Critical analysis of the experiences at member state level

The internal EJPSoil project SERENA contributed to the evaluation of soil multifunctionality aiming at providing assessment tools for land planning and soil policies at different scales. By co-working with relevant stakeholders, the project provided co-developed indicators and associated cookbooks to assess and map them, to report both on soil degradation, soil-based ecosystem services and their bundles, under actual conditions and for climate and land-use changes, at the regional, national, and European scales. 

In the current report (deliverable D3.2, version 1), the indicators, methods and data (including data availability) used by the countries participating in the SERENA project to assess specific soil threats and soil-based-ecosystem services were compared. Differences and similarities between the assessments of the different countries and the need for harmonisation were identified. The four soil threats considered are soil organic carbon loss, soil erosion, soil compaction, and soil sealing. The four soil-based ecosystem services included are greenhouse gas and climate regulation including carbon sequestration, hydrological control, primary/biomass production, and erosion control.