Possible policies and actions to protect the soil cultural and natural heritage of Europe

Abstract

Soils are healthy when they can continuously provide several ecosystem services. Among them, there are cultural services for humans and the archive of geological, geomorphological, and archaeological heritage. Yet strategies and policies aimed at preserving and enhancing the cultural and natural heritage of the soil are partial and rare. This paper provides a state of the art and sets a framework to give inspirational ideas for designing policies and actions to promote soil cultural and natural heritage protection, with particular reference to Europe.Through an online and documental analysis, the arguments treated in the published papers dealing with soil as a natural or cultural heritage are summarized, and the current main policies and actions to preserve our natural and cultural heritage at the global and European levels are reported and analysed. A focus on the national level has been also introduced, to exemplify policies and actions aimed at protecting the natural and cultural heritage and including reference to soil features.The analysis indicates that there is a relevant scientific production. It is possible to summarize eight main criteria that can be used to include a soil profile or a soilscape in an inventory of cultural and natural heritage. Nevertheless, most of current soil policies and actions do not provide examples of cultural heritage sites where the main object of preservation is the soil itself, and not just its functional characteristics. The only acknowledgement at the global level is the area of typical Chernozems of Moldovia, which is present among the tentative sites on the World Heritage List of UNESCO.In this context, some of the main values that characterize the cultural and natural heritage are excluded by soil policies, namely, the scientific and didactic interest, recreational, scenic, and aesthetic values, and the inspirational, religious, identity, ethnical and ethical relevance, which are acknowledged instead for other natural bodies, such as geological and geomorphological sites.Among the possible European strategies that could be implemented to valorise the soil natural and cultural values, the two most suitable instruments are the research and innovation programs of Horizon Europe to support the implementation of the Soil Health and Food mission, and the Natura 2000 program. Soil cultural and natural values may be instrumental to increase soil literacy, which is one of the scopes of the Soil mission. In the Natura 2000 program, the inclusion of the descriptions of the presence of pedosites could be an immediate action. This inclusion would not only increase both the cultural and naturalistic values of the areas but also favour soil literacy and the collaboration between soil scientists and professionals from other disciplines, thus enhancing a transdisciplinary approach to soil health, as well as its societal connectivity.