EuroGeoSurveys welcomes the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Soil Monitoring and Resilience (Soil Monitoring Law – SML) as a positive action toward improving the status of soils to support the EU’s society and environment. Specifically, we note the significant roles that the National Geological Survey Organisations (NGSOs) collectively have already played during the preparation of the Soil Monitoring Law. That early engagement was solidified in continuous activities of one of EGS’s dedicated expert groups, the Geochemistry Expert Group, and project-based focus on the pan-European geochemical mapping of (a) residual soil (Salminen et al., 2005; De Vos, Tarvainen et al., 2006), and (b) agricultural and grazing land soil (Reimann et al., 2014a, b).
