Biodiversity/Des sols et des sous-sols fragilisés
Des sols et des sous-sols fragilisés

Des sols et des sous-sols fragilisés

Le sol joue un rôle déterminant dans nos écosystèmes. C’est un habitat pour la faune et la flore qu’il est nécessaire de protéger. Les sols et sous-sol se situent au cœur des grands enjeux environnementaux, comme la disponibilité en eau de qualité, la préservation de la biodiversité, la sécurité alimentaire ou la lutte contre le changement climatique, et ne se renouvellent que très lentement.

Soil plays a decisive role in our ecosystems. It is a habitat for fauna and flora that must be protected. Soils and subsoils are at the heart of major environmental challenges, such as the availability of quality water, biodiversity conservation, food security, and climate change mitigation, and they renew only very slowly.
3 chapters
  • Soils degraded by human activities
    Soils and subsoils degrade due to human activities such as agriculture, forest exploitation, industry, housing construction, and changes in land use. More broadly, it is soil artificialisation—the conversion of natural soil into built or developed land—that is responsible.
  • Land artificialisation
    Today, 8.3% of land is artificialised, and most of it is impermeable, preventing water circulation, such as in parking lots or buildings. However, the rate of artificialisation has slowed since the 2010s because society has become aware of the problem.
  • The "net zero artificialisation" objective
    The 2021 "Climate and resilience" law thus set the objective of "net zero artificialisation" to better manage land and limit the consumption of natural, agricultural, and forest spaces. The goal is to ban any net soil artificialisation over a given period by 2050.
    This does not mean stopping all construction, but such artificialisation must be accompanied by restoration of natural soil over an equal proportion of already artificialised spaces.

Further reading