Soils

Soils

Project
 
Soil degradation has been on the international political agenda for several years. This development is also reflected in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015. In order to achieve these globally, international soil protection law must be further developed. Ecologic Institute will, together with its partners, develop recommendations on the basis of an analysis of existing instruments and institutions within the framework of this project.

Further Development of the International Soil Protection Law

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Project
 
Ecologic Institute provides a legal assessment of whether German law is suitable to achieve the sustainable development goal "land degradation neutral word" (LDN) by 2030, and recommends options for improvement. The project also compiles key insights and lessons learned, in English, as a contribution to the international discussion on implementing LDN. The project results are discussed in an international workshop.

Legal Instruments for Implementing and Achieving Land and Soil-Related SDGs

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Project
 
This project, led by Ecologic Institute, aims to take stock of existing soil policy instruments in the EU in order to identify gaps in protection and to support the decision-making process for further policy action. Collaborating closely with experts from 28 EU Member States, the project develops a Wiki-based inventory and an up-to-date assessment of soil policy instruments in the EU. The inventory consists of existing and upcoming policy instruments, including legislation, regulatory and non-binding instruments, measures and targets in the EU Member States and its regions. In an ex-ante and ex-post impact analyses, the effectiveness of soil policy instruments in addressing the soil threats and soil functions in the EU as well as the relevance and coherence of policies is assessed.

Updated Inventory and Assessment of Soil Protection Policy Instruments in EU Member States

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Project
 
The project Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals for Soils aimed to examine how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Target 15.3 on 'Land Degradation Neutrality' could be implemented in Germany and at the global level. Ecologic Institute analysed potential indicators, developed an own indicator concept build on land use changes and developed policy recommendations to implement the SDG 15.3.

Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals for Soils

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Project
 
Fertile soils are an indispensable resource for agriculture and the Bioeconomy as a whole. Subsoils contain a major part of the nutrients essential for plants, a resource potential that has thus far not yet been fully understood nor used. In order to harness this untapped potential, the Soil³ project examines the subsoil processes and application of alternative subsoil management measures. The Ecologic Institute will conduct research on the costs, benefits and social acceptance of these measures.

Sustainable Subsoil Management as Part of the Bioeconomy (Soil³)

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Project
 
The project Legal Instruments to implement the objective "Land Degradation Neutral World" in International Law was commissioned by the German Federal Environmental Agency. It aimed to explore the legal instruments in three different case study countries which could potentially be up-scaled to the international level to implement the land degradation neutrality target. The findings were translated into a breakdown of conceptual legal approaches to land degradation prevention, remediation/offsetting, and planning.

Legal Instruments to Implement the Objective "Land Degradation Neutral World" in International Law

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Project
 
Fertile land areas to produce agricultural and forestry products are globally only available in a limited amount. The land footprint is a suitable indicator in order to assist the analysis of global land use related to consumption of a country or region and to monitor land use. Within this study a review of land flow studies and accounting methodologies is undertaken in order to elaborate recommendation for the methodology of future land footprint calculations. However, the land footprint is as an area-based indicator and unable to illustrate a large number of land-related environmental issues. The project therefore also provides an overview and discussion on possible environmental impact oriented indicators. Finally, the project team undertakes a calculation of possible indicators for the case of Germany based on the developed recommendations.

Land Footprint – Evaluation of Existing Studies and Development of Impact Oriented Land Use Indicators

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Project
 
What environmental impacts does the application of chemical pesticides have in private and small gardens, and how can consumers help to avoid these? In this project an online information portal and a brochure were created to answer these questions. Besides the environmentally relevant side effects of chemical pesticides, the project also focused on alternative and preventive measures.

Online Information Service: Environmentally Compatible Plant Protection

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Project
 
The pressure on land and natural resources is increasing worldwide. While there are many sectoral policies tackling different environmental problems, land use is not regulated in an integrated and overarching way. The discussion on sustainable biofuels and biomass highlights the continued lack of an effective and innovative framework to deal with complex land-use issues. The aim of the GLOBALANDS project is to identify existing land use policies and develop possible governance tools towards a more resource efficient and sustainable global land use.

Global Land Use and Sustainability (GLOBALANDS)

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Project
 
Ecologic Institute writes a legal commentary on the German PRTR-Act. Under this law and an EU-Regulation, operators of certain installations in Germany have to report data on pollutants for publication in a German as well as to a European pollutant release and transfer register (PRTR). The legal commentary is mainly addressed at authorities and operators to facilitate the application of the rules without in-depth knowledge on their legal background.

Commentary on the German PRTR law

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Project
 
In order to meet the goals of the EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection, soil protection will need to be further integrated in other policy areas. For this reason, an analysis of the measures adopted by the Member States in plans and programs pursuant to certain pieces of Community and international legislation is required. The EUSOIL project aided to this task and identified, described and evaluated the measures taken under the Water Framework Directive (WFD), Cross Compliance Instrument (CC) and United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) concerning their contribution to soil conservation.

Evaluation of Soil Protection Measures (EUSOIL)

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Project
 
The increased use of renewable resources has several positive environmental effects in comparison to the use of fossil fuel. Nevertheless, with an extended cultivation of energy crops and other renewable resources, there may also be negative consequences on soil quality. The evaluation of these effects is the focus of this project.

Soil Protection and Renewable Resources

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Publication:Report
 
Cover of the interim report "Funding climate-friendly soil management: Risks and key issues. Key issues to be considered in the design of funding instruments"
This report summarises key aspects that should be accounted for in the design of policy instruments to support the implementation of climate-friendly soil management measures. It outlines overarching aspects that need to be considered for any type of policy instruments, including land use competition, impacts on soil health, biodiversity impacts, ownership and rights to use of soils and social impacts.

Funding Climate-friendly Soil Management: Risks and key issues

Key issues to be considered in the design of funding instruments

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Publication:Video
 
The two-year "Soil Mission Support: Towards a European Research and Innovation Roadmap for Soils and Land Management" project supported the European Union's A Soil Deal for Europe mission on soil health and nutrition and the European Green Deal to facilitate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This animated video demonstrates the importance of healthy soils, the nature of "lighthouses" and where to find them, as well as their contributions to healthy soils. The video was created in cooperation between Ecologic Institute and INRAE.

Transition Towards Healthy Soils Through Living Labs and Lighthouses

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Publication:Article
 
This article summarizes the key insights of this project containing two major aspects: First, it presents a conceptual framework for the implementation of LDN at national level including a proposal for necessary steps and guiding questions. Second, it develops a concept for a new indicator to monitor LDN, which uses land use categories as a possible proxy indicator to differentiate likely impacts on soil.

Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality in Germany

Implementation process and design of a land use change based indicator

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Publication:Article
 
Screen shot of the Article International Soil Governance
This introductory overview of international soil governance first outlines essential features of international governance by Dr. Ralph Bodle. At the international level, there is no overarching central or superior authority. Rules and other measures normally do not have direct effect at national level; they need to be implemented by their addressees. In contrast to other environmental topics, states have for a long time been reluctant to engage in soil governance at the international level. As a result, international soil governance is piecemeal and spread over parts of different institutions and processes, each of which has limitations. The Sustainable Development Goal “land degradation neutrality” on its own is not a comprehensive soil policy, but its forward-looking planning element in particular is a useful starting point for guiding national policies and further work. While binding rules are not an end in itself, new treaty obligations relating to soil protection could be useful to address gaps and shortcomings in current governance and focus international commitments. Climate change provides an opportunity to increase soil protection e.g. through the climate regime, but there are also risks if soil protection was pursued solely from a climate perspective.

International Soil Governance

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Publication:Report
 
Sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere – 'carbon removals' – is essential to achieve Europe's 2050 net-zero climate goals. This report considers twelve nature- and technology-based carbon removal solutions, evaluating their climate mitigation potential and suitability for deployment across Europe. The report supports the European Commission's development of a certification mechanism for carbon removals.

Certification of Carbon Removals. Part 1: Synoptic review of carbon removal solutions

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Publication:Report
 
publication's cover
This publication provides a quantitative overview of the development and status of environmental crime in Germany between 2010 and 2019, based on data from the police crime statistics ("Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik") and the Federal Statistical Office's criminal prosecution statistics ("Strafverfolgungsstatistik"). The report provides both, an overview of general trends and an in-depth account of individual environmental offences. In addition, the publication contains data on administrative offences relating to trafficking of protected species. The report was prepared by a team from Ecologic Institute on behalf of the German Federal Environment Agency.

Umweltdelikte 2019

Auswertung von Statistiken

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Event:Workshop
 
In implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Germany has to deal with a range of new challenges. Achieving goals in land and soil protection, for example, cannot build on a long tradition of policymaking or on a solid basis of information and data for monitoring. An expert workshop together with the Federal Agency of Environment (UBA) and Federal Ministry of Environment (BMUB) on 6 July 2016 in Berlin sought to clarify how Germany can achieve "land degradation neutrality" domestically. Stephanie Wunder from Ecologic Institute presented results from a report, which served as the basis for intensive discussions among the participants.

Implementation of "Land Degradation Neutrality" in Germany


Berlin, Germany

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Event:Seminar
 
Ecologic Institute, in cooperation with the German Federal Environmental Agency (UBA), organized and hosted an intensive three-day training course for PhD students from 27 to 29 April 2015 in Dessau and Berlin (Germany), entitled "Policy and Regulation of Pollutants in the Environment". The training was part of the CAPACITIE project, one of the prestigious Marie Curie Initial Training Networks (ITNs) funded by the European Commission, which focuses on pollution in urban environments. The presenters held talks focusing on local (city level), national, and EU-level efforts addressing environmental pollution and covered regulatory approaches, methodological tools and practical initiatives. The presentations are available for download.

Policy and Regulation of Pollutants in the Environment – CAPACITIE Training Course

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Dessau, Berlin, Germany

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Event:Conference
 
Through which global political approaches can a (more) sustainable land use be reached? Over the last four years, the GLOBALANDS project team has attempted to answer this primary research question. On 19 May 2015, the final conference of the project took place at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building, and Nuclear Safety. Stephanie Wunder, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, presented the project results related to global governance of urban-rural relations. All presentations are available on the GLOBALANDS website.

Policy Recommendations to Strengthen Sustainable Land Use – Final Conference of the GLOBALANDS Project


Berlin, Germany

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Event:Conference
 
The LEDDRA Policy Conference aimed to present selected and policy-related project findings and to discuss associated policy recommendations, as well as to develop new critical thinking to support future initiatives addressing Land and Ecosystem Degradation and Desertification (LEDD). The conference brought together LEDDRA researchers, policy makers from international, EU organizations, and Member States, as well as stakeholder groups and NGOs. The discussion and questions raised by the presentations and dialogue at the conference will contribute to ongoing efforts to combat land degradation and desertification at the international, European, and national levels.

Research on Responses to Land Degradation and Desertification - LEDDRA

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Berlin, Germany

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Event:Conference
 
The "EU Common Forum on Contaminated Land" was initiated in 1994 and provides a discussion forum for experts from all EU Member States and Accession Countries. Main topics are the develoment of strategies for the treatment of contaminated sites and for land recycling. Key aspects of the 9th meeting of the Forum in November 2002 at Berlin are the Groundwater Directive, Environmental Liability, Soil Policy, Sustainable Landuse, the 6th RTD Framework Program and two EU research projects (EUGRIS, METROPOLIS).

Common Forum on Contaminated Land


Berlin, Germany

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Event:Workshop
 
The objective of the workshop "Soil Protection within the European Union", which took place on 9 - 11 November 1998 in Bonn, is to present and to discuss the different strategies and options for protecting soils on the European level. This is the first time that the development of soil protection policies is treated as a separate policy area and that it makes the subject of an European workshop.

Soil Protection Policies within the European Union

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Bonn, Germany

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