ISPRA Land and Soil Monitoring, Mapping, and Assessment Activities

ISPRA and the SNPA monitor environment and land status and dynamics through the production of data, maps, and indicators, also publishing reports and guidelines useful for assessing the characteristics and trends of environmental quality, air, water and soil status, ecosystem resources and services, land cover and consumption, urban growth, landscape transformations, evolution and distribution of vegetation, biodiversity, contaminated sites, with particular attention to lost or threatened natural functions. This contribution presents an overview of the main ISPRA and SNPA activities for land and soil monitoring, with particular reference to land consumption assessment (carried out through the annual update of the ISPRA-SNPA National Land Consumption Map) and to land cover and land use mapping (done by ISPRA in compliance with the European Copernicus Programme reference framework). Evaluation and monitoring results on land degradation are then presented, which are carried out according with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 15, with particular reference to desertification and soil erosion. The fourth part describes the main activities on threat of contamination, with reference to health and environmental impacts, to the monitoring and the management of contaminated sites and to the hierarchy of interventions. The final section presents the activities carried out by ISPRA on soil biodiversity and soil biological monitoring.