Recital (42)

Mitigation is essential as regards the impact of soil sealing and soil removal in general. Therefore, it is appropriate to lay down certain principles to mitigate the impact of soil sealing and soil removal, by adopting an effort-based approach taking into account a large set of good practices aimed at minimising and offsetting the loss of soil’s capacity to provide ecosystem services. Those principles should be based on the land take hierarchy of the EU Soil Strategy for 2030, taking into account different conditions and geographical and administrative circumstances in Member States. The provisions of this Directive concerning land take do not impose new permitting procedures and should not prevent permitting of activities, including for projects of overriding public interest, and should not impinge on the spatial planning decisions that fall under the competence of national, regional or local authorities. Those principles could cover a wide array of practices such as minimising soil sealing, de-sealing and reconstructing previously sealed soils, rational densification of urbanised areas while safeguarding green spaces, including urban green spaces, and natural terrains, revitalisation of brownfields, privileging time-limited land take and performing land rehabilitation upon the termination of the land take. In order to mitigate the impact of soil sealing and soil removal as sustainably as possible, the offsetting measures, depending on the ecosystem service to be offset, might need to be geographically as close as possible to the source of the loss of the ecosystem service. Indeed, a consequence of the wrong application of those principles can be the displacement of green and high-value ecosystem areas and services far away from the areas with sealed soils, with a complete concentration of soil sealing and soil removal in the affected areas.