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Costing the Earth: the Threat to Europe's Soils

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Subido el 27 de julio de 2007 por EducaMadrid

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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.

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Arnold Hertog and his wife Huguette have always loved tending their garden in the small Flemish town of Sintermans, not far from Brussels. 00:00:00
But the garden hasn't always looked like this. 00:00:07
In 1998, the couple were told that their home, along with more than a hundred neighbouring houses, was sitting on an environmental time bomb. 00:00:10
It was discovered that the earth was contaminated with poisonous compounds, including arsenic and mercury. 00:00:18
We stopped our career without a single sick day. 00:00:30
Arsenic levels were 400 times the permitted amounts for a residential area. 00:01:00
Lead and mercury 100 times too high. 00:01:05
The potential long-term risks were considered too great. 00:01:08
So after consultations with the residents, and despite the disruption involved, 00:01:11
the Flemish environmental authorities considered the only acceptable solution was to remove the contaminated gardens. 00:01:16
The years that I didn't work there, you just sit there. 00:01:30
You always think, the fact that I've already done it, I'm lost. 00:01:34
They were all lost years. 00:01:38
But yes, we didn't stop. 00:01:40
But yes, we also assumed that if it was necessary, it had to be done. 00:01:44
There's no going back. 00:01:48
It's for us as well as for others. 00:01:50
It's for everyone. 00:01:52
Arnold Hertog kept a video record of the whole operation. 00:01:54
First, memories of the flourishing old garden, and then the day in summer 2005, 00:01:57
when the bulldozers finally moved in. 00:02:02
Trees were cut down and the plants ripped out. 00:02:08
Even the garden shed had to be taken away. 00:02:12
Then excavations began, and a deep layer of topsoil was removed 00:02:15
before new earth could be brought in and the grass restored. 00:02:19
First, 75 centimetres were excavated. 00:02:27
Then a layer of foil was laid. 00:02:29
And on top of that, good soil, 00:02:31
good soil that was extensively chemically checked, 00:02:34
was brought back. 00:02:38
And that's soil that's actually pure, 00:02:40
that can be used for all functions, 00:02:42
both grass, playground and vegetable garden. 00:02:45
The Flemish public waste agency, OVAM, only discovered the problem in Sint Hermans 00:02:50
when it began to compile a register of polluted soils 00:02:54
and introduced a system of soil certification for every property sale. 00:02:57
The inventory aims to identify and solve problems at an early stage 00:03:02
and provides people buying land with information to make an informed purchase. 00:03:06
In Flanders, our region is relatively small 00:03:13
and has been pretty heavy industrialised since the last two centuries. 00:03:16
So, I mean, that makes it for us quite important 00:03:20
to be able to talk about soil quality 00:03:23
because a lot of that old industries have contaminated the land. 00:03:26
And, I mean, there's just too little land left 00:03:30
just to go to greenfields all the time 00:03:32
and just leave those old sites derelict. 00:03:34
22,000 soil investigations have now been carried out in Flanders 00:03:37
and 2,000 clean-up projects approved. 00:03:41
Polluted earth is taken either to landfill sites 00:03:44
or to a giant cleaning plant where the soil is filtered and tested 00:03:47
before then being reused for industrial projects. 00:03:50
There may be as many as 3.5 million potentially contaminated sites around Europe. 00:03:58
Not every country cares for its soils in the way Flanders now does. 00:04:03
Europe's soil is being damaged and degraded at an alarming rate. 00:04:06
So now the European Commission is proposing a Europe-wide soil strategy 00:04:10
to include new legislation to protect and restore 00:04:14
what is essentially a non-renewable resource. 00:04:17
We have to protect the soil 00:04:21
if we are to protect our health, our water, our food 00:04:25
and the richness of Europe's nature. 00:04:31
Our strategy does this in a comprehensive and holistic way 00:04:36
by creating a common legal framework to protect it. 00:04:43
The new European Directive will require each EU country 00:04:47
to prepare an inventory of risks to the soil 00:04:50
based on Europe-wide criteria 00:04:52
and to draw up prevention and remediation programmes. 00:04:54
One of the main threats is erosion 00:04:57
and also the serious reduction in organic matter, 00:04:59
both made worse by inappropriate farming methods. 00:05:01
Salinisation is another threat caused by intensive irrigation 00:05:05
which can seriously affect the fertility of the soil. 00:05:08
Soil compaction and sealing are a result of heavy traffic and urbanisation 00:05:11
and of course contamination. 00:05:15
Professor Mark Kibberwhite is a British soil scientist 00:05:18
who has been a key advisor on the new EU soil strategy. 00:05:21
Just look into this soil, if I just tease it apart and you have a look inside 00:05:25
and you see all those roots and plant residues that are decaying 00:05:29
because microbes are decomposing them. 00:05:33
Well, those microbes are doing work for us. 00:05:36
They're taking, for example, pollutants 00:05:39
that might have come from the atmosphere and degrading them 00:05:41
and that's what I see. 00:05:44
I see a living system which is alive and in my hand 00:05:45
and that's what we've got to care for. 00:05:48
An impressive soil atlas has been compiled as part of the new protection plan 00:05:51
which charts more than 300 different types of soils in Europe. 00:05:55
The computer-generated maps show that large parts of the total land area of the EU 00:05:59
are damaged in one way or another. 00:06:04
There are a range of threats to our European soils. 00:06:06
We need to be concerned about all of those 00:06:10
but, for example, if we look at organic matter in soils, 00:06:13
this is generally in decline across Europe. 00:06:16
This map shows the levels of organic carbon in the north and the south. 00:06:19
In the south there are some areas where the organic carbon is so low 00:06:23
that the soil effectively has become dysfunctional, no longer works properly. 00:06:27
We have an emerging desert-type situation. 00:06:31
On the other hand, this map shows the extent of erosion in different parts of Europe 00:06:35
and altogether we have really quite a serious erosion problem. 00:06:41
Erosion is the loss of topsoil through rain or wind 00:06:46
but it's made much worse by bad farming practices such as inappropriate ploughing. 00:06:49
In a rainstorm here in Andalusia, 00:06:54
20 tonnes of soil can be washed off just one hectare of land, 00:06:56
causing the organic content, the nutrients of the soil, to be lost 00:07:00
and nitrates, phosphates and pesticides run down into the water system. 00:07:04
The topsoil is the part that matters most. 00:07:08
Once it's gone it can take several thousand years for just a few centimetres to reform. 00:07:11
These days some Spanish farmers are trying out more environmentally friendly farming practices. 00:07:16
Olive trees are interplanted with wheat to preserve the goodness and stabilise the soil. 00:07:22
Here a crop of chickpeas is planted on top of last year's crop residue. 00:07:28
Now, even in heavy rain, the soil is no longer being washed away. 00:07:32
These are the sort of projects which the European Commission hopes will start to be adopted widely across Europe. 00:07:37
We want to ensure that soil stays healthy for future generations 00:07:43
and remains capable of performing the enormous functions 00:07:49
on which our ecosystems, our quality of life and our economic activities depend. 00:07:58
The people in Sintermans in Belgium certainly know how precious soil is. 00:08:08
They know now that their newly laid gardens are clean and safe. 00:08:12
And saving soil is also saving money. 00:08:16
The whole five-year programme to replace the contaminated earth in Sintermans 00:08:18
is costing the Flemish authorities more than 11 million euro. 00:08:22
A hefty price tag and the sort of bill the European Commission hopes can be avoided in future 00:08:26
once Europe really starts to care for its soil. 00:08:32
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Idioma/s:
en
Niveles educativos:
▼ Mostrar / ocultar niveles
      • Nivel Intermedio
Autor/es:
The European Union
Subido por:
EducaMadrid
Licencia:
Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
Visualizaciones:
735
Fecha:
27 de julio de 2007 - 14:19
Visibilidad:
Público
Enlace Relacionado:
European Commission
Duración:
08′ 37″
Relación de aspecto:
4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
Resolución:
448x336 píxeles
Tamaño:
44.84 MBytes

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