Soil health in European forests under restoration

This four-year project is conducted by a consortium of 36 science and practice partners from all over Europe, and led by European Forest Institute. SUPERB will build on the vast but scattered practical knowledge and lessons learned of successful and non-successful forest restoration and adaptation activities and synthesise it for action. At the core of SUPERB, concrete restoration actions will be carried out in 12 large-scale demonstration areas, located in 13 different countries. These demo areas not only represent the diversity of stressors on European forests and the wide range of necessary restoration actions, but also, consider the whole socio-ecological system including people’s manyfold needs for ecosystem goods and services. By taking a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach, we will translate all practical and scientific knowledge on successful restoration into restoration-support guidelines, recommendations, and tools, that will be easily accessible on the stakeholder-targeted online Forest Ecosystem Restoration Gateway. Task 6.4. Soil carbon and soil biological activity (Lead: KULEUVEN): Sampling of soil biota and soil carbon will be carried out in all demo areas (WP7), to compare reference, degraded, and restoring conditions. IPCC and ICP Forest compatible protocols available from previous EU projects will be followed, to make data comparable with other studies and the European Soil Data Centre. A soil augering up to 50 cm with fixed depth classes will be carried out, after which samples are sent cooled (max 4°C) to the lab, where we quantify microbial biomass, functional catabolic diversity, fine root biomass, pH, carbon concentration, and bulk density. Field data will be used to explore the effects of restoration interventions on soil carbon and soil biological activity, using advanced regression non-linear techniques (M6.5). Field observations will then be completed with a targeted meta-analysis of literature on causal relationships between restoration and soil carbon sequestration rate, soil carbon stock, and biological activity. Both information sources will finally be used to build Bayesian Belief Networks, which allow predictive modelling of restoration outcomes in terms of soil biota and soil carbon and provide practical recommendations for restoration practice (Amelung et al., 2020). The resulting guidelines (D6.4) will help to identify systems and sites with greatest restoration benefits. These outcomes further contribute to the expert rules used in the Restoration Gateway.