Assessing Risks for Soils: Challenges and Opportunities

Cláudia Lima, Wageningen University & Research; Juliska Princz, Environment and Climate Change Canada; Björn Scholz-Starke, Darwin Statistics; Paola Grenni, Water Research Institute, National Research Council, Italy; Bonnie Brooks; Washington Department of Ecology; Mike Simini, US Army DEVCOM Chemical Biological Center; Jen Lynch, SETAC; Pia Kotschik, German Environment Agency; Global Soils Interest Group

Soils are a precious but finite resource in need of immediate protection. They are the basis of several ecosystem goods and services. In fact, they provide us with food and raw materials, help to regulate climate change, sequester carbon, and serve as a primary water resource filtration. Healthy soils support healthy ecosystems; this is reflected in the life supported within, which contributes to over 25% of the planet’s biodiversity. Moreover, a healthy soil provides a healthy environment to nature and humans.

Recent efforts, such as the European Green Deal, with its major keystones Farm to Fork Strategy, Biodiversity Strategy and Soil Strategy, as well as the global One Health approach, have recognized the intrinsic value of soil and the need to balance our economic objectives with the preservation and protection of this precious resource. Research pertaining to the importance of soils – its ecological value the effects various stressors have on soil ecosystems, the efficacy of remediation technologies and efforts, and risk assessment and management strategies of contaminated sites, and more – are critical to advancing the 2050 EU commitment to the protection, sustainable use and restoration of soils to ensure healthy and resilient soil ecosystems.

However, before we can fulfill this commitment, we need to understand the current state of soil biodiversity, the diversity of soil types in general, and threats to soil ecosystems. We need to explore and improve upon technologies and strategies that enable a multi-system or ecosystem-based approach to understand the impact of stress on soils, whether that’s chemical, climate or other. There is also a dire need for a regulatory framework that supports sustainable soil systems across different scenarios (e.g., agricultural, industrial, etc.) as well as land use types. It’s a complex subject that requires cooperation among scientists and regulators. To facilitate the work of the soil community around the pertinent issues and strategic paths forward to support our common goal for a sustainable healthy soil ecosystem, the SETAC Global Soils Interest Group Steering Committee will host a two-day webinar from 18–19 October.

The webinar will be divided into two overarching topics:

• Soils and habitats: Current State
• Protecting soils within current regulations: Challenges of upcoming frameworks

Each component of soil directly or indirectly supports critical elements of nutrient cycling and ecosystem health. The European Mission: “A Soil Deal for Europe,” which is part of the Horizon 2020 project, and the recently published report on the “State of Knowledge of Soil Biodiversity” by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) underline the need to protect soil biodiversity to secure essential ecosystem services on a global scale. Any decline in biodiversity significantly impacts ecosystem services, such as the potential to control pests and diseases, store carbon, or regulate water quality and climate, all of which depend on stable and fertile soils. However, to protect biodiversity and soil ecosystem services, we require measurable indices to track impacts and/or shifts that impair ecosystem services. The first speaker, David Russel, Senkenberg Museum, will discuss the baseline occurrence data, biodiversity and the distribution of soil organisms in Europe. Russel will touch upon the distribution and influence of different soil types and their properties on chemical fate and effects on in-soil organisms.

The next presentation will be centered around ongoing efforts to characterize or map different soil types and the databases that are being developed to assess the state of the soil over time. Diana Vieira, Joint Research Centre, will review the state of European Union soils, with a focus on soil disturbances, which can be caused by different types of contamination, such as the accumulation of excess nutrients or metals, or by a number of chemicals, such as plant protection products, nanoparticles, pharmaceuticals, biocides or industry chemicals.

Agroecosystems are often the target of the intended use of plant protection products, and the accumulation of these substances provide a complex multiple-stressor scenario for soil species and soil health. The final speaker of the first day, Vera Felix Graca da Silva, Wageningen University, will address this concern by using pesticides as a case study to contextualize new methodologies for substance assessment in soils.

Protecting Soils within Current Regulations – Challenges of Upcoming Frameworks

The second day of the webinar will shift from looking at biological community distributions, abiotic soil diversity and occurring pesticides contamination of soils, toward tools used to measure effects on in-soil communities and ecosystem services by complex test systems. We aim to encourage a discussion on the current and future regulatory requirements, in response to the new European soil initiatives.

The European Union has formulated action plans, targeting sustainable production, consumption and growth where the protection of soils and soil biodiversity are important components of the European Green Deal. The European Soil Strategy for 2030, which is embedded within the European Green Deal, aims to reach 100% healthy soils by 2050. A quick review of the regulations in place to ensure healthy soils and minimize risk to soil ecosystems from plant protection products does show a handful of European Commission guidance documents, one of which is outdated. A recent publication by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), “Scientific Opinion for In-soil Organisms,” is a precursor for a new guidance document for the risk assessment for exposure of in-soil organisms with plant protection products. It identifies gaps within the current risk assessment framework and suggests protection goal options based on biodiversity and ecosystem services provided by key drivers of in-soil organisms. The implementation of legislative soil protection goals would be a milestone to ensure the support of biodiversity and the sustainability of ecosystem services in soils for future generations and would reflect the aims of the European Soil strategy for 2030.

However, soil protection is a global issue and must go beyond these European initiatives. Global policy frameworks, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) address soil quality and sustainable land use, and the “One Health” concept recognizes and highlights the interconnection among human, animal and environmental health, with soil health, environmental quality, food safety and security, an issue of global application.

The speakers for the second day will touch upon all these issues and expand the discussion into a global context. They are:

• Jack Faber, Wageningen University, who will present on soil quality and ecosystem services
• Tiago Natal de Luz, Coimbra University, who will review terrestrial model ecosystems and their potential to assess ecological risk to soil communities
• Silvia Pieper, Federal Environment Agency of Germany, who will discuss the current regulatory framework, Green Deal and EU soil strategy

Author's contact information: Pia Kotschik, [email protected]