From September 1 to 4, 2026, Alcoy (Spain) hosted the 34th Spanish National Soil Meeting (RENS 2026), bringing together more than one hundred researchers, educators and professionals for scientific sessions, poster presentations and field activities.

Researchers from the Technical University of Cartagena (UPCT), a partner in the SOILPROM project, presented a poster entitled “Wind erosion as a pathway for metal dispersion in a semiarid Mediterranean mining area”.

The poster presented the Spanish SOILPROM use case on wind erosion, which investigates wind-driven transport of metals and metalloids in the Cartagena-La Unión mining district (SE Spain), where sparse vegetation cover and dry soil conditions favour the wind transport of contaminated particles.

The work described the field monitoring approach used to quantify particle transport using BSNE (Big Spring Number Eight) samplers installed at five heights (25-150 cm), and presented results obtained between November 2025 and May 2026. The results showed high concentrations of metals and metalloids in the collected dust (mg kg⁻¹: Zn ~9,500, Pb ~8,000, As ~213 and Cd ~29), with a predominance of the silt fraction at all sampling heights. These findings highlight the role of wind erosion as a pathway for metal and metalloid dispersion in semiarid mining environments and provide an experimental basis for atmospheric transport modelling and environmental risk assessment within SOILPROM.

The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss the monitoring approach and findings with researchers working on soil pollution and erosion processes, while increasing the visibility of SOILPROM within the Spanish soil science community.