The European soil monitoring directive, adopted by the European Union at the end of 2025, aims to achieve healthy soils by 2050. Brussels’ directive is centred on an environmental DNA based approach. France’s experience in measuring soil quality could be used advantageously, particularly as the best monitoring tools are those that integrate several complementary approaches at the same time.
Since November 2025, the European Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive requires member states to regularly assess soil biodiversity. It calls for soil microbial diversity analysis (bacteria and fungi) at six year intervals based on environmental DNA or “eDNA”.
Yet, while eDNA is a powerful tool for detecting biodiversity at scale, it is not enough on its own for interpreting observed changes and identifying their causes. This is because bacterial and fungal communities only represent part of the soil biodiversity, which also includes many organisms with crucial and varied ecological roles.
