The new EU soil strategy for 2030 is a key deliverable of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030. It will contribute to the objectives of the European Green Deal. Healthy soils are essential for achieving climate neutrality, a clean and circular economy and halting desertification and land degradation.
They are also essential to reverse biodiversity loss, provide healthy food and safeguard human health.
The devastating consequences of soil sealing can be seen more clearly every year: Flooding because rain cannot seep away sufficiently, so-called heat islands with temperatures of over 60 degrees in cities, because concrete and asphalt heat up. ORF Weltweit reporters Diana Weidlinger, Jörg Winter and Patrick A. Hafner report about this topic from the Netherlands, Great Britain and Greece.
The weather in the Netherlands is becoming increasingly extreme. Heavy rainfall and long periods of heat and drought follow one another. In addition, the Dutch increasingly face problems such as heat stress and flooding, because the living environment is highly urbanised. All those stones do not cool down on a hot day and do not let water through when it rains. That rainwater can then overload the sewers or run into basements. More vegetation counteracts this.
In the Netherlands Diana Weidlinger joins a so called ‘tile lifting’ day in an Amsterdam neighbourhood. Tiles are lifted in gardens and on the side of buildings to make place for plants. Even a national championship for tile lifting is set up and nowadays far more than 1 million tiles are lifted and removed per year in the Netherlands.
Biodiversity is also under pressure in cities, partly due to the decline of green space. Green in a city is not only important for biodiversity, but also for keeping the city liveable. The city of Amsterdam is in the process of improving green spaces, also trying to take biodiversity into account by creating ecological connections.. Green roofs could potentially serve as an ecological connection. However, little research has been done on biodiversity on green roofs. For instance, little is yet known about which species all occur on green roofs, and there is still discussion about which type of roof has the greatest biodiversity.
Diana Weidlinger visits a blue-green roof of a building in Amsterdam where water can be stored in the soil and in a basin that can be slowly be emptied after heavy rain stopped. Besides promoting bio diversity, the plants on the roof also keep the temperature much lower.
Diana also interviews an urban planning specialist from the University of Amsterdam and visits a green house in Amersfoort.
For this reportage Featurez gave advice, did the research, set up and planning of the filming and organised the Dutch camera team.