Although urban areas cover a small fraction of the world’s surface area, over 50% of the world’s population lives in urban areas and is predicted to double by 2050. Urban soils play a key role in urban sustainability as they are responsible in regulating a plethora of ecosystem services and supporting multiple soil functions however, they are often overlooked and not fully considered during projects’ planning stages, during construction, or post-development and are not well integrated into policies at all scales. Moreover, more and more countries are implementing strategy plans on circular economy and green finance, inevitably bringing urban soils resilience and management to the forefront. Urban soils are characterised by high heterogeneity and are subject to multiple anthropogenic disturbances, such as sealing, compaction, degradation and erosion, mixing, pollution, landfilling, as well as premium land take and climate change. All of these anthropogenic influences have severe impacts on the multifunctionality of urban soils, their role in delivering ecosystem services and their resilience.
In this session, we aim to advance our understanding of urban soil multifunctionality and our capacity to integrate urban soil multifunctionality into policy, planning and development by connecting recent research and innovations across disciplines and sectors . We welcome interdisciplinary submissions focusing on field research, modelling, remote sensing or social sciences, as well as case studies from the industry and policy arenas. We seek to help bridge the gap between research and practice, bringing forward knowledge acquired from different disciplines and sectors helping to deepen our understanding and capacity to manage urban soil multifunctionality and resilience.