The theme for 2025, “Healthy soils for healthy cities”, focuses on the role of soils in cities and the challenges posed by soil sealing and urbanization. With two-thirds of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050, soils are the foundations of sustainable and resilient cities.

Urban soils provide essential ecosystem services: they support food production, filter water, store carbon, regulate temperatures, and sustain biodiversity. However, soil sealing, pollution, and urban expansion threaten these benefits, increasing flood risks, intensifying heat islands and threatening food production in peri-urban land.

Solutions exist. De-sealing, green roofs, urban vegetation and agriculture, composting, and sustainable urban planning can turn soil into opportunities to strengthen climate action, improve public health, reduce disaster risks, and foster inclusive and greener cities.

World Soil Day 2025 is a call to action. It invites policymakers, scientists, city leaders, civil society, and citizens everywhere to reimagine urban spaces through their soils, ensuring that people and nature can thrive together in healthy green cities.