Predicting soil health to protect ecosystems

Data, Tools towards Action for Soil Health

PHISHES seeks to bridge the gap between soil health data and actions, providing much-needed predictive capability in terms of the consequences of actions on the provision of soil functions and associated ecosystem services, taking into account soil use, soil contamination and various drivers such as climate change.

At the heart of PHISHES, there is the development of the PHISHES Digital Platform (PDP) to promote soil health on European territory. Its main goal is to provide a generally applicable yet transparent methodology that eases the use of advanced numerical modelling tools for such purposes at any location in Europe, and that allows decision-makers to assess the effects of various measures on soil health.

The PHISHES Digital Platform (PDP) hosts:

• a set of pipelines for data preparation and data management at both local and EU level (input for coherent model parameters);
• a set of code for innovative model trains (that perform simulations at local and basin scale);
• supporting tools; and
• an approach to scenario analysis to quantify the impacts of certain drivers and measures on targeted soil functions and Ecosystem Services (ES).

A Key Scientific Question

The core scientific challenge addressed by PHISHES is:

“How do soil use and soil contamination influence soil functions and associated ecosystem services, in the presence of major drivers such as climate change, and how can we predict the impacts of mitigation and adaptation measures?”.

By providing a methodology that uses quantitative predictive tools, the project will enable stakeholders and decision makers to evaluate the effects of possible actions such as changed agricultural practices, land restoration, or pollution mitigation measures, with the goal of preserving soil health and improving soil function impacts on associated ecosystem services. Indeed, the results of the scenario simulations of the PHISHES real-life case studies, demonstrate how the methodology made available by the PHISHES Digital Platform (PDP) can generate evidence to inform policy recommendations specifically aimed at promoting soil health, enhancing ecosystem services, and mitigating the effects of contamination and climate change.

Real-Life Case Studies

To ensure practical application and relevance, the PHISHES methodology is applied and tested in four case studies across Europe, focusing on diverse environmental challenges:

• The Zelivka River Basin in the Czech Republic, analysing soil management’s influence on drinking water quality at catchment scale.
• The Koprzywianka River in Poland, covering water withdrawals / irrigation on agricultural land.
• The Airport in Örnsköldsvik in Sweden, looking at efficiency of mitigation measures of PFAS contamination at sub catchment scale.
• The Rotterdam Urban Area in the Netherlands, evaluating the use of green infrastructure to improve resilience and sustainability of urban environments.

Additionally, a Soil Laboratory in France will examine the fate and transport of PFAS from soil to groundwater under controlled conditions.

The real-world case studies demonstrate how the PHISHES project methodology provides valuable insights into sustainable soil management. Moreover, with its focus on translating scientific findings into evidence that can inform policy recommendations, PHISHES represents a significant advance in the preservation of soil health and the sustainability of ecosystem services.