The threat of desertification is escalating in Europe. But, despite its risks to agriculture, the environment and rural communities, policies do not yet address the issue directly or effectively.
Hermann Kam, TERRASAFE project member and Policy Analyst with the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), explains the gaps in European desertification policy, and considers the opportunities for policymakers to bring the problem under control.
How urgent is the problem of desertification in Europe?
Desertification needs immediate action. Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world, and nearly a quarter of its land is vulnerable to degradation. We’re also getting more extreme heat, droughts and threats to water security. All these things make land more susceptible to desertification.
We’re already seeing the consequences of desertification. We have areas where soil has become less fertile, often due to agricultural intensification, which has led to impacts on food security and migration of people from rural communities. A study found close links between soil erosion, land abandonment and depopulation in regions such as the Spanish Pyrenees and southern Italy.
In addition, desertification heightens drought risks and water scarcity, harms biodiversity too and makes it harder to tackle climate change. Once soil becomes degraded, it releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – that’s significant when you consider that around 1 billion tonnes of soil get degraded annually in Europe.
So, unless policymakers take more urgent action against desertification, it will continue to exacerbate these big environmental and societal problems.
“The big disconnect between policies weakens
their overall impact on desertification.”
What are the issues with current policies to tackle desertification in Europe?
The issue is not that policymakers necessarily underestimate the problem. Nor is it that they neglect it as such. The issue is that they deal with it in quite a sectoral, siloed way. This is what we explain in our report the Increasing Threat of Desertification to Europe, which reviews the landscape of desertification policies.
Because desertification has such wide-ranging impacts, and so many drivers, different policy departments deal with each impact and driver individually.
For example, at the EU level, the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) looks at things like soil erosion and water management for irrigation. Then the Water Framework Directive looks at the mismanagement of water resources more broadly.
On top of these, you have policies like the Nature Restoration Law and others that support biodiversity and encourage reforestation, or tree planting. These have a key role, as does the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation because it encourages us to increase our carbon stock in the soil and promote better soil health through measures such as agroforestry and reforestation.
The big disconnect between these policies weakens their overall impact on desertification, however. And they don’t tend to mention combatting desertification or land degradation as an objective.
Another issue is that no policies set binding targets to tackle desertification. Notably, the proposed Soil Monitoring Directive will not require EU member states to meet legally binding targets for soil quality. These would give member states a bigger imperative to act. Moreover, the proposed Directive is currently facing an impasse, with the European Parliament, Council, and Commission going through tough negotiations.
As it is, member states will not have to change their actions if – through their monitoring – they discover that their soils as unhealthy. We’re also concerned that countries are not expected to monitor and measure often enough.
“We want to shed more light on what policymakers can do
to help bring desertification under control and
reduce its impacts on society.”
What is the way forward for policymakers?
What we really need is a unified approach to combatting desertification – a joined-up model where desertification is directly considered in laws.
The Soil Monitoring Directive is actually a move in the right direction. It links up a range of existing policies around the environment, agriculture and biodiversity – such as the CAP and the Water Framework Directive.
But it is not stringent enough to tackle desertification. We also need binding targets, which the Directive doesn’t provide.
Of course, desertification is not all down to the EU and policymakers. The UNCCD COP16 highlighted the role of the private sector and financial institutions, alongside countries, to tackle the issue.
And one thing we explore in TERRASAFE is countries’ National Action Plans for combatting desertification under the UNCCD. We’ll do this for five countries, Cyprus, Italy, Romania, Spain and Tunisia. We’ll also consider how our five proposed measures for combatting desertification could be scaled up in these regions.
We want to shed more light on what policymakers can do to help bring desertification under control and reduce its impacts on society.
Read about the latest state of desertification policy in Europe and the opportunities for change in TERRASAFE’s policy brief:
> The increasing threat of desertification to Europe (2025) by Hermann Kam and Melanie Muro, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (free to view).
