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Climate change has been recognized by a large number of international organizations (United Nations, European Union, OECD, World Bank), scientific bodies (IPCC, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, IGBP, IHDP, START, IAI, APN, etc), business organizations, and many national, state, provincial, and local governments, as well as the international, national, and local mass media as a critical problem for the present and future of societies around the world. Although climate change has been identified as a major environmental challenge for some time, the current level of attention and consensus for action surpass previous considerations. Also remarkable is the recent recognition of the key role of urban areas in addressing the challenges created by climate change, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation. Previous attention to climate change studied a broad range of sectors (agriculture, energy, fisheries, forestry, biodiversity, health, institutions, etc.) and processes (deforestation, land use, natural disasters, etc.), but little attention was given to urban areas and most of that attention had focused on their role in the emission of greenhouse gases.

The European Commission has recently adopted the Thematic Strategy for soil protection (COM(2006)231 final), with the objective to ensure that Europe's soils remain healthy and capable of supporting human activities and ecosystems. Climate change is identified as a common element in many soil threats. Therefore the Commission intends to assess the actual contribution of the protection of soil to climate change mitigation and the effects of climate change on soil productivity and the possible depletion of soil organic matter as result of climate change. The objective of this study is to provide a state of the art and more robust understanding of interactions between soil under different land uses and climate change than is available now, through a comprehensive literature review and expert judgment.