Evaluation of soil threats and ecosystem service evolution under climate, land use or management changes.

The internal EJP SOIL project SERENA contributed to the evaluation of soil multifunctionality aiming at providing assessment tools for land planning and soil policies at different scales. By co-working with relevant stakeholders, the project provided co-developed indicators and associated cookbooks to assess and map them, to report both on soil degradation, soil-based ecosystem services and their bundles, under actual conditions and for climate and land-use changes, at the regional, national, and European scales. Based on an intensive literature review and results from previous experiences in member states a scenario framework was developed (climate, land use, and management changes) and common methodologies (statistical methods, simple and/or more sophisticated models) were identified, used or validated to forecast how selected soil ecosystem services (SES) and soil threats (ST) will change according to climate, land-use and management changes. In contrast to WP5 we focus in WP3/Task 3 on forecasts of changes of various soil indicators on site, regional or national scale, and could rely on soil maps with high resolution that are maintained by several member states. Three countries out of 6 were able to give predictions for changes on the SES “GHG and climate regulation”. Two countries were working on the SES “Primary biomass production” and could predict changes in “Erosion control” on a national scale. “Hydrological control” and “Environmental pollution control” was predicted in one country in 2 regions. Changes in climate, land management or land use change and their effects on ST could be predicted less often. Three countries could predict the effects ofchanges on “Soil organic carbon loss” and on “Soil compaction”, two countries estimated the loss ofsoil via erosion. Only one country each could predict effects of changes on “Soil nutrient imbalance”and “Soil acidification” and “Soil sealing”. Either no appropriate model or no experience was availablefor the SES “Habitat for biodiversity” and “Pest and disease control” and for the ST’s “Waterlogging”,“Soil contamination”, “Loss of diversity” and “Salinization”.