Five decades' experience of long-term soil monitoring, and key design principles, to assist the EU soil health mission

Abstract

The European Union has a long-term objective to achieve healthy soils by 2050. The European Commission has proposed a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Soil Monitoring and Resilience (Soil Monitoring Law, SML), the first stage of which is to focus on setting up a soil monitoring framework and assessing soils throughout the EU. Situated in NW Europe, the UK has substantial experience in soil monitoring over the last half century which may usefully contribute to this wider EU effort. A set of overarching principles have and continue to guide design of national soil monitoring and may prove helpful as other European countries embark on similar monitoring programmes. Therefore, we present the principles of design from five decades of national soil monitoring. The monitoring discussed is based on a stratified-random design, has matured in support of policy questions, and operates over space and time scales relevant to the SML. The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) Countryside Surveys (CS) of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Welsh Government, Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring and Modelling Programme (ERAMMP) and the England Ecosystem Survey (EES) monitoring programme are national programmes currently operating in the UK. Some important lessons learnt include: adopting a question-based approach; having a clear robust statistical design for the purpose; selecting indicators that address policy and underlying scientific questions; and selecting indicators that can detect change and use robust and well-tested methodologies across a wide range of soil and land use types, remaining valid over long time scales, supporting thinking long-term. Technical lessons learned include the proven cost effectiveness of a stratified-random design including replication, while adopting a common stratification layer of stable environmental attributes aids comparability between monitoring programmes. Common protocols are vital for future intercomparisons, but a full ecosystem approach that includes co-located soil and vegetation samples for interpreting a co-evolving system has proved hugely advantageous. UK monitoring programmes offer a range of experience that may prove valuable to future soil monitoring design to address the major societal challenges of our time, such as maintaining food production and addressing climate change and biodiversity loss.