New Challenges in Soil Conservation
The soil conservation act has been gone into force in 1999. It aims at the sustainable protection, safeguarding, and when necessary, the re-establishment of soil functions. This new law together with additional non-biding regulations will make it possible to complete a comprehensive evaluation of suspicious surfaces in regard to harmful changes in the soil and in regard to hazardous waste from the past. This new evaluation tool will make it possible to gain new perspectives of affected surfaces and their potential for future use.

Furthermore - from the perspective of prudence, there are several soil-related tasks that should be met. First of all, there is the challenge of evaluating the future impact on the soil, which results from today’s land use and that which is expected from planned activities. An activity that interferes with the natural function of the soil should be avoided or restricted if possible. Other than pollution, it should be noted that physical changes (i.e. compaction of the soil, changes of the water balance, and soil erosion) can cause unwanted side-effects in the soil. Second, various activities such as overbuilding and soil sealing almost inevitably destroy soil functions. They should be restricted to the avoidable degree. In questions of soil functionality and use-requirements, soils exhibit various properties, suitability's, and susceptibilities. Soil-related evaluations should take these elements into consideration.

Because of our experience, expertise, and work with state-of-the-art technology, OEKO-DATA is able to meet these challenges. We offer potential clients the following services:

     • Surveys of areas that show harmful soil alterations or are suspect areas; analysis through the
       sampling of an inspected area which is done in conjunction with our accredited laboratory
     • Soil conservation-related evaluations for environmental impact statements, based on current
       law, which effect the existing use of land and its future plans
     • Evaluation of soil functions, capacity, susceptibility; evaluation of soil conservation needs
       within land-use planning duties
     • Support and professional consulting in how to handle the governmental requirements that aim
       at sustainability in the field of soil conservation
     • Integration of soil-related data into geographical information systems (GIS); production and
       care of data bases, registers and graphs