EU Soil Strategy and regulation of soil health

Healthy soil is vital as it produces 95% of the food we eat, maintains more than 25% of our planet’s biodiversity and serves as the largest soil carbon sink. However, soil is a limited resource, and more than 60% of the EU’s soil is in poor condition. This means that efforts should be made to improve the level of protection.

The European Commission published the EU Soil Strategy for 2030 in December 2021, where the objective is to achieve good soil health by 2050.

The EU Soil Strategy aims to ensure that by 2050:

• all soil ecosystems in the EU are healthy and more resilient and can thus provide their vital services in future as well.
• there is no net land take, i.e. new land is no longer taken into use, and soil contamination has fallen to a level at which it no longer causes harm to human health or natural ecosystems.
• protection and sustainable management of soil and restoration of degraded soil have become common practices.

EU Soil Monitoring Law 

As one of the measures under the EU Soil Strategy, the European Parliament and the Council adopted a directive on soil monitoring and resilience (Soil Monitoring Law), which must be transposed into the national legislation by 17 December 2028. A working group of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Ministry of the Environment has been appointed to prepare the implementation of the directive and how this will be organised in Finland. The term of the working group runs until 18 December 2026.

The aim of the Soil Monitoring Law is to achieve healthy soils in the EU by 2050. This will be done by establishing a solid and coherent soil monitoring framework for EU Member States, reducing soil contamination, improving soil health, maintaining soils in a healthy condition, and addressing soil degradation. The directive lays down a framework and measures for the monitoring and assessment of soil health, soil resilience and management of contaminated sites. The directive also requires Member States to take action that supports landowners and land managers in improving soil health and soil resilience.

• EUR-Lex: Directive on soil monitoring and resilience (Soil Monitoring Law)

Report on state of soils in Finland published

In summer 2023, the Ministry of the Environment published a report that sums up information on the current state of soils in Finland and its monitoring. The ‘MaaTieto’ report examines the state of the soil of arable and forest lands, mires and urban and built-up areas, and soil contamination as a separate theme.

• Monitoring and State of Finland’s Soil and Policy Instruments for Its Use (in Finnish, description sheet in English) | Publication archive Valto