Soil Pollution Framework in Europe

This chapter focuses on the history of soil protection in the EU, the state of pollutants in soils and recent visions adopted by the European Commission to decrease contamination level to rich healthy soils. The EU involvement in soil protection has lasted for several decades. Throughout these years many political actions, visions, strategies, directives, and research programmes have been announced. They were primarily dedicated to human health and then expanded to environmental protection. High concentration levels of HMs, POPs, and other groups of contaminants in soils negatively influence living organisms. This was a strong signal for politicians to recognize soil pollution as one of the main threats influencing soil functions and include soil protection in politics. The first part of this chapter presents the history of EU efforts towards indication of the soil importance for human life, identification of the main groups of soil pollutants causing reverse effects to human health and soil biota, and implementation of actions by EU towards reduction of soil pollution. It refers to various international and European documents and provides information on institutions established in the EU to collect, provide access, and share information on soil pollution status in the MSs. The second part of the chapter is dedicated to the state of soil pollution in Europe. It covers problems of pollutants’ sources, and refers to historical and emerginge contaminants as well as soil quality criteria. The third part of this chapter refers to new concepts of soil health and soil-based ecosystem services adopted in soil-directed EU strategies and directives supporting the European Green Deal. It also points out on key targets referring to reduction of soil contamination by 2030 and by 2050.