"Barely 13% of local authorities monitor the biodiversity of their soil" (Observatoire des Villes Vertes)

"Only 20% of towns and cities carry out soil diagnostics or mapping, 13% monitor underground biodiversity, and barely a third limit the mechanical overloading of the soils", according to the results of the Observatoire des Villes Vertes survey published on 08/07/2025.

The survey highlights a "gap between awareness and action":
• 93% of local authorities recognise the strategic importance of soil in their urban policies;
• 80% highlight the need to ensure good plant growth;
• water-related issues - infiltration (63%), resistance to water stress (50%) - and biodiversity (60%) are also recognised as major functions.

'However, only 33% prioritise this to the extent that it is fully integrated into all their projects. For more than half of the respondents, soil is certainly an important issue, but it is still being relegated behind other urgent matters, which illustrates how far we still have to go to make it a real pillar of resilience strategies', according to the Observatory.

The survey also shows that soil management by local authorities often favours the "visible". The local authorities…