Soil and Artificial Snow
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Soil and Artificial Snow: The Cost of an Increasingly Artificial Winter

From trees cut down for the bobsleigh track of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics to the effects of artificial snow on the soil: the environmental consequences associated with winter sports practices

Soil: A Living Body and Cradle of Biodiversity

When we talk about soil, we usually think of a flat surface. In reality, soil is a volume that, in its functioning, resembles more of a body. Within the first thirty centimeters, most of the vital and generative functions of the soil take place, making it one of the main pillars of life on Earth. The biodiversity present in these first thirty centimeters of soil is the result of thousands of years of biochemical processes and accounts for about thirty percent of all biodiversity on land.

For years, Paolo Pileri, a professor at the Politecnico di Milano and author of the book On the Side of the Soil: The Invisible Ecosystem (Editori Laterza), has been dedicated to telling and defending the soil: “Soil is an ecosystem that ensures the survival of other ecosystems. By studying its profile, one can observe that its characteristics change every hundred square meters. It is a body full of life, endowed with extraordinary ecological and environmental variability. In a teaspoon of soil live a billion bacteria, mycorrhizal fungi, and microorganisms, including arthropods essential for plants.”

An Ecosystem That Requires Human Respect

Soil is composed of approximately half minerals—sand, silt, and clay—combined with forty percent air and water and ten percent organic matter. These ingredients enable it to perform various functions: it acts as a climate and hydrogeological regulator, supports forest and agricultural vegetation, purifies water, provides ninety-nine percent of calories for the animal world and ninety-five percent for humans. Additionally, it ensures key cycles for life, such as those of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium: “It is the skin of the planet.”

To continue performing these tasks, soil requires human respect. Organic matter reaches the soil through plants, leaves, animals, and insects, while minerals are either already present or transported by water and wind. However, if they encounter ashes, microplastics, chemicals, or diesel along their path, these pollutants will also be deposited on the ground. Moreover, while a few minutes can be enough to consume or pollute the soil, it takes two thousand years for ten centimeters to regenerate.

CO₂ Sequestration and Climate Regulation

Soil’s ability to regulate the climate stems from its capacity to sequester CO₂: “Soil is the main carbon sink on Earth. Plants capture CO₂, transform it into glucose, and inject about forty percent of it into the soil. Here, it is taken up by fungi and bacteria, which in return provide plants with nitrogen and phosphorus. This process allows a significant amount of CO₂ to be buried, which also ensures the life of fungi. In the top meter of soil, almost four times the amount of carbon is stored compared to all the world’s plants.”

One of the outcomes of chlorophyll photosynthesis is, therefore, climate regulation. It is estimated that the combined work of soil and plants sequesters about 0.52 gigatonnes of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) annually. In one meter of soil, there is more than twice the carbon present in the atmosphere, whose thickness is six hundred kilometers.

Olympics and Winter Sports Do Not Support the Soil

Among the main culprits for soil consumption and pollution are certainly urbanization, agriculture, and industry, but not only. Even an apparently harmless sector like sports—in particular, winter sports—has its responsibilities, namely deforestation and artificial snow.

The images of trees cut down for the bobsleigh track of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics caused a stir—it appears that the quantity is the same as in the past twelve years—but what concrete impact does deforestation have on the soil? Deforestation means “breaking the relationship between two ecosystems,” explains Professor Pileri.

“A bare soil, left naked without vegetative cover, is subject to surface erosion caused by rain. Vegetation, in fact, can retain some or even all the water with its roots.” It is estimated that preparing the land for tracks increases their porosity by up to fifty percent.

“If, to meet the standards of sports federations, the land is leveled and shaped with bulldozers, the intrinsic bonds of the soil are also eliminated. Normally, at this point, people think to counteract erosion by compacting the soil, but this way the water cycles that feed the biomass are hindered. Consequently, vegetation will no longer attach, and once the effect of compaction wears off, the soil will still give way. Finally, deforestation means altering the soil’s thermal differential, hindering the life within it.”

Artificial Snow Drains Lakes and Suffocates the Soil

In the past thirty years, Italian ski resorts (and not only) have seen decreasing snowfall and thus have increasingly resorted to artificial snow. This is produced by combining water and compressed air to obtain a mixture that is then cooled and, upon expansion in the atmosphere, leads to the formation of snow nuclei.

The water used in this process is typically drawn from mountain lakes, with subsequent impacts in terms of water consumption. As early as 2007, a WWF study estimated that producing artificial snow in a single Abruzzo ski resort would require five hundred thousand liters of water per hour, amounting to three hundred million for the entire surface of the region’s slopes. The association also highlighted that snow cannons would increase greenhouse gas emissions. Another example is Lago Bianco, part of the Alpe Veglia and Alpe Dèvero Natural Park, for whose protection since 2019 a committee of citizens has been fighting against a water supply project for the cross-country ski track of Santa Caterina Valfurva.

Professor Pileri joins the accusations against artificial snow, arguing that it is also responsible for suffocating the soil: “These are mixtures that contain substances to inhibit the growth of weeds and molds—such as ionized water, bactericides, and fungicides—and salts to make the slopes more skiable. All these chemical components, once the artificial snow has melted, go on to damage the biomass present in the soil. In this way, the growth of certain plants is inhibited, as they no longer have access to the nutrients they need, resulting in a depletion of floral variety.”

A Single Ski Season Can Cause Decades of Damage

When the ski season ends, the damage to the soil ecosystem caused by ski slopes remains. Artificial snow changes the soil’s composition and delays the melting of natural snow by two to four weeks: “Artificial snow is made to withstand higher temperatures than natural snow. The resulting delayed melts prevent the growth of certain herbaceous species, which find themselves covered and suffocated. Such a trivialization of vegetation leads to a reduction in biodiversity both above and below ground, and the soil is once again weakened.”

When artificial snow melts, vegetation recovers, but only partially. It is estimated that even with the best slope management practices, the soil ecosystem would need about thirty years to get back on track. These damages—which Professor Pileri warns—not only affect plants and animals but also humans. Recent studies have shown that anthropogenic changes in land use impact ecosystem health and animal behavior, with the risk of triggering the spread of zoonotic pathogens among humans. This is what happened, for example, in Australia in the nineties with the Hendra virus. Moreover, the soil contains bacteria potentially useful for medicine. The latest discovery, in 2015, is teixobactin: extracted from the subsoil of Maine, initial tests showed it to be active against Staphylococcus aureus and tuberculosis.

Human Commitment to Address Climate Change

Reversing this process requires human commitment. According to Professor Pileri, this cannot be limited to restoration projects, as they do not yield immediate results nor can they alone restore the damaged ecosystem.

The very fact of having to resort to artificial snow should sound an alarm bell: “Every era must bring with it an adaptability to external conditions, while in this historical period we refuse to adapt to the climate that we ourselves have altered. We should abandon the idea of practicing winter sports where it does not snow and, consequently, cancel some sporting events. Today, we stubbornly persist in living beyond all excess.”

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