Preliminary Assessment of the Knowledge Gaps to Reduce Soil Sealing and Increase the Reuse of Urban Soil

To achieve the ambitious goal of 100% healthy soils in 2050, in the last few years the European Union has set up a complex policy framework for soil protection. The framework includes the Soil Strategy, the Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience (Soil Monitoring Law, European Commission 2023), the European Soil Observatory, and the Mission “A soil deal for Europe” (European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2022), as well as relevant sectoral policies (e.g., carbon policies). The EU Soil Strategy for 2030 (European Commission 2021b), approved in November 2021, is a key deliverable of the EU Biodiversity Strategy (European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment 2021) and aims to ensure that, by 2050, all EU soil ecosystems are healthy and more resilient and can therefore continue to provide their crucial services; there is no net land take and soil pollution is reduced to levels that are no longer harmful to people’s health or ecosystems; and protecting soils, managing them sustainably and restoring degraded soils is a common standard. The Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe”, or EU Soil Mission (European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2022), supports the implementation of the strategy by finding solutions to protect and restore soil health. The mission defines eight specific objectives that future research and innovation activities should address. The third specific objective is to achieve no net soil sealing and increase the reuse of urban soil. Soil sealing is the main process that causes land degradation in urban areas (EEA European Environment Agency et al. 2022). When soil is sealed, an impermeable layer interrupts the connection between the soil and the atmosphere, which leads to a loss of soil resources, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. The process of soil sealing is strictly linked to that of land take (see definitions in the next Section). The reuse of urban soil instead refers to the use of excavated soil from construction sites for ...