Soil Restoration and Monitoring Guidelines

Many of these degradation processes originate or manifest within the belowground ecosystem compartment. Given that an estimated 3% of European soils are already degraded, decreasing soil health may represent a fundamental underlying cause of forest decline. Despite the growing recognition of the need for forest restoration, comprehensive guidelines that integrate soil health into monitoring and restoration practices remain limited. Within the framework of the EU Horizon 2020 SUPERB project, we have gained valuable insights into how restoration efforts - across varying scales and contexts - impact belowground ecosystem dynamics. This report provides a synthesis of the main findings derived from our work conducted within the framework of the SUPERB project. We illustrate the findings in an integrated table discussing expected impacts of restoration measures on physical, chemical, and biological aspects of soil health. Additionally, we propose a monitoring scheme for selected scalable indicators to support long-term assessment of soil health. We emphasize the need for context-explicit restoration measures that take into account the inherent capacity of the soil, rather than applying blanket treatments.