Costing the Earth: the Threat to Europe's Soils

It’s no coincidence that the word “earth” is used for both the soil and the planet we live on. Soil is vital to supporting human life on earth. Soil is literally one of the foundations for our economic prosperity and our quality of life. All our human activities are somehow related to soil. Soil is an important habitat and gene pool - more than 5 tonnes of live organisms can exist in a hectare of arable soil. Natural processes can take more than 500 years to form two centimetres of topsoil- which is the most productive soil layer.