On 28 July 2025, the European Journal of Soil Science published a review proposing a new multi-scale framing of soil monitoring to support the EU’s Mission Soil and the Soil Monitoring Law. The study, supported by the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program as well as UK researchers under the UK’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee, outlines how soil quality and health can be more effectively assessed across the continent.
The study highlights the difference between soil ‘quality’ and ‘health’, noting that quality is often related to short-term human use, while health represents a holistic view of resilience and long-term vitality. To operationalize these concepts, the paper identifies four frameworks for the assessment of soil quality: ‘fitness for purpose’, ‘free from degradation’, ‘external benchmarking’ and value assessment’. These frameworks reflect different priorities, from crop suitability to preventing degradation or valuing soil as natural capital.
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A central challenge is the selection of indicators. Soil quality can only be monitored through various indicators (physical, chemical, biological), but European diversity in soil types, climate and land use makes a harmonized approach more complicated. The paper highlights that clear principles for selecting indicators are needed to align them with the EU’s DPSIR model (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response). The EU Soil Observatory has already introduced a Soil Degradation Dashboard with 19 pan-European indicators, including thresholds for erosion, compaction, and heavy metals. According to this dashboard, over 62% of EU soils show signs of degradation, with biodiversity loss, erosion, and declining organic carbon among the most pressing issues.
The study, by clearly presenting the concept of quality, supports the Mission Soil initiative, which aims to achieve sustainably managed soils by 2050. Additionally, the study highlights that different frameworks are best suited to different scales: ‘free from degradation’ for EU-wide monitoring, ‘fitness for purpose’ for local land management, and benchmarking for continuous improvement across farms and regions.
The authors conclude that as the Soil Monitoring Law develops, better and more localdatasets will become necessary to create a composite soil health index that integrates multiple degradation processes. They argue that such a coherent monitoring system, which combines EU-wide thresholds with localized management tools, will be key to achieving the EU’s soil health objectives.
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