Kathmandu, December 5, 2025
World Soil Day 2025 was observed worldwide on Friday with the theme “Healthy Soils for Healthy Cities,” drawing global attention to the often-overlooked role of soil in shaping sustainable, livable, and climate-resilient urban environments.
Marked annually on 5 December, World Soil Day is led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the Global Soil Partnership. The 2025 theme reflects growing concerns over rapid urbanization, land degradation, flooding, heat stress, and declining green spaces across cities worldwide.
This year’s campaign emphasized that healthy urban soils are not just an agricultural concern but a critical foundation for public health, climate resilience, biodiversity, and food security within cities.
Soil Beneath Cities: A Hidden Life-Support System
Experts highlighted that urban soils quietly deliver essential ecosystem services. When protected and managed sustainably, soils help absorb rainwater and reduce flood risks, regulate urban temperatures, filter pollutants, store carbon, and support vegetation, parks, and urban agriculture. However, unchecked urban expansion, excessive concrete coverage, soil compaction, and contamination are threatening these life-supporting systems.
FAO noted that as cities expand, soil sealing through roads, buildings, and pavements significantly reduces soil’s natural capacity to regulate water and temperature, increasing flood risks and intensifying heat island effects-challenges already visible in many fast-growing cities across South Asia.
Relevance for Nepal’s Urban Centers
The theme resonated strongly in Nepal, particularly in cities like Kathmandu, where rapid urban growth, shrinking open spaces, and unplanned construction have intensified environmental pressures. During the monsoon season, degraded and sealed soils contribute to urban flooding, while the absence of green, permeable land worsens air quality and heat stress.
Soil experts and environmental advocates stressed that protecting urban soil can support greener cities through parks, urban forests, community gardens, and sustainable drainage systems. Maintaining soil health was also linked to long-term food security, with urban and peri-urban agriculture increasingly seen as a resilient food source for growing populations.
Global Call for Action
World Soil Day 2025 called upon policymakers, city planners, scientists, civil society, and citizens to rethink urban development from the ground up. The campaign urged cities to integrate soil protection into land-use planning, reduce unnecessary soil sealing, restore degraded land, and promote nature-based solutions.
FAO emphasized that more than 95 percent of global food production depends on soil, yet soil formation is extremely slow, taking hundreds of years to regenerate just a few centimeters of fertile topsoil. The loss of healthy soil, particularly in urban areas, represents an irreversible threat to sustainability if not addressed promptly.
Towards Healthier Cities
As cities face escalating climate risks and population pressure, the message of World Soil Day 2025 was clear: healthy cities cannot exist without healthy soils. Protecting what lies beneath sidewalks, buildings, and roads is essential for building cities that are safer, greener, and more resilient for present and future generations.
World Soil Day concluded with renewed commitments worldwide to raise public awareness and encourage policies that place soil health at the center of sustainable urban development.
