2024 edition

As an essential support for human activities, soil is a natural resource that provides numerous functions and ecosystem services. As such, it is at the heart of crucial global challenges for the planet and for our own survival: adapting to climate change, protecting health, preserving biodiversity and ecosystems, and ensuring food security.

Yet there are many threats to soil, including sealing, erosion, contamination, lower organic-matter levels, reduced biodiversity, compaction and salinisation.

The European Commission estimates that over 60% of European soils are not in ‘good condition’. While the cost of soil degradation is estimated at nearly €50 billion per year, the cost of inaction against soil degradation is estimated at 6 times the cost of action, including prevention and restoration. Sustainable soil management is a clear objective of the European Commission, which is preparing a draft directive on soil monitoring and soil health.

A large international scientific community is devoted to soil, and a World Soil Day, 5 December, has even been dedicated to it under the aegis of the UN since 2014. The last French event was held in the Normandy region in 2024 on the theme of soil data and information.

In France, the work carried out since the 1990s and the creation of the Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique Sol (GIS Sol) have led to the establishment of a national soil information system based on soil inventory and monitoring, anticipating the European framework.

This dossier traces the development of this system and presents the public policies that have benefited from the data produced by the national system. It concludes with the challenges of soil science research at European level.