HoliSoils facilitated improvement of forest soil health and forest soils’ contribution to climate change mitigation by means of a variety of reference materials, simulation models and tools. HoliSoils established a set of experimental study sites across different European forest ecosystems to test impacts of forest management practices on soil processes, soil health and their climate change mitigation potential. HoliSoils project equipped forest managers with evidence-based guidance for climate-smart forest management. Results were disseminated to end-users via joint excursions, site visits, seminars, round-table discussions and stakeholder events. In addition, the project extended the soil module of the Integrate+ mobile application that assists forestry practitioners to evaluate impacts of different management options on forest stands and soil.
HoliSoils’ results and tools helped national authorities to improve greenhouse gas inventories, reduce their uncertainty, and to advance climate policy targets at local, regional, national and EU levels.
These results enabled experts to improve their understanding of soil processes, especially the contribution of soil microbial biomass and diversity to soil organic matter decomposition, nutrient cycling and greenhouse gas fluxes. Furthermore, HoliSoils’ improved soil models help policy makers and forest managers better understand how soil health directly impacts climate change mitigation and forest productivity.
The HoliSoils project also improved forest ecosystem models, and knowledge on feasibility and trade-offs between conventional and climate-smart forest management. This facilitated scenario analyses that equipped policy makers and forest managers with guidance for selection of climate-smart management practices for forests across the EU.
HoliSoils provided harmonised methods for soil property characterisation, which continue to help national authorities responsible for the implementation of the EU’s Soil Monitoring Law to choose applicable methodologies e.g. for soil biodiversity monitoring. HoliSoils provided advanced methodologies for (i) soil analysis (incl. soil nutrient stock, soil organic carbon features, biomass and biodiversity of soil microorganisms and fauna), (ii) harmonised, transparent and credible soil GHG monitoring and forecasting, and (iii) assessing soil vulnerability and achieving degradation neutrality.
HoliSoils provided policy makers, forest extension services and the research community with an open access database on soil information, a web-based server to evaluate spatial soil data, an EU map of disturbance-vulnerable soils, a map of European forest soil microbial diversity and guilds, and an Ensemble soil modelling tool, where the user can simultaneously run multiple soil carbon models. HoliSoils’ tools were disseminated to end users via stakeholder events, webinars and training sessions, and bilateral meetings between researchers and stakeholders in different countries. In addition, HoliSoils together with the United Nation’s Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) programme office organised an online training session where the modelling tools were disseminated to national greenhouse gas inventory experts beyond the EU.
HoliSoils prepared many recommendations for policy and decision makers. These included policy briefs on: soil carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas fluxes; the beneficial effects of Climate-Smart Forestry practice for soil carbon dynamics; soil resilience and GHG fluxes (available in 13 languages); and the importance of harmonised forest soil sampling and assessment for the implementation of the EU Soil Monitoring Law. The policy briefs were presented and discussed with policy makers at HoliSoils Policy events in Brussels and in various meetings, events and discussions with decision makers and stakeholders in the EU Member States.
