Soil management is now a major societal challenge.

It is helpful to recall that soil is an important environment that too often has been taken into account for its agronomic support only. Soil is the base of all land assets. It can be a vector of transport and of transfer of pollution. It is a protective environment for many sources of water supply (agricultural, urban, industrial uses). The list of various soil functionalities is long and insufficiently highlighted. For this reason, soil must be the object of every attention. In short, it’s one of our best allies.

While local pollution of soils is now the focus of attention from States or Regions that have specific legislation in this area, pollution caused by diffuse sources is still often poorly identified (atmospheric fallout, use of pesticides and fertilizers by agriculture, sewage sludge treatment plants, industrial activities ...). Pollution is not the only threat to soils – there is also erosion, compaction, waterproofing, loss of organic matter, biodiversity, etc. An integrated, multidisciplinary approach is needed for sustainable soil management.

Today, it is time to have a global European vision of soil functionalities because policies can differ from one Member State to another, or even, in some States, from one administrative region to another. Without undermining the principle of subsidiarity, Europe should nevertheless define a firmer position on the main objectives to be sought by the Member States in terms of soil management.

The policies envisaged must therefore be based on a methodology recognized by all, with codified technical bases. Interrelationship between the laws of the Member States of the European Union will lead inexorably to the definition of common guidelines.

Many difficulties must still be overcome in developing these bases; they are of various kinds:

• Regulatory: definition of the framework of common instructions and obligations to be respected
• Legal: determination of responsabilities in case of damage to soil as a resource
• Technical: definition and evaluation of a soil quality and the functions and properties to be protected, characterization of a soil, determination of the technical treatment to be implemented, development of recycling techniques to fight against exhaustion of the resource
• Health: Assessing interactions between the environment and human health to better protect populations
• Economic: evaluation of the cost of the characterization actions needed for the diagnosis, evaluation of the cost of depollution actions, economic revalorization of a degraded land, rebuilding the city over the city
• Communication: Convince the authorities and the general public that soil is one of the solutions to the great challenges of our time, and that it is a valuable ally to be cherished rather than ignored or worse, exploited or defiled. Give letters of nobility back to the soil.

2020 to 2030 is the decade when major decisions will be made on environmental issues for the next 50 years. Soil management is no exception to this rule. It is therefore urgent for all actors involved to mobilize in order to share their knowledge for the well being of all. More than ever, interdisciplinarity is necessary to renew the logic of approaches and capitalize on the knowledge of experts from different backgrounds who do not always have the opportunity to meet.

This is the invitation that has been made for the 24th edition of Intersol, which will be held in Lyon in March 2025, to deal with all the actors and stakeholders concerned with soils, crucial themes which are:
     

      ✧ Under our feet, understand the soil and the subsoil?
      ✧ Legal, regulatory and normative news

▬ 6 major themes ▬