Social, economic and cultural factors driving land management and land degradation

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• increased evidence on the main factors driving land management and land degradation as a basis for actions by policy makers, land managers and other stakeholders;
• availability of a toolbox for policy solutions to shape conditions and promote practices that are conducive to better soil health and avoid land degradation;
• enhanced capacities for risk assessment and risk management through increased awareness and knowledge on hotspots of land degradation, in particular in Europe.

Scope:

Avoiding soil degradation and fostering soil health is for a large part conditional upon the land management practices implemented by land managers, together with pressures on natural and semi-natural habitats. Those practices are framed by several factors (economic, social and cultural) and by the policies applied (agriculture, spatial planning, environment, economic, land tenure, etc.). It is necessary to understand those factors and the manner to influence them, so that farmers and other land managers in rural and urban areas are supported in implementing practices that are conducive to soil health and related ecosystem services.

Proposed activities will:

• study in-depth the role of the following factors in soil health and land degradation: (1) economic factors, e.g. in relation to subsidies and other policy instruments, the polluter pays principle, payments for ecosystem services, costs and benefits of prevention, price of agricultural products, income, land markets, land tenure and prices; (2) social factors, e.g. in relation to civil society, social cohesion, income inequality, population density, farm structures, rural economy, farm demography; (3) cultural aspects, e.g. in relation to values and norms, strength of governance and public institutions, environmental awareness, product preferences, representation of soil and land in Member State rural cultures, education;
• identify the most important aspects that drive land management and land degradation with a view to elaborate integrated approaches, policies and (funding) strategies contributing to lifting the constraints impeding soil health recovery and land improvement and enable sustainable land management;
• develop and test (interactive) tools to assess risks as well as identify and visualise hotspots of land degradation across Europe;
• provide testing grounds for the demonstration of solutions in response to specific types of land degradation^[1].

In carrying out the tasks, projects should

• take account of the diversity of land uses (agriculture, forests, abandoned land, residential, mining and industry, recreational, etc.) and of geographical diversity in the EU;
• work in an interdisciplinary manner and involve the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines (including economics, sociology, history, geography);
• include a task to collaborate with other projects financed under this topic;
• take due account of the potential of digital technologies including artificial intelligence;
• capitalise on activities and results from on-going, relevant Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects such as projects financed under Horizon 2020 RUR-03-2018 (CONSOLE^[2], Contract2.0^[3] and EFFECT^[4]) and under topic HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-13 “Modelling land use and land management in the context of climate change”.

While having a main focus on Europe, activities should tap into international expertise and encourage international cooperation, as deemed necessary to implement the above listed tasks.

[1] see objectives of Soil Deal mission: https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/implementation-plans-eu-missions_en

[2] ^{https://console-project.eu/}

[3] ^{https://www.project-contracts20.eu/}

[4] ^{https://project-effect.eu/}