Science to policy
EJP SOIL understands the need for strong support and strategic activities aimed at a strengthened science-policy interface in the area of agricultural soil management. A main part of the exploitation of research results includes the provision of evidence-based policy recommendations that support the role of soil management in addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation.
On this page, you can find a range of information, from different areas within the EJP SOIL Programme, which is curated specifically to help in strengthening the science to policy interface.
Soil Monitoring Law
EJP SOIL Webinar - Soil Monitoring Law
A recording of the 1 hour webinar with key note speaker Mirco Barbero Team leader of the Soil and Sustainable Land Use Department of DG Environment presenting the overview of The EU Proposal for a Law on Soil.
Feedback to Soil Monitoring Law - active hyperlinks
Feedback and survey of information supporting/ enabling discussion on the Soil Monitoring Law proposal
Feedback to the Soil Monitoring Law from the EJP SOIL internal project 'MINOTAUR' on soil biological indicators
Open Webinar: Soil Health Indicators
Providing scientific supporting information on:
- Definitions, thresholds & reference values for various indicators
- Pros and cons of various approaches
- Classification/Prioritization of indicators
- Tiered approach to biological indicators
Policy Workshop: Scientific support for the EU soil health law
The EJP SOIL 2nd EU Forum entitled “EJP SOIL Scientific Support for the EU Soil Health Law” was held online on Wednesday 8th March 2023. The aim was to present scientific information in support of the policy needs for development of the EU Soil Health Law based on research findings of the EJP SOIL. This forum developed discussion on relevant issues and aimed to help to support policy makers’ understanding of these findings to better inform future decision making when finalizing and adopting the EU Soil Health Law.
Related policy briefs:
Introduction to Carbon Farming
Introduction to the concept of Carbon farming, Carbon accounting and Carbon credits
In the framework of the EJP SOIL Programme, WP8 Sciene to Policy produced an informative video to introduce a general audience as well as stakeholders, policymakers, researchers and farmers to the complex concepts of Carbon farming, Carbon accounting and Carbon credits.
Answers to 4 Frequently Asked Questions:
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What is Carbon farming?
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What is soil Carbon accounting?
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What is a Carbon credit?
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Are Carbon credits effective against climate change?
Policy Workshop Materials
Here you can find PDF versions of presentations and recordings from the different policy workshops .
Click on one of the images below to access materials from that workshop.
Click the image above to access workshop materials.
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Click the image above to access materials from the webinar
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Looking for European soil science expertise?
The ‘Resources, Infrastructure and Capabilities Inventory (RICI)’ is an online platform for policy stakeholders. RICI provides access to a pool of specialized scientists and experts at local, regional and national level across Europe. The RICI is like the "yellow pages" for expertise on soil science.
RICI is the catalogued scientific capacity and expertise within the EJP SOIL consortium. The search for expertise using the RICI platform enables focused results of soil science experts within different aspects of soil such as microorganisms, soil structure, carbon capture and storage, amendment and so forth.
For example, if you are working on policies regarding carbon capture and storage, the RICI platform will provide specific information on the scientists or the laboratories who do research within this topic. A search will identify a range of scientists in different countries, specialized in this topic, including the experts in the regional and local area.
Click the button below and do a search in the database. You can also register yourself in the database.
The database is under development and will continuously be updated and improved.
Unsure what to search for?
The RICI can connect you with any registered expert within the EJP SOIL consortium. This represents a wealth of knowledge! To get you started we have provided some examples of the terms you can use to search the RICI if you are looking for expertise in the area of climate change mitigation. Other areas of expertise include : climate change adaptation, sustianable soil management & agricultural production, sustianable environment, Soil health, ecosystem services and biodiversity, soil data & monitoring, mapping and modelling, region specific fertilization.
Search Topics
Use the following search topics to find a sientist or expert within the area of soil carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation:
- GHG
- greenhouse gases
- emission
- restorative
- tillage
- cover cropping
- crop residue
- crop rotations
- fertilization
- mulching
- nutrient cycling
- compost and manure,
- water resources
- biochar application
- precision farming
- irrigation
- conservation
- agroforestry
Science to policy interaction
The overall aim of work package 8 is to support and strengthen the science-policy interface in the area of agricultural soil management and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The focus is on providing support for the implementation of soil C accounting and the delivery of soil ecosystem services.
The key objectives are to:
- Establish open dialogue and active engagement with policymakers.
- Understand and analyse policy makers needs for new research, data or resources.
- Support the implementation of C accounting and delivery of ecosystem services in the EU.
- Translate results into expert recommendations for policy.
- Disseminate and promote the work and outputs of the EJP SOIL to EU and international policymakers.
Policy briefs
2024
Rewetting of drained peatlands provides permanent and fast GHG mitigation
Rewetting of previously drained agricultural peat soil coupled with continued cultivation in the form of paludiculture is not widely practiced, and experiments are needed to understand its environmental impacts.
In the INSURE project (INdicators for SUccessful carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas mitigation by REwetting cultivated peat soils) we measured GHG emissions and crop yields in rewetted agricultural fie
From Risk to Resilience: Policy challenges for Soil Erosion Control
Water-induced soil erosion is a growing concern in the EU, with climate change projections indicating a potential 13-23 % rise in erosion rates.
The variability of soil erosion modelling techniques highlights the need for standardisation of data sets and harmonisation of model parameterisation to allow valid comparisons of policy measures.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has a limited effect in decreasing erosion risk, as the voluntary measures are often not well targeted to the identified erosionprone areas.
Policymakers should advocate for targeted erosion mitigation measures and elaborate more appropriate assessment protocols including sediment connectivity modelling to improve accuracy in erosion risk assessments.
A framework for setting soil health targets and thresholds in agricultural soils
Soil health is defined through soil indicators, which are assessed using targets and/or thresholds. The challenge is that targets and thresholds are highly site-, managementand climate-specific, and there is not yet a validated assessment system with that level of detail.
With policies worldwide being established to promote soil health, there is an urgent need for the development of a system to assess soils.
We explored four approaches to setting targets and thresholds. Based on stakeholder feedback of the approaches, collected in two webinars (EJP SOIL 2023) and case studies of three approaches, we developed a framework that facilitates both choosing the most appropriate target/threshold method for a given context, and using targets and thresholds to promote soil health.
Towards a regulation on carbon removals n the EU: lessons learned from existing experiences
This policy brief aims at providing a concise overview of the current state of CF schemes in and outside Europe and of research findings derived from the WP8 of the EJP SOIL programme and the Road4schemes project. It builds on existing incentive schemes under the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP, Reg. EU 2021/2116), and in anticipation of the forthcoming European regulation on carbon removals (COM/2022/672 final), which will play a key role in CF in Europe.
In this context, key challenges and policy recommendations to promote the implementation of a common European CF framework are provided.
When does soil carbon contribute to climate change mitigation?
In climate change mitigation discussions, technical terms are not always used correctly leading to unintended consequences and exaggerated expectations of the role of soil C for climate change mitigation.
Carbon stock, carbon sink - are they the same thing? And does fixing C in the soil, for example by building up soil organic C, automatically lead to climate change mitigation? In public discussions about climate protection, many such concepts often get mixed up.
