Soil Protection – The Hidden Foundation of Resilient Infrastructure

On 28th August 2025, the SIERA Impact Webinar on “Soil Protection and Soil Management as Part of Measures in Accordance with the EU Water Framework Directive” explored how soil, one of Europe’s most vital yet underappreciated resources, must be safeguarded to ensure sustainable land and water management.

The session emphasized that soil stability and ecosystem services are not only environmental priorities but also critical to infrastructure resilience, water protection, and compliance with EU sustainability frameworks. By aligning with CSRD and ESRS reporting requirements as well as technical standards like DIN EN 1997-1 und DIN 4020, soil protection becomes a central element of responsible geotechnical planning.

This webinar highlighted the dual perspective of soil as both a foundation material for engineering stability and a living ecosystem providing essential services such as water filtration, biodiversity support, and carbon storage. It also outlined how innovative geotechnical solutions and digital tools like SustainSuite – part of SIERA are enabling stakeholders to meet compliance, reduce risks, and build sustainable, climate-resilient infrastructure.

In this blog, we explore the key challenges, regulatory implications, opportunities, and geotechnical solutions presented during the webinar, offering a roadmap for companies, municipalities, and planners to integrate soil protection into sustainable infrastructure.

Challenges – The Foundation of Uncertainty

Soil protection and management form the invisible foundation of sustainable infrastructure. Yet, they are also marked by uncertainty and complexity, making planning and compliance difficult. The webinar highlighted four key challenge areas:

1. Unpredictable Soil Composition and Groundwater Behavior

• Soil texture, permeability, and structure vary greatly between sites, creating uncertainty in load-bearing capacity and water infiltration.
• These variations directly affect foundation stability, drainage planning, and pollutant transport pathways, complicating Water Framework Directive (WFD) compliance.
• Advanced investigation tools such as electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) und cone penetration testing with pore pressure (CPTu) are still underutilized.

2. Urban Expansion and Soil Sealing

• Rapid development reduces permeable surfaces, increasing runoff and decreasing groundwater recharge.
• Soil ecosystem services—such as nutrient cycling, water filtration, and biodiversity support—are lost.
• Long-term degradation, including loss of organic matter and compaction, reduces soil resilience to climate stress.

3. Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport

• Unsustainable agricultural practices, deforestation, and construction accelerate erosion.
• Sediment loads increase turbidity, disrupt aquatic habitats, and carry pollutants into rivers and lakes.
• This threatens the achievement of ecological status targets under the WFD, while also increasing downstream flood risks and reservoir siltation.

4. Fragmented Climate and Water Planning

• Soil management is rarely integrated into climate adaptation and water management strategies, creating policy disconnects.
• Missed synergies prevent coordinated solutions for drought resilience, flood mitigation, and carbon storage.
• Data gaps remain significant—less than 15% of cities include robust soil ecosystem assessments in flood management plans.
• The absence of a binding EU-wide soil framework (pending the Soil Health Law) further complicates monitoring and enforcement.

These challenges underscore why soil protection is often referred to as the “foundation of uncertainty”—without robust management, both natural ecosystems and engineered structures face higher risks of failure.

Regulatory Implications – Compliance Beneath the Surface

Soil protection is increasingly anchored in EU law and sustainability frameworks, linking ecological health with infrastructure resilience and corporate accountability. Several directives and strategies define how soils must be managed, monitored, and disclosed.

Key EU Regulations for Soil Protection and Management

Directive / Strategy	Key Focus	Implications for Soil & Infrastructure
EU Soil Strategy for 2030	Vision: all EU soils to be healthy by 2050.	Guides restoration, sustainable land use, and soil quality protection.
Soil Monitoring Law (Proposed 2023–2025)	Mandatory monitoring of soil health indicators (organic carbon, compaction, biodiversity, contamination).	Creates uniform standards for soil data collection across Member States.
EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC)	Protects water bodies from diffuse soil pollution and erosion.	Requires soil-related pressures in River Basin Management Plans.
EU Soil Thematic Strategy	Prevents degradation and promotes remediation of contaminated land.	Provides the policy backbone for sustainable land management.
Environmental Liability Directive (2004/35/EC)	Holds operators financially responsible for soil damage affecting health or water quality.	Enforces polluter-pays principle for industrial and construction projects.

CSRD & ESRS Disclosure Requirements

Companies must integrate soil-related risks into sustainability reports, ensuring transparent compliance:

• E1 (Climate Change): Report on how temperature shifts and extreme weather affect soil stability and foundation integrity.
• E2 (Pollution): Disclose impacts of excavation and tunneling on soil, air, and water contamination.
• E3 (Water): Document groundwater management, flood mitigation, and compliance with the WFD.
• E4 (Biodiversity): Show how soil protection reduces habitat destruction and supports ecosystem services.
• E5 (Resource Use): Demonstrate sustainable excavation, material reuse, and low-carbon foundation practice

Opportunities – Building on Solid Ground

Soil protection and management are not only about compliance—they also unlock opportunities to enhance resilience, reduce risks, and build sustainable value. The webinar highlighted four main opportunity areas:

1. Advancing Subsurface Characterization

• Provides critical data on soil sensitivity, functions, and pollutant transport pathways.
• Improves the ability to predict groundwater risks and prevent contamination before it occurs.
• Strengthens the design of water protection measures by integrating soil and subsurface data.

2. Integrating Erosion and Slope Risk Models

• Embedding erosion and slope stability models into catchment-scale planning reduces sediment impacts on rivers and reservoirs.
• Supports construction-phase erosion control, such as silt fences, sediment basins, and staged excavation.
• Improves flood risk prediction under extreme weather and enables targeted interventions like riparian buffers and reforestation.

3. Promoting Low-Carbon, High-Retention Soil Strategies

• Avoids disturbance of carbon-rich soils such as peatlands and wetlands.
• Encourages renaturation and restoration of degraded soils to enhance biodiversity and resilience.
• Reduces emissions and boosts soil moisture retention with nature-based practices like cover cropping, organic amendments, and no-till farming.

4. Restoring Soil Biodiversity and Functions

• Enhances natural water filtration and purification through healthier root and microbial systems.
• Improves climate resilience by increasing water retention and reducing runoff.
• Safeguards biodiversity and ecosystem services throughout planning, construction, and post-use phases.
• Directly supports EU goals under the WFD, Biodiversity Strategy, and Soil Strategy for 2030.

These opportunities show that soil management is not just a constraint but a resource—a pathway to ecological resilience, climate protection, and sustainable infrastructure planning.

Geotechnical Solutions – Engineering Stability

Turning challenges into resilience requires holistic geotechnical planning that integrates soil protection, engineering design, and digital monitoring. The webinar showcased a suite of solutions that ensure safe, compliant, and sustainable infrastructure development.

1. Site Investigation and Assessment

• Combines geotechnical testing (drilling, load-bearing analysis) with pedological surveys (soil functions and sensitivity).
• Provides reliable soil data to balance engineering safety with ecological soil functions.
• Supports compliance with DIN 19639 and DIN 4020 for soil protection in construction.

2. Risk Profiling for Soil Erosion and Structural Vulnerability

• Evaluates subsurface soil behavior and slope stability to predict erosion, settlement, or failure.
• Identifies high-risk zones and informs the design of vegetated embankments, natural retention features, and buffer zones.
• Helps meet WFD targets by reducing sedimentation and improving land-water interactions.

3. Carbon Impact Modeling of Soil Management

• Integrates soil carbon storage and reuse planning into project approvals and tenders.
• Enables early identification of sensitive soils and sets out mitigation or reuse strategies (e.g., reinstating topsoil).
• Reduces waste, lowers costs, and strengthens climate action through better soil mass balance planning.

4. Soil Protection & Soil Management Concepts

• Apply standardized frameworks (e.g., DIN 19639) for soil protection plans throughout the project lifecycle.
• Ensure coherent consideration of technical, ecological, legal, and logistical factors in soil handling.
• Recognize soil protection efforts during planning, construction, and post-use phases.

5. SustainSuite – Digital Backbone for Sustainable Infrastructure

• Data-Driven Compliance: Subsurface modeling, geospatial mapping, and automated reporting aligned with EU directives.
• Impact Tracking: Predictive analytics and digital twin technology for soil risk assessment and climate-adaptive foundations.
• ESG Optimization: Supports low-carbon material reuse (e.g., recycled aggregates) and nature-based erosion control.

These geotechnical solutions, supported by SIERA-Bündnis expertise and powered by SustainSuite, ensure that soil is managed not only as a construction material but as a strategic environmental resource—delivering stability, compliance, and sustainability.

Take the Next Step with SIERA

Die SIERA Impact Webinar on Soil Protection and Soil Management made one fact clear: safeguarding soil is not just an environmental obligation—it is a strategic requirement for infrastructure stability, EU compliance, and long-term climate resilience. By integrating geotechnical engineering, ecological soil protection, and digital monitoring, stakeholders can transform soil-related risks into opportunities for sustainable development.

Die SIERA-Bündnis provides the expertise, frameworks, and technologies to help municipalities, developers, and industries design and implement soil management strategies that meet regulatory requirements while preserving vital ecosystem functions. With integrated solutions ranging from advanced site investigations to digital compliance platforms, SIERA enables measurable outcomes for resilient, compliant, and future-ready infrastructure.

Our Solutions and Services for Soil Protection & Management

• Data-Driven Compliance – Subsurface modeling, geospatial mapping, and automated regulatory reporting.
• Impact Tracking – Predictive analytics, digital twin technology, and soil risk assessment to anticipate challenges early.
• ESG Optimization – AI-powered reporting to improve accuracy, transparency, and integration of soil protection into CSRD/ESRS disclosures.
• SustainSuite Platform – The digital backbone for monitoring, compliance, and transparent stakeholder engagement.
• Engineering for Sustainable Foundations – Advanced geotechnical solutions for erosion control, slope stabilization, and soil carbon preservation.

Technik für eine bessere Zukunft

Whether you are planning new infrastructure, managing soil during construction, or restoring degraded land, the SIERA-Bündnis is your trusted partner. Together, we can protect soils, secure compliance, and engineer resilience for generations to come.

Contact us today to take the next step toward sustainable soil protection and management