Social, economic and cultural drivers, and costs of land degradation

Activities under this topic will help to progress EU efforts to better protect soils and reaffirm its commitment to achieve land-based climate neutrality in the EU by 2035 as outlined in the EU Soil Strategy for 2030. Moreover, results under this topic will contribute to progress on all the Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ objectives as well as on the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 on Life on land.

Project results are expected to contribute to all the following outcomes:

• Policy makers and relevant stakeholders have an enhanced understanding of the key social, economic, cultural, political, and regulatory factors driving soil management and degradation and the interaction of these factors.
• Policy makers and other relevant stakeholders have access to enhanced estimates of land degradation costs (e.g., GDP losses and negative externalities) and have a better understanding of the consequences of land degradation for food security and other ecosystem services, people’s well-being, markets and finance.
• Policy makers (at EU, national, regional and local level), land-managers, and other stakeholders have increased access to cost-benefit analysis and have improved capacities to develop evidence-based strategies or policies, and integrated approaches to overcome barriers to soil health protection and restoration and facilitate sustainable land management.

The social, economic, cultural, political, and regulatory factors that drive land management and land degradation and the interaction among these factors has been insufficiently explored. Moreover, there is a knowledge gap in estimating the costs that land degradation generates on-site, directly affecting land users and managers, and offsite, borne by society. Currently, the lack of knowledge on the costs of land degradation hampers the development of cost-benefit scenarios for the adoption and implementation of soil conservation and restoration actions across the EU and Associated Countries. An improved understanding of the social, economic, political, regulatory, and cultural factors, together with quantification of the costs of land degradation, should lead to evidence-based strategies, policies and integrated approaches that support land managers in rural, intermediate, and urban areas to adopt and implement sustainable land management practices that reduce and eventually stop land degradation and enhance soil health.

Proposed activities should:

• Identify the social, economic, cultural, political, and regulatory factors that drive soil management and degradation and are key in the development of strategies, policies and integrated approaches for sustainable land management across different land uses. The analysis should include, among other factors, those related to gender, education, inequalities, and access to land.
• Review existing socio-economic methods and models for assessing land degradation costs and conduct pan-European assessments of the socio-economic costs of different aspects of land degradation (e.g. soil organic carbon losses, soil erosion, biodiversity decline, nutrient loss, soil contamination, soil sealing, and land subsidence) across all relevant land use types. Such assessments should be based on the integration of soil bio-physico-chemical indicators with socio-economic methods and models.
• Carry out cost-benefit analyses of soil conservation measures and sustainable land management approaches by building on other EU funded projects or initiatives.
• Evaluate the socio-economic impacts of EU Green Deal policies related to land degradation (scenario analysis) and the socio-economic costs and benefits of their implementation.
• Explore how existing patterns of thought and action can be modified to implement sustainable land management. This should include the analysis of successful examples of sustainable human-soil relations, and their replicability should be encouraged among stakeholders through peer-to-peer learning and capacity building.
• Develop a toolbox of policy solutions for different governance levels to promote sustainable land management and avoid land degradation and sealing, considering the diverse cultural, political, and administrative systems, land uses, and geographical and pedo-climatic conditions in the EU and Associated Countries.

In carrying out the activities, consortia should:

• Work in an interdisciplinary way bringing together environmental sciences and social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines (including economics, political science, sociology, history, geography, cultural anthropology, behavioural sciences).
• Regularly engage with policy makers and stakeholders to co-create and evaluate strategies to mitigate land degradation and sealing.

Finally, proposals should:

• Include dedicated tasks and appropriate resources for coordination measures and joint activities with the other project funded under this topic, as well as with other relevant projects and initiatives funded under the Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe”, including engagement with the relevant cluster activities.
• Demonstrate a route towards open access, longevity, sustainability and interoperability of knowledge and outputs through close collaboration with the EU Soil Observatory and the SoilWise^[1] project.

[1] See An open access knowledge and data repository to safeguard soils | SoilWise | Project | Fact sheet | HORIZON | CORDIS | European Commission