Project Trail Map

The Project Trail is your guided journey through the groundbreaking research and innovation shaping Europe's soil health future. Designed as an interactive route through our event venue, the Trail connects you directly with the teams behind the Mission Soil living labs and lighthouse projects that are transforming how we understand, monitor, and care for our soils across the continent.

Whether you're a researcher, farmer, policymaker, or soil health advocate, the Project Trail offers an immersive experience where you can engage with real-world solutions, ask questions, and discover how these pioneering initiatives are co-designing innovations with communities on the ground.

How the Project Trail Works

The Project Trail is laid out as a thematic route across the venue, guiding you through dedicated project stations where teams from the first 25 Mission Soil living labs and related lighthouse projects showcase their work. Each stop along the Trail features interactive displays, demonstration materials, data visualisations, and project representatives ready to share insights and discuss their findings.

You'll receive a physical Trail map upon registration, clearly marking each project station and the thematic zones they belong to. The route is designed to be flexible—you can follow it sequentially for a comprehensive overview, or focus on specific themes that align with your interests and work. Plan to spend between two and four hours exploring the full Trail, though you're welcome to move at your own pace and return to stations that spark particular interest.

Digital screens at key points throughout the venue display real-time information about presentations, demonstrations, and discussion sessions happening at nearby stations, helping you make the most of your time and ensuring you don't miss the sessions most relevant to your work.

Thematic Zones Along the Trail

The Project Trail is organised into four interconnected thematic zones, each addressing critical dimensions of soil health and the Mission's objectives. These zones reflect the integrated approach needed to achieve healthy soils across Europe's diverse landscapes and land uses.

Soil Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

This zone brings together projects investigating the living component of our soils—the extraordinary diversity of organisms that drive nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and soil structure formation. Here you'll discover how living labs are deploying innovative monitoring techniques to assess soil biodiversity, from eDNA sampling to advanced microscopy. Projects in this zone demonstrate practical approaches to enhancing soil biological activity through regenerative farming practices, agroforestry systems, and nature-based solutions. You'll see how researchers are translating complex ecological data into actionable guidance for land managers seeking to restore and maintain thriving soil ecosystems.

Soil Contamination and Remediation

The contamination zone addresses one of Europe's most pressing soil challenges: legacy pollution from industrial activities, intensive agriculture, and improper waste management. Projects stationed here showcase cutting-edge remediation technologies being tested in living labs across former industrial sites, contaminated agricultural land, and urban brownfields. You'll encounter phytoremediation demonstrations, bioremediation approaches using targeted microbial communities, and soil washing techniques adapted for different contamination profiles. These projects illustrate how Mission Soil is supporting the transition of degraded land back into productive, healthy ecosystems while protecting human health and environmental quality.

Soil Carbon and Climate Regulation

Climate change and soil health are inseparably linked, and this zone explores both challenges and solutions. Living lab teams present their work on carbon sequestration strategies, from grassland management that builds organic matter to innovative composting systems that return carbon to depleted soils. You'll see data from long-term monitoring programmes that track carbon stocks across different soil types and management regimes, and learn how researchers are developing robust measurement protocols that can support future carbon farming incentive schemes. Projects here also address the flip side: reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soils through improved water management, precision fertilisation, and other climate-smart practices.

Soil and Sustainable Food Systems

The final zone connects soil health directly to the food on our plates and the resilience of European agriculture. Projects here demonstrate how healthy soils underpin productive, sustainable farming systems that can meet nutritional needs while respecting planetary boundaries. You'll explore living labs working with farming communities to implement soil-friendly practices—from reduced tillage and cover cropping to integrated crop-livestock systems and organic amendments. These stations showcase the economic, social, and environmental benefits of transitioning towards regenerative food production, featuring data on yields, profitability, farmer wellbeing, and ecosystem outcomes. You'll also discover how these projects are engaging consumers, retailers, and policymakers in supporting the shift towards soil-regenerative food systems.

What You'll Gain from the Project Trail

Walking the Project Trail offers multiple benefits beyond simply learning about individual projects. You'll develop a systems-level understanding of how different aspects of soil health interconnect and how solutions in one domain often support progress in others. The face-to-face interactions with project teams create opportunities for knowledge exchange that simply cannot happen through publications or online presentations alone.

For practitioners and land managers, the Trail provides access to tested, practical solutions you can adapt to your own context. Researchers will find potential collaboration partners and discover synergies between projects that could shape future research directions. Policymakers gain direct insight into what's working on the ground and what barriers need addressing to scale up successful innovations.

The Project Trail also serves as a powerful networking catalyst. As you move between stations, you'll naturally encounter others with similar interests and challenges, creating informal opportunities for conversation, partnership-building, and community-strengthening that extend well beyond the event itself.

Making the Most of Your Trail Experience

To maximise your Project Trail experience, we recommend reviewing the detailed station descriptions available in your registration materials before the event. Identify priority projects aligned with your work or interests, but remain open to serendipitous discoveries—some of the most valuable insights come from unexpected conversations.

Most project stations will offer scheduled demonstrations or short presentations at specific times throughout the day. Check the digital displays or your event app for timing details. Don't hesitate to ask questions; project teams are here specifically to engage in dialogue about their work, challenges, and successes.

Consider returning to certain stations multiple times. A brief initial visit can orient you to a project's scope, while a follow-up conversation might delve into technical details, implementation challenges, or transferability to your own region and context. The Project Trail is designed to reward both breadth and depth of engagement.

We look forward to guiding you through this inspiring showcase of soil health innovation. The Project Trail represents not just current achievements, but the foundation for the collaborative, knowledge-driven future that will deliver the healthy soils Europe needs and deserves.