THE IMPORTANCE OF SOIL BIODIVERSITY AND BIO-INDICATION WITHIN THE EU THEMATIC STRATEGY FOR SOIL PROTECTION

摘要

The new EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection will include a strong reference to the pool of soil biodiversity as a key function of soils to be preserved. Since available knowledge on soil biodiversity is recognised as being very limited, main effort of the strategy will be in stimulating new research programmes in this field of science. Related to this will be the increased development of soil quality indicators taking into account the biological function of soils. A full range of potential bio-indicators for soil health and functioning is available but still needs to be fully explored for operation soil monitoring activities.