Restoring land, unlocking opportunity – DeepHorizon’s view
17 June 2025 — Today, under the United Nations banner “Restore the land. Unlock the opportunities,” the world pauses to highlight how bringing degraded soils back to life can deliver jobs, food security and climate resilience.
1. A worsening global picture
Over three‑quarters of the Earth’s land surface – 77.6 percent – has become permanently drier since 1990, while arid zones have swallowed another 4.3 million km², the latest UNCCD assessment warns. Reversing the trend will demand around one billion US dollars in restoration investment every single day until 2030 – a sobering figure that shows just how pressing the issue has become.
Desertification ruins harvests, accelerates biodiversity loss and forces families to move. Waiting is no longer an option.
2. Europe dries out – and strikes back
Europe is not immune: 95.9 percent of its land area now shows a drying tendency, hitting Mediterranean farming and forest ecosystems hardest. In response, the European Commission launches two concrete measures today.
- A Water Resilience Indicators Report, prepared with UNEP, will strengthen drought readiness.
- A Women Negotiators Programme will nurture female leadership in land‑governance debates ahead of UNCCD COP 17.
Both measures sit neatly alongside the Water Resilience Strategy and the Nature Restoration Regulation, the twin pillars of the European Green Deal.
3. Soil physics in plain language
In the short video “Introduction to Chapter 2 – Hydrodynamics of Porous Media,” Prof Mathieu Javaux (UCLouvain) distils a complex subject into three clear messages:
- The soil‑water retention curve links water availability to soil texture and structure.
- The unsaturated zone and its preferential flow paths dictate how heavy downpours infiltrate – or run off.
- The soil–plant–atmosphere continuum behaves as a single, coupled system, so we must model it as one when we forecast yields under drought.
Put simply, if we want restoration plans to work, we need to keep the science of water in soil centre stage.
4. DeepHorizon – shining a light on the hidden half‑metre
DeepHorizon (Deploying Ecosystemic solutions to improve soil Health and uncOveRing subsoil functIons in the critical ZONe) is a Horizon Europe project running from 2024 to 2028. Twenty partners are working together to uncover what lies beneath the plough layer and why it matters.
- Mapping and characterising forty core sites will reveal the biological, physical and chemical make‑up of European subsoils.
- Modelling key functions – from water holding and carbon storage to nutrient supply – will show where and how the subsoil can help.
- Living labs and one hundred demonstration sites will translate the science into tried‑and‑tested farm practices.
- Decision‑support tools and new health metrics will feed straight into the EU Soil Mission.
By looking below the top 30 centimetres, DeepHorizon pushes the fight against desertification into deeper ground.
5. What society stands to gain
Early DeepHorizon figures suggest that restoring deeper horizons could:
- lift water‑holding capacity in sandy loams by up to 30 percent,
- raise broad‑acre crop yields in semi‑arid regions by roughly 10–15 percent thanks to wetter deep roots,
- add around 0.4 tonnes of carbon per hectare each year to the soil, and
- create thousands of skilled green jobs in restoration, monitoring and advisory work.
6. A practical call to action
- Bring the subsoil explicitly into national restoration plans and the forthcoming EU Soil Health Law.
- Reward regenerative techniques – such as deep agroforestry and biological subsoiling with tap‑rooted species – that improve structure below 50 centimetres.
- Invest in research and digital tools (sensors, digital twins) to predict how soils will respond to longer, harsher droughts.
- Get involved in the DeepHorizon living labs – researchers, farmers and citizens all have a part to play.
“Restoring the subsoil is the hidden opportunity to tackle desertification and secure Europe’s water future.” — DeepHorizon consortium
Leave a Reply