Policy conditions and catalogues of existing soil health economic and policy incentives

The issue of soil health is increasingly at the center of public and political discourse at European and national level. The social and environmental cost of soil degradation is estimated at EUR 50 billion per year in Europe alone, demonstrating the importance of soil in sustaining livelihoods, supporting biodiversity, and regulating the Earth's climate.1 To date, efforts to place a monetary value on the ecosystem services provided by healthy soil have been rare.2 It is crucial to reconsider the concept of healthy soil and to make the business community, politicians and public administration see soil as an investment opportunity for high quality services that are environmentally and resource friendly.Regulatory policies, legislative frameworks, financial instruments, and economic models are the key tools to promote and facilitate public and private investment in healthy soil. In particular, the review of the policy and legislative framework at different scales of government offers an opportunity to understand the mechanisms to encourage the maintenance and further diffusion of techniques that improve soil health. A greater understanding of the actual effects of policies and incentives on soil health will improve understanding of the effectiveness of policies and incentives to maintain and restore soil health and will also serve as a basis for developing and improving the implementation of soil health policies and certification schemes.The InBestSoil project aims to co-create a framework for investments in soil health preservation and restoration by developing a system for the economic valuation of the ecosystem services provided by healthy soil and the impacts of soil interventions, and its incorporation into business models and incentives. By analyzing policy requirements, barriers and enabling factors, as well as economic incentive programs aiming at sustainable soil management and preservation/restoration of soil health, the existing policies and economic incentives for soil health were reviewed through horizontal mapping and semi-structured interview mapping. The analysis helps to establish what types of methods are used to assess the effectiveness of soil intervention methods, the models and indicator analyses performed and other types of factors influencing the performance of public and private investment promotion in soil health.