The health of soil and land resources in the Mediterranean Region is critically low. It is already inadequate to support economic development and food security targets, particularly in Near East and North Africa (NENA) countries.
Two interrelated barriers stand in the way of progress: the limited availability and poor quality of soil data and information, and the low level of use made of existing data. These gaps undermine sustainable land management, block the design and implementation of effective policies for soil protection and restoration, and hinder the achievement of key Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 — including land degradation neutrality, food security, climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, and economic development.
International efforts — such as those by FAO’s Global Soil Partnership and the European Commission’s Land Use and Coverage Area frame Survey (LUCAS) — have advanced the development of methodologies and tools to collect soil information at European and Mediterranean scales. However, there remains an urgent need for harmonized methodologies and indicators specifically adapted to the diversity of soils and environments in the Mediterranean region, along with an accessible, standardized, region-wide database of soil information.
SOILS4MED was designed to address these needs directly, working in close synergy with existing international initiatives to maximize impact and avoid duplication.
SOILS4MED pursues a general, high-level objective and five interconnected specific objectives:
General objective To engage a wide platform of Mediterranean scientists and stakeholders in the co-design of scientifically sound policy-relevant soil health indicator sets and monitoring strategies harmonized across the Mediterrean region, with particular focus on non-EU countries, as enabling condition for sustainable soil and water management and for the protection, restoration, and improvement of soil health and land conditions in the region.
1. Stakeholder engagement and awareness Engage stakeholders through the Living Lab approach to raise awareness on the benefits of increased investment in soil data and information, and to secure the policy relevance and long-term sustainability of soil information systems.
2. Integrated indicator sets and monitoring protocols Develop policy-relevant integrated indicator sets and a LUCAS-inspired soil health monitoring protocol, adapted to the environmental specificities and stakeholder needs of the Mediterranean Region.
3. Field validation and harmonized datasets Implement the monitoring protocol in study areas representing the major agroecological regions and soil types of the Mediterranean Region, generating the first-ever large, harmonized, open-access soil ecosystem health dataset for the Mediterranean.
4. Decision support and mapping tools Demonstrate the capacity of soil data and information — integrated with legacy soil data — to feed state-of-the-art tools for sustainable soil and water management, land degradation neutrality, precision farming, and improved mapping of soil degradation, carbon stocks, and carbon sequestration potential.
5. Soil Information Systems (SIS) Design and implement standardized, country-owned soil information systems for the effective protection, management, update, visualization, use, and controlled sharing of soil data and information.