One third of the planet’s soils are moderately or highly degraded by chemical contamination, erosion, nutrient depletion, acidification, salinization, compaction or sealing, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The institution also points out that every year tens of billions of tons of soil are lost due to contamination, which in some countries affects up to one fifth of all agricultural land.
Soil contamination is an emerging problem, but because it comes in so many different forms, the only way we can reduce knowledge gaps and promote sustainable soil management is to intensify global collaboration and build reliable scientific evidence,” said Ronald Vargas, FAO soil expert and Secretary of the Global Soil Partnership (Soil Partnership) .
The diversity of contaminants and soil types, and the ways in which they interact, make hazard analyses complex. The hazards posed by contaminated soil depend on how soil properties affect the behavior of chemicals and the rate at which they enter ecosystems. Therefore, it is desirable to conduct baseline soil reports that determine what substances are found in the soil. In this line, LITOCLEAN is in charge of designing the research strategies that provide all the necessary information, while carrying out the decontamination of the affected soils.
This global problem was made known in June during the 5th Plenary Assembly of the WHA, and was also the focus of the International Soil Conservation Day, celebrated this July. Several environmental and ecologist organizations have launched the ‘Save the Soil’ campaign, aimed at asking the European Union to protect this resource by law through a directive. In this sense, Paula Tordesillas, from Ecologists in Action, insists that soil “is the resource that sustains life and is where we get our food from”.
