Healthy soils are essential for achieving climate neutrality, a clean and circular economy and stopping desertification and land degradation. They are also essential to reverse biodiversity loss, provide healthy food and safeguard human health.

The EU soil strategy for 2030 provides the framework and concrete steps towards protecting and restoring soils, and ensuring that they are used sustainably. As part of this, a new Soil Monitoring Law has been proposed to ensure a level playing field and a high level of environmental and health protection.

It is a key deliverable of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 and will contribute to the objectives of the European Green Deal.

2023 Proposal for a Directive on Soil Monitoring

Over 60% of European soils are unhealthy and scientific evidence shows that soils are further degrading due to unsustainable management of the land, sealing, contamination and overexploitation, combined with the impact from climate change and extreme weather events.

Degraded soils reduce the provision of ecosystem services such as food, feed, fibre, timbre, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, pest control or water regulation. The loss of these essential soil ecosystem services costs the EU at least 50 billion euro per year.

The new law aims to address key soil threats in the EU, such as erosion, floods and landslides, loss of soil organic matter, salinisation, contamination, compaction, sealing, as well as loss of soil biodiversity.

The new Soil Monitoring Law provides a legal framework to help achieve healthy soils by 2050. It will do so by

• putting in place a solid and coherent monitoring framework for all soils across the EU so Member States can take measures to regenerate degraded soils
• making sustainable soil management the norm in the EU. Member States will have to define which practices should be implemented by soil managers and which should be banned because they cause soil degradation
• requesting Member States to identify potentially contaminated sites, investigate these sites and address unacceptable risks for human health and the environment, thereby contributing to a toxic-free environment by 2050.

Proposal for a Directive - COM(2023) 416

Impact Assessment Report - SWD(2023) 417

Executive Summary of the Impact Assessment Report - SWD(2023) 418

Guidance on EU Funding Opportunities for Healthy Soils - SWD(2023) 423

Communication on Sustainable Use of Natural Resources

Related strategies

• EU soil strategy for 2030
• EU soil thematic strategy (2006)
• Circular economy action plan
• EU biodiversity strategy for 2030
• Zero pollution action plan
• Farm to fork strategy
• Forest strategy

Related laws

• Nature restoration law
• Environmental Liability Directive
• Industrial Emissions Directive
• Environmental Impact Assessment Directive
• Sewage Sludge Directive
• Regulation on fertilisers
• Mercury Regulation
• Land use, land use change and forestry Regulation (LULUCF)
• Common Agriculture Policy (CAP)

Other related links

• EUSO Soil Health Dashboard

For questions about EU environmental policy, please contact Europe Direct.