An Integrated Assessment of European Soil Health and Restoration potential

Soils host a significant proportion of biodiversity on Earth providing ecosystem functions vital to human well-being, making it imperative to include them and their ecological features when addressing sustainability goals. We performed a comprehensive assessment of soil health across Europe by explicitly integrating biotic and abiotic indicators alongside soil degradation processes. We further identified areas with high restoration potential, quantifying the potential positive changes achievable when mitigating degradation processes. Our results show that 93% of soils in Europe are either degraded (62%) or in a moderate state (31%), with only 7% having a good (6.5%) or high (0.5%) health status. We found Southeast Europe to have the highest restoration potential, particularly for forests and annual crops. By providing spatially explicit indicators of soil health and restoration potential, our approach offers valuable guidance to support sustainable soil management and inform policies aimed at enhancing soil health across Europe.