Soil Monitoring Law

Directive (EU) 2025/2360 establishes an EU‑wide, harmonised framework to monitor, assess and improve soil health and soil resilience, and to manage contaminated sites, recognising soil as a vital, limited and effectively non‑renewable resource. It defines healthy soils as those in good physical, chemical and biological condition able to provide essential ecosystem services (food and biomass production, water filtration, nutrient cycling, carbon storage and biodiversity habitat).

The Directive responds to the estimate that 60–70% of EU soils are degraded, with degradation including sealing/artificialisation, erosion, compaction, reduced water retention/infiltration, nutrient imbalance, salinisation, contamination, and losses of soil organic carbon and biodiversity. Its aspirational long‑term objective is to achieve healthy soils by 2050, but it does not impose a legal obligation on Member States to reach that outcome or to meet intermediate binding targets. Instead, it prioritises building a robust knowledge base via soil districts/soil units, coordinated monitoring and periodic assessment, supported by EU initiatives (including Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe”) and aligned with the Green Deal, biodiversity, climate adaptation and zero‑pollution ambitions.

Relevance to bio-waste and/or circular bioeconomy:

The Directive supports a circular bioeconomy by promoting healthy, low‑contamination soils that can safely sustain biomass production and ecosystem services central to bio-based value chains. By tackling soil contamination and degradation drivers and improving monitoring of soil condition (including soil organic matter/carbon relevance), it creates stronger safeguards and evidence for the responsible land application and nutrient cycling benefits of biowaste-derived inputs (e.g., compost/digestate) within sustainable soil management.

 EU

Full title: Directive (EU) 2025/2360 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 November 2025 on soil monitoring and resilience (Soil Monitoring Law)

Publication date: 2025

Instrument type: Directive

Binding for EU MS: Yes

Keywords: soil health, soil monitoring, soil resilience, soil degradation, contaminated sites, remediation, soil organic carbon, biomass, circular bioeconomy, zero pollution