Every year on December 5, we celebrate World Soil Day. The day was designated by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly and was first officially marked in 2014.

Today, years later, over 150 countries around the world join in celebrating World Soil Day to draw public attention to maintaining soil health and to focus efforts on sustainable soil resource management.

It can take up to 1000 years to produce just 2-3 cm of soil. Experts are focusing on the importance of soil as an organic and non-renewable natural resource and on the increasing scale of its degradation due to its increasingly intensive use and urbanization.

Over 95 percent of our food comes from soil. It also provides 15 of the 18 naturally occurring chemical elements needed by plants. However, under the conditions of climate change and under the pressure of human activity, soils are degrading. World Soil Day draws attention to the problems arising from erosion, pollution, depletion of organic matter and nutrients, acidification, and other detrimental processes caused by unsustainable land management practices.

This year’s World Soil Day initiatives are taking place under the theme “Healthy Soils for Healthy Cities” and aim to raise awareness that urban soil is also essential. Beneath the asphalt, buildings, and streets lies soil. When it is permeable and covered with vegetation, it helps absorb rainwater, regulate temperature, store carbon, and improve air quality. But when it is sealed with cement, it loses these functions, making cities more vulnerable to flooding, overheating and pollution. On the occasion of World Soil Day this year, the UN is calling on everyone – from politicians to citizens – to rethink urban spaces to build greener, more sustainable and healthier cities.

World Soil Day is a reminder that taking care of our soil is taking care of the planet and of the generations that come after us. Let us continue to work for their conservation and sustainable use.

In Bulgaria, the state policy for the protection of soil resources is implemented through the implementation of the National Program for the Conservation, Sustainable Use and Restoration of Soil Functions 2020-2030. Our country supported the adopted EU Soil Strategy to 2030 for the absorption of the benefits of healthy soils for people, food, nature and climate. The main activities in it are related to the preparation of a methodology and indicators for assessing the degree of desertification and land degradation in the EU, as well as participation in the UN program for setting land degradation neutrality targets.