SOLO partners Shaswati Chowdhury, Katharina Helming, Roger Roca Vallejo and Jenni Hultman, co-authored an article titled “Drivers of soil health across European Union - Data from the literature review”, alongside Karen Nicph Mora, Taina Pannen, and Antti-Jussi Lindroos. Written in 2024, published in Elsevier, and available in the SOLO library, the article delves into the critical state of soil health across Europe, highlighting the findings of a comprehensive literature review that identifies key drivers influencing soil health in various land use types. 

One of the most commonly cited facts about soil in recent times is the European Union’s estimate that 60-70% of all European soils are unhealthy, signalling that soil health has reached a critical point. Contributing factors to soil health and related ecosystems include the intensity and quality of land use management. To analyse soil health dynamics, an understanding of the drivers inducing changes in land use and management is required. 

DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, and Response model of intervention) is a framework widely used in environmental science and policy analysis. It provides a structured approach to understanding the relationships between human activities, environmental conditions, and societal responses. It aims to analyse environmental problems by weaving together various scientific disciplines, environmental managers, and stakeholders, and incorporating sustainable development (meeting the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations). 

The DPSIR framework was adapted to the context of soil health in the European Union (EU) and applied as an analytical tool to identify the drivers of soil health. This article is an analysis of the meta-data of a literature review which was conducted and divided into four parts, each dedicated to a different land use type (urban and industrial, agriculture, forest, and nature). The review was made using the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) protocol, which is a set of guidelines designed to improve the transparency, consistency, and quality of reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. 

The identified drivers for all land uses have been refined and standardised through both in-person and online workshops. This has created a meta-data set presenting the typology of drivers sorted according to the EU soil mission’s soil health objectives, land use type, and location. The literature review was carried out as part of the SOLO.