Healthy soils fulfil important functions, for which they are considered to provide ecosystem services, a concept introduced to raise awareness of nature’s role in sustaining human activities and ensuring our well-being.
These functions include life support for biodiversity, including bacteria, plants, fungi, animals and people; the provision of water, nutrients, building materials, etc. through activities such as agriculture, livestock, forestry and mining. It is also important the function in regulation of climate, water resources, and the buffering of pollution, such as that produced by heavy metals (lead, zinc, cadmium), metalloids (arsenic), or tar, with potential effects on health through direct contact or through food grown on urban soils. Nor should we forget that soils provide cultural services, as they support recreational or tourism activities or become part of our cultural heritage.
Despite the important role they play and the richness they represent, soils are subject to a wide range of degradation processes that diminish their health, defined as the good physical, chemical and biological state that allows them to perform these functions Thus, the European Union Strategy for Soil Protection 2030 published in 2021 highlighted the importance of soils as a resource to be preserved, and warned that 60-70% of European soils could not be considered “healthy” soils, as did the 2006 Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection, which, however, was not sufficient to guarantee protection for soil in the same way as for water, the atmosphere or the seas and oceans.
At Kveloce we wanted to do our bit for the preservation of soil health through the TICSOIL project, funded by the Valencian Innovation Agency (Programme for the Promotion of Talent (Plan GenT 2021/2023, project INNTA2/2021/9), which aimed to investigate the impact of citizen science activities related to urban soils, specifically on the degree of knowledge and awareness of citizens, and on the potential behavioural changes for the preservation of this resource.
Through this project, we have carried out an analysis of 13 different citizen science initiatives, carried out not only in Spain, but also beyond its borders, from the European Union to the United States and Tanzania. For each of the initiatives or projects analysed, a file has been prepared in which criteria such as their relevance, the results obtained, the impacts generated, their long-term sustainability, and the potential and limitations for their application in other contexts or places were taken into account. The analysis highlighted the potential of citizen science to generate quality results, to raise awareness of the importance of soils, and to generate networks and new projects. However, its replication elsewhere is often limited by the need for specific devices and infrastructures as well as profiles or professional qualifications, and the lack of accessible guides or materials.
Regarding accessibility, the use of ICT platforms should also be highlighted, as they are tools used in many citizen science initiatives due to their capacity to collect and store data from a large number of devices and locations simultaneously. Most of the platforms analysed were freely accessible, allowing anyone with basic knowledge to start a project in a simple way, and including tools for communication with participants or even for recognising and rewarding contributions. However, the exploration of various existing platforms for citizen science has shown us that ICT can also represent a barrier to the implementation of the project itself due to the costs related to the development of a specific platform for the data we want to collect, hosting maintenance, or the continuous monitoring to solve problems related to usability; and for the participants due to the digital gap that exists in some groups.
Although many citizen science initiatives have emerged in recent years, some of them funded through the European Commission within Cluster 6 and the “Widera” actions (Widening participation and spreading excellence), there are still few dedicated to the study of soils, and especially urban soils. However, the picture is changing, and the Mission: a Soil Deal for Europe recognizes the important role of citizens in protecting soils, the need to generate a literacy and awareness of their value and the importance in improving soil health, to reward good practices and to strengthen participation, through the establishment of living laboratories and lighthouses as demonstration and co-creation scenarios including citizen science practices to generate scientific data.
The Mission’s calls for proposals closed in September 2023 and we will have to wait the next work programme (2025-2026) for new funding opportunities to open up, but in the meantime we will continue to work to apply the knowledge gained in TICSOIL, and to promote actions that improve the health of our soils.