Support for the development of the European Soil Assessment – Soil erosion

The study “Support for the development of the European Soil Condition Assessment” was dedicated to the impact of soil erosion on human activities and ecosystems. It took the form of a document entitled “Key facts on the role, impact and extent of soil erosion”, listing key – and scientifically validated – facts on soil erosion in Europe. It was produced for the European Environment Agency (EEA). The research was carried out for the European continent, then sequentially for each of the countries of the European Union, with bibliographic references collected using Web of Science and for the publication period 2019-2023.

The study informs that currently, around 25% of land in the European Union has soil erosion rates above the recommended sustainable threshold and more than 6% of agricultural land suffers from severe erosion. The estimated long-term average erosion rate fell by 0.4% between 2010 and 2016. This decrease of 0.4% in 6 years is much lower than the estimated decrease for the period 2000-2010 (9%). This means that efforts to mitigate soil erosion need to be stepped up with more environmentally-friendly measures, and that areas at high risk of erosion need to be better targeted.

Depending on the climate change scenario, an increase of 13% to 22% in the average rate of soil erosion in the EU is estimated, from 3.1 t/ha/yr in 2016 to around 3.6 t/ha/yr. Effective mitigation of future soil loss therefore requires conservation policy measures on at least 50% of agricultural land with erosion rates above 5 t/ha/yr.