RECARE

ENV.2013.6.2-4

Soils are currently under increasing threat from a wide range of processes, such as soil erosion, compaction, desertification, sealing, contamination and others. They need to be adequately protected and conserved to ensure that their many functions and services, such as food production, buffering and filtering of water, and storage of nutrients and carbon, are not lost or diminished. The RECARE project brought together a multidisciplinary team of  27 different organisations to find ways of assessing the current threats to soils and finding innovative solutions to prevent further soil degradation across Europe.

MEMBERS

AIMS

1. Fill knowledge gaps in our understanding of the functioning of soil systems under the influence of climate and human activities
2. Develop a harmonized methodology to assess the state of soil degradation and conservation
3. Develop a universally applicable methodology to assess the impacts of soil degradation upon soil functions and ecosystem services
4. Select, in collaboration with stakeholders, innovative measures, and evaluate the efficacy of these regarding soil functions and ecosystem services as well as costs and benefits
5. Upscale results from 17 case studies to European scale to evaluate the effectiveness of measures across Europe
6. Evaluate ways to facilitate adoption of these measures by stakeholders
7. Carry out an integrated assessment of existing soil related policies and strategies to identify their goals, impacts, synergies and potential inconsistencies, and to derive recommendations for improvement based on RECARE results
8. Disseminate project results to all relevant stakeholders

Unión Europea - VII Programa Marco

Preventing and Remediating Degradation of Soils in Europe through Land Care