Healthy Soil: The superpower beneath our feet

Director of Earth and Geoconsultancy
Civic

Healthy Soil: The superpower beneath our feet

Dan Matthews, Director of Earth and Geoconsultancy at CIVIC, highlights why soil must be treated as a critical natural asset in shaping sustainable places. Dan outlines how early investigation, thoughtful design and on-site reuse can reduce carbon, cut costs and improve resilience, urging the industry to stop viewing soil as waste and start valuing it as a resource that underpins healthier, more climate-ready developments.

Soil is fundamentally important to all the systems that govern how we live, and the built environment around us.

Not only does it underpin rural landscapes, towns and cities; it contributes to plant and tree growth, greatly affects flood resilience and is vital for the success of our ecosystems.

Amazingly, soil harbours 58 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity, and a teaspoon of soil contains more living organisms than there are people on earth. The first metre of topsoil is also the world’s second largest carbon sink after the oceans, and digging it up releases carbon into the atmosphere.

It’s a truly remarkable resource that we must protect.

Taking better care of an unsung resource

There are tangible benefits of considering soil health, management and reuse earlier in the design process.

Almost 30 million tonnes of soil are thrown into landfill each year, worth almost £3bn and an even greater cost to biodiversity and carbon.

Alongside this, the use of heavy equipment and poor stockpiling during construction risks compacting and damaging the structure of soil, which can reduce its ability to infiltrate and cause poor drainage and issues with flooding, and is an issue we see frequently.

In our towns and cities, soil ‘sealing’ – where we cover it up with buildings or hard landscaping - prevents the soil from living, breathing and performing its many functions, and reduces bacterial or microbial activity, dramatically limiting the good qualities it can have. This, in turn, leads to increased surface water run-off, with a knock-on impact on drainage demand.

Prioritising healthy soil is therefore key. It can unlock a lot of value when it comes to feasibility and costs of a project, as well as its sustainability credentials and overall positive impact on the people that live there.

Think ‘soil’ before the bucket hits the ground

The earlier we can get information about the soil beneath a site, the better.

By conducting site investigations and undertaking geotechnical analysis, we can optimise foundation design to reduce the amount of steel and concrete that goes into the ground, having a positive impact on embodied carbon.

We can reuse foundations, for example, and consider how ground-related hazards, such as mining and obstructions will impact plans.

Permeability is another consideration. Surface water flooding is an ever-increasing threat, and it’s vital we combine solutions to make sure the scheme is resilient to climate change, but also mitigate the potential for contamination to infiltrate the ground.

It can help determine the optimum layout, too. Across the UK, many former industries have left a legacy of contamination in the ground, but when we think of soil and how it functions, it can help us find the most cost effective, pragmatic way of dealing with a site and its layout. It can influence where different elements of the scheme might go when it comes to landscape-led design.

Soil reuse can’t be an afterthought, either. If not considered early in the process, opportunities to reuse soil on-site quickly diminish. Once excavation begins without a clear reuse strategy or the necessary regulatory steps in place, that soil can often become waste, which is costly to remove.

Too many developers find themselves boxed in by late decisions, missing the chance to turn a valuable resource into a project asset.

System thinking starts from the ground up

Considering soil before the first bucket goes in the ground can drastically improve the overall sustainability of a scheme.

As an industry, we must place greater focus on planning, designing and constructing with soil functions, including carbon storage and permeability, front of mind.

It’s about championing the role it has to play in system thinking. There’s a real opportunity to better engage with local communities and stakeholders on soil issues during the consultation process, and reuse or share soil to make sure there is minimal loss to landfill.

It’s time we stop treating soil as disposable —and start recognising it as a critical resource. Let’s build on it wisely.

Dan Matthews

Director of Earth and Geoconsultancy
Civic

Healthy Soil: The superpower beneath our feet

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