Soils provide important ecosystem services such as food security, carbon sequestration, water purification, etc., and all of these services have a significant impact on human well-being. Soil organisms form complex food webs that promote nutrient cycling and therefore play an important role in maintaining soil ecosystem services. Soil monitoring is crucial for the early detection of changes in soil quality, which is why official regulations for soil monitoring have been introduced in most European Union member states. In Austria, soil monitoring programs have traditionally been based solely on chemical and physical parameters and have not been supplemented by an ecological approach considering the soil fauna. In this project we aim to establish soil monitoring based on biological indicators in Austria as an effective alternative to the more traditional chemical and physical approaches. We focus on some of the most important soil arthropod groups, namely mites (Oribatida, Mesostigmata), Collembola and Myriapoda and survey their diversity and abundances in different types of soil over a period of two years to assess how soil fauna characteristics relate to soil health. Soil samples are taken twice per year (spring and autumn) at eight locations with different soil types. At each location, a ‘positive’ (natural) site and a ‘negative’ (disturbed) site serve as reference datasets. Five subsamples per site are collected using standardized soil corers and physical and chemical parameters are documented simultaneously. The collected soil fauna is extracted from the cores with Berlese-Tullgren funnels. Specimens for each taxon group are counted and determined to species level based on morphology. Afterwards members of each species are subjected to DNA extraction to infer barcoding sequences. In a final step, all resulting data will be analysed and uploaded to public databases (EUdaphobase, NCBI Genbank) to establish a comprehensive reference database. The first year of the monitoring program was finished with two sampling events in 2025. So far, a total of 25.820 arthropods were collected, whereas 12.603 belonged to Oribatida and 3.194 to Mesostigmata. Specific conclusions cannot be made at this time but there is indication that total abundance is higher at negative sites while species diversity is larger at positive sites. At the end of this project, the inferred results should contribute to the early detection of changes in soil quality, the understanding of biological diversity of soil fauna, and the development of measures for sustainable soil use.