In this report, we evaluate the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) from the soil perspective and provide baseline data for the two impact indicators (soil erosion, soil organic carbon) related to monitoring soil in the context of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) stocks across the EU28 for the 2018 were estimated by modelling the changes over a 9-year period from the 2009 baseline (data available in ESDAC) with a statistical model trained with LUCAS soil survey observations. In relation to spatial estimates of SOC stocks, it was observed a marked influence of environmental and site-specific edaphic conditions such as soil clay content. The combined effect of such natural property affecting soil organic carbon directly limits or enhances the potential of carbon sequestration by soil management practices. The mean SOC stock in the EU agricultural areas is about 57.5 t ha-1 (croplands mean stock: 46.6 t ha-1; grasslands mean stock: 84.6 t ha-1). A first-ever assessment at European scale combines the risks of water, wind, tillage and harvesting to reveal the cumulative impact on arable land. It is a basis for developing a comprehensive monitoring system for soil health. This first assessment could be the basis for a composite soil erosion indicator including all erosional processes. Summing up the total soil displacement of all erosional process, we estimate a 575 million tonnes of soil loss. According to our multi-model approach, water erosion is the most dominant erosional process contributing to 51% of the total soil loss in EU and UK. Compared to pre-2000, the soil erosion by water has been reduced by 20% in EU arable lands (reference year: 2016). The soil conservation efforts in the EU focused in a) increasing vegetation cover in arable lands through the year and b) reducing the tillage intensity.
Link: https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/public_path//shared_folder/doc_pub/JRC132234.pdf
