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Forests play an important role in the carbon cycle and contain a substantial proportion of terrestrial biodiversity. Climate change and land use, however, are altering biodiversity and carbon cycling. Rising temperatures, for example, increase decomposition and thus carbon fluxes, while the opposite is expected from loss of decomposer biodiversity as land-use intensity increases. The EU-funded BIOCOMP project will study exactly how climate change and land use interactively shape decomposer communities, decomposition rates and carbon fluxes from wood decomposition. BIOCOMP will quantify changes in decomposer biodiversity and decomposition rates by conducting experiments in the field and in walk-in climate chambers.

A deeper understanding of the interactions between soils and plants, especially at the root zone, where they take up water and nutrients may support sustainable intensification of agricultural production. Research is indicating that a greater understanding of roots and soil functions may lead to increases in crop yields, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from soils, enhanced productivity in grasslands and reductions in fertiliser requirements to land. However, data gaps remain in our understanding of how plant roots interact with their environment from a physiological and phenotypic perspective. Plant Phenotyping has been described as the bottleneck to food security, yet the real bottleneck to plant phenotyping is thought to be image analysis and processing. The challenge of ensuring food security provides the impetus for ROOTED (Root Phenotyping Integrated Educational Doctoral Network). ROOTED will apply deep learning and artificial intelligence to speed up data generation in root phenotyping.

The FENIX project will optimise Biochar for different soils using AD digestate. FENIX will demonstrate its soil improver's agronomic and economic returns in field tests (TRL 8) in three countries in the West and South of Europe. FENIX brings together partners that cover the full value chain and with entrepreneurs who will be ready to take up the project results. Successful completion of the project will contribute to the recovery of abandoned poor soils, increase the EU’s soil quality and water retention capacity, climate change mitigation, secure and independent energy supply, and sustainable bio-waste management.

The overall aim of ECHO is to engage EU citizens in soil health, increasing their knowledge by generating new data on the health status of EU soils to complement existing soil mapping and soil monitoring in EU Member States and awareness of the ecological and societal importance of soils. ECHO is based on three main principles: to engage citizens by motivating them to protect and restore soils, to empower citizens by providing knowledge and an active role in data collection, and to enable citizens to directly participate in decision-making on soil issues. ECHO will achieve this through co-creation with target societal groups as a cornerstone of delivering a step change in increased soil literacy in society.

LOESS will map, connect and engage with multiple actors in Communities of Practice (CoPs) to provide an overview of the current level of soil related knowledge in different educational levels and develop teaching programmes and materials including an Atlas of Soil Education. LOESS will explore educational needs amongst school pupils (primary and secondary levels), students (tertiary level) and young professionals, and society across the European Union and Horizon Europe Associated Countries. LOESS will investigate why existing material is not used to a greater extent and co-create courses and modules for soil education, including virtual reality/augmented reality applications.