronomic potential, and biodiversity reservoir. The lack of soil maps on urban area conducted to propose a simplified approach. The methodology was developed in collaboration with 3 pilot territories. The aim of this presentation is to establish feedback on the application of the methodology on various geographical and pedo-climatic contexts.

The analysis is carried out on more than 10 cases including Rennes Métropole, Ris-Orangis and Savoie Métropole, by checking the objectives of the application, the appropriation by operators and the adaptations proposed.

The feedback shows the ability to identify zones to be preserved, developed or disartificialised by crossing with other data. More detailed soil maps contribute to gain precision and are mandatory to design development projects. New methodological developments are proposed also to map soil multifunctionnality in urban areas. The integration of soil quality to reach the "no net land take" target is also in progress. It takes into account a moderation of the potential soil functions by knowledge on pollution risks and remediation projects.

The MUSE methodology is getting more and more applied in France, although its application needs some technical skills on soils and geomatics. In this frame, an automation script was developed to standardise the production of the 4 ecological soil function maps. It can be applied at various scales, according to the precision of the available data. The feedback underlines the need to wider characterise urban soil and to bank further the acquired data to improve the knowledge on urban soils.