Toward a Sustainable Use of Land: Urbanization, Policies and (Mis)Understanding of Degradation Processes

The structure and composition of the landscape continuously evolve in space and time, influencing the physical, chemical and biological processes of the soil. These influences contribute significantly to the complex interactions between the natural environment and anthropic activities, shaping the characteristics and properties of the lands in various ways (the spatial diversification of the properties of the soil and its compaction are typical examples). In this chapter, land degradation and land quality concepts will be defined and discussed considering the issues that processes represent a threat to the sustainability and production capacity of agricultural activity. In a context in which the economy, society and the environment tend to become increasingly integrated and interconnected dimensions, issues related to sustainable development are becoming increasingly important. For this reason, we also discuss the different policies emitted by the European Union on soil protection. Soil is not subject to a complete and coherent set of rules in the Union. Existing EU policies in areas such as agriculture, water, waste, chemicals and the prevention of industrial pollution contribute indirectly to soil protection. The European Union's agenda for research and innovation policy on nature-based solutions and the renaturalization of cities aims to position the EU as a leader in the process of “innovation with nature”, for more sustainable societies and resilient. Also, the concept of “Nature-Based Solutions” (NBS), which is relatively new and has been introduced to promote nature as a means of providing solutions in mitigation measures and adaptation challenges to climate change was defined. Finally, the case of Italy was analyzed to demonstrate how land degradation processes and land quality can be estimated.