Rules beneath our feet

Governance Across Levels: A Multi-Level System

Soil governance operates within a multi-level system of environmental governance, where authority and responsibility are distributed across interconnected political scales. Decisions affecting soil are rarely confined to a single level — they emerge from interactions between global agreements, regional policies, national legislation, and local land-use decisions.

These interactions occur both vertically, between global, regional, national, and local authorities, and horizontally, across policy sectors and societal actors such as governments, scientists, farmers, and civil society organisations.

Soils are managed locally but produce impacts that extend far beyond local boundaries — they influence climate regulation, biodiversity, water cycles, and food systems. As a result, governance mechanisms must connect multiple levels of decision-making.

A key question emerges: how can governance systems coordinate actions across scales when soil management decisions remain largely local?