Background: Europe aims at a resource-efficient and sustainable economy. Europe's Bioeconomy Strategy (2012, to be reviewed in 2017) is claimed to be a building block of a circular and more sustainable economy. The bioeconomy comprises those parts of the economy that use renewable biological resources from land and sea – such as crops, forests, fish, animals and micro-organisms – to produce food, materials and energy. The bioeconomy promises a step-change where fossil fuels are replaced with sustainable natural alternatives as part of the shift to a post-petroleum society.
The bioeconomy enables independence from finite fossil resources, however, it relies crucially on the provision of biomass and energy to be provided by the soil-sediment-water-system and the rivers and seas. In particular, the capacities of soils and their sustainable potentials to enable a bioeconomy with adequate agriculture and foresting are critical.
By taking an integrated systemic approach, there is a need extend the understanding of the complex and interrelated factors involved throughout the biomass production and consumption chain. There is an urgent need to put in place measures to better understand and limit risks and environmental impacts (e.g. understanding and minimizing negative externalities) and better cope with varying conditions and seize opportunities for new ways of production, while respecting the sustainable limits of soils to provide the renewable resources. Not least, the socio-economic drivers and inhibitors (e.g. related to regulation and acceptance) of changing to a sustainable bioeconomy need to be considered comprehensively to understand the next to the technological also the societal potentials and limits of intensification of soil use in order to accordingly steer production as well as behavioral change in agriculture, industrial processing and consumption effectively.
Goal: Unleash the potentials of soils to sustain a bio-economy in Europe by better understanding soil and economic systems in order to derive more sustainable land management, biomass production and consumption
Rationale from the themes: Demand: Europe demands resources for the satisfaction of most societal needs. Soil can provide the produce for food, energy, fibres and products being basic to modern civilization. Access to safe and nutritious food is both a basic human need and a human right. As society has an increasing demand for soil products, practice demands more efficient production means (Agriculture 4.0, GMO). Bio-Economy also needs to show how bio-based produced goods can substitute conventional fossil-based products in order to satisfy societies’ demands (e.g. building materials, fuels). At the same time, soil is demanded as space for living, infrastructures but also for recreation, therefore, enough soils with sufficient soil quality have to be available to satisfy the different – competing – demands.
Natural Capital: Soils are a limited resource not only by their extent but in particular if a bioeconomy is concerned with regard to their ability to provide soil services, such as provisioning of resources for bio-based products. To efficiently exploit soil’s potential, it is necessary to understand the soil system with its functions, which are basic to the services, in their interrelation and reaction to pressures such as increasing demand, fertilization, changed crops and soil management patterns. We need to understand the limits to which soils can be exploited and intensively used without endangering the stability of the soil functions and soil quality, thereby ensuring effective soil protection.
Land Management: The competing demands for soils on the one hand, and the trade-off of limited soil capacity to provide resources with the increasing demand for biological resources requires land management decision support on different levels from farm (What to produce and how?) to local and regional (Which soils to protect? What shall be produced where?) to national and European level (Which incentives to give? How to protect soils and at same time support job and satisfaction of societal needs? How to regulate bioeconomy?). On the production level questions are urgent on sustainable land management, e.g. which and how intensively to use fertilizers or GMO. Moreover, critical stakeholders and actors of the bioeconomy and their interaction need to be understood and addressed.
Net Impact: The impact of a change to bio-economy has drastic consequences, which need to be assessed with adequate data, based on suitable indicators and methods. Such assessment is to inform and alert about the local to global impacts of changes in soil-use and land management in Europe. In particular, the potential trade-offs and synergies of ecosystem protection and satisfaction of societal challenges towards a shift from petrol to bio-based economy need to be better understood, measured, monitored and addressed. At the same time, the socio-economic adaptation process, including cultural gaps, need to be better understood.
So what? Fossil resources are limited and in the long run alternatives are needed. Soils can provide bio-based resources, but their provisioning needs to be sustained as an overuse of soils must be prevented, because this could deeply impact the soil system functioning. If we do not find efficient means to utilized the potentials of soils to supply enough produce to satisfy society’s demands, severe competition of needs will need to be managed.
Links to other fields: Next to soil, also water and sediments are used in a bio-economy and research is linked to the broader system.