The EU soil strategy for 2030 sets out a framework and concrete measures to protect and restore soils and ensure that they are used sustainably. It sets a vision and objectives to achieve healthy soils by 2050, with concrete actions by 2030. Parallelly, ESA has long taken the commitment to monitor and service the soil restauration requirements with the Earth observation means and technologies set in place, particularly through Copernicus.

This ESA Symposium seeks the following objectives:

1. To frame the usability of Earth observation technologies for soil protection and restauration requirements targeted by international and EU related policies, including monitoring, reporting and verification.

2. To present and evaluate the WORLDSOILS Soil Organic Carbon Monitoring System for SOC prediction over bare and permanently covered soils, and the lessons learnt from validation case studies.

3. To gather evolution requirements of EO based soil monitoring systems and options for sustained operations and business models.

4. To prospect ways for a downstream service to support national and European agencies for reporting on soil health/quality and thus, contribute to the Land Degradation Monitoring and reporting on Sustainable Development Goal 15.3.1.

5. To showcase the capacity of satellite remote sensing, alone or combined, for monitoring, validating, reporting or verifying of other specific soil components.

The parallel sessions seek the widest participation from submitted Abstracts, following the logic of the EU Soil Science and policy framework. The preliminary programme can be found here.

For more information on the symposium, abstract submission and registration, visit our website.

Abstract submission deadline: 3 December 2023

Registration is now open!  Closure:  2 February 2024