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Project Code [2013-SL-DS-2]

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Project title

Soil Status and Protection

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

n/a

Lead Organisation

Teagasc

Lead Applicant

Rachel Creamer

Project Abstract

The protection of soils is of paramount importance due to their important role in many ecosystem services, such as food and fibre production, water infiltration and quality, C sequestration, habitat of biodiversity etc. At European level soil protection has been recognised as a vital, to continue to maintain the quality of soils into the future. The Soil Framework Directive addresses the key threats to soil quality, unfortunately this Directive is not yet implemented and it is important to know what other current legislation and policies both nationally and at European level address soil protection issues. The objectives of this desk study are to review the current EU and Irish legislations, policies and available data which assess or encompass soil protection issues for Ireland. In addition a review of existing data from soil based projects funded to date in Ireland will be completed and this will identify any gaps in knowledge or data. From this assessment of soil based projects, this project will develop a meta-catalogue of existing soil data in Ireland and propose potential soil monitoring options for future research. The main outputs of this desk study have been described in the above work packges and include: WP0 - Final report, synthesis report and project website. WP1 - 1 peer reviewed paper (environmental science and policy), policy note on soil legislation via SSSI. WP2 - Soils online meta-data catalogue available to the public WP3 � Soil monitoring network proposal document - providing options for future soil monitoring schemes in Ireland WP4 � Stakeholder workshop at month 10 which will ask each stakeholder group to provide a summary of the requirements of soil and will present the findings of the project.

Grant Approved

�73,855.59

Research Hub

Natural Environment

Research Theme

Soils and Land-Use

Start Date

24/02/2014

Initial Projected Completion Date

24/02/2015