SOIL:OurInvisibleAlly

Soil is a mostly overlooked, yet indispensable ally for the achievement of climate resilience (CR): healthy & living soils provide & support ecosystem services, improve biodiversity, mitigate CC effects on society & the environment, & support healthy living conditions. 

EU wide legislation as EU Soil Monitoring & Resilience Directive, Soil Strategy 2030, Action Plan of the Alpine Convention Soil Protection Working Group (AC-SWG) or EUSALP AG6/7 activities show the urgency of soil action. It is particularly needed in mountain areas where soil & space are especially scarce & threatened. For these frameworks, the governance level for integrated, cross-sectoral implementation of sustainable soil management (SSM) is the level of municipalities. Together with multipliers, they are key target group to trigger SSM & change governance & stewardship for local socio-environmental breakthroughs. 

A vast amount of knowledge exists, yet scattered, not yet streamlined & adapted to the use in spatial planning practices. The challenge is to transfer existing Know-How into concrete & comparable Do-How, followed by a change of standard practices & replication activities. SOIL:OurInvisibleAlly (SOIL) will strive to provide & distribute Alpine-wide SSM solutions through: 
- Compiling a selection of tangible, established best practice examples of Alpine SSM 
- Streamline Do-How for municipalities & others, motivating them to apply the new SSM in joint case-studies 
- Spreading & embedding a new SSM-culture & enhancing soil policies through diverse & innovative communication means, arts and culture.

The consortium is ideally composed, representing researchers, landowners, municipal & regional players & dissemination platforms, throughout the Alpine region. 

The result is a significant increase in awareness & readiness levels in municipalities & affiliated stakeholders, the status of soil preservation & protection, as well as local SSM practices & policies for CC mitigation & adaptation.