7. Conclusion

Soil is a living ecosystem in its own right, capable of hosting a large number and diversity of organisms and providing a wide range of services to our society. These include food production, environmental decontamination, climate change mitigation through carbon storage, and the provision of stable support for our buildings. Knowledge of the ecological quality and biodiversity of soils has been accumulating only recently, but very rapidly. This is due in particular to the development of new characterization tools, but also to the establishment of soil observation networks managed by public institutions or civil society (associations, foundations, citizens, etc.). This new knowledge has shown that French soils, even agricultural soils, are not dead. However, the impact of certain practices, such as the intensive use of chemicals and mechanization in agriculture, or the artificialization...