Background
The database stems from an initiative from the European Commission Joint Research Centre. In November 2011, leading European soil hydrologists, including members of the European Soil Bureau Network were invited to discuss the possibilities to assemble a comprehensive European Hydropedological Data Inventory. Scientists from institutions from across Europe expressed their interest in participating in this proposal and assembled in Ispra, Italy on the 12 April 2012 and again on 4-5 March 2013 with the goal to establish the scientific principles, database structure and the implementation of the EU-HYDI. The participants shared the common interest to establish a joint database (EU-HYDI) with equal access rights for the advancement of hydropedological research and applications in Europe.
Data availability
When the EU-HYDI was established, its contributors agreed that all raw data contained in the database were accessible only to the contributing participants and the EU-HYDI coordinators at the JRC. Thus, authorised users of the raw data were limited exclusively to the authors of the EU-HYDI report (doi:10.2788/5936).
Over the years, on several occasions, third parties have requested access to the data. Some contributors have now given the JRC licence to distribute their raw data publicly through ESDAC. The table below summarises the contributions status. The intellectual property rights related to the data remain with the data providers.
When data are used and derived products are published, data are cited through a reference to the EU-HYDI report or its chapters, in case only a subset of data from three or less institutions are involved in the research. Shorthand data source should be referenced as ESDAC/EU-HYDI and link to this page of the ESDAC.
Further contributions
New data can be contributed to the database under CC-BY license. Please contact ec-esdac@ec.europa.eu
Status of EU-HYDI contributions
| Contributor | Access | Source in HYDI | N profiles | N samples |
|---|
| Belgium: Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain | public | Javaux | 11 | 44 |
| Belgium: Ghent University | public | Cornelis | 120 | 241 |
| Germany: ZALF Müncheberg | public | Schindler | 32 | 298 |
| Germany: ZALF Müncheberg | public | Schindler_HYPRES | 52 | 471 |
| Hungary: University of Pannonia | public | Mako | 308 | 900 |
| Italy: University of Palermo | public | Iovino | 375 | 417 |
| Netherlands: Wageningen University | public | Wosten_HYPRES | 102 | 358 |
| Poland: Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Lublin | public | Lamorski | 281 | 447 |
| Portugal: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária | public | Goncalves | 330 | 697 |
| Russian Federation: Moscow State University | public | Shein | 65 | 304 |
| Sweden: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences | public | Katterer | 185 | 1744 |
| Ukraine: National Scientific Center, Institute for Soil Science and Agrochemistry Research named after ON Sokolovskiy, Kharkiv | public | Patyka | 95 | 529 |
| United Kingdom: James Hutton Institute | public | Lilly | 43 | 133 |
| Austria: Federal Agency for Water Management | restricted | Strauss | 68 | 204 |
| Czechia: Czech University of Life Science in Prague | restricted | Matula | 72 | 174 |
| France: INRA, Orléans | restricted | Daroussin | 123 | 352 |
| Germany: BGR | restricted | Hennings_HYPRES | 518 | 1527 |
| Greece: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | restricted | Bilas | 883 | 2588 |
| Italy: University of Naples Federico II | restricted | Romano | 451 | 623 |
| Italy: University of Naples Federico II | restricted | Romano_HYPRES | 155 | 216 |
| Italy: University of Padova | restricted | Morari | 5 | 14 |
| Norway: Bioforsk Soil and Environment | restricted | Kvaerno | 283 | 1091 |
| Norway: Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute | restricted | Kvaerno | 109 | 325 |
| Norway: Norwegian University of Life Sciences | restricted | Kvaerno | 87 | 502 |
| Norway: Nowegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate | restricted | Kvaerno | 25 | 115 |
| Slovakia: Soil Fertility Research Institute | restricted | Houskova_HYPRES | 14 | 58 |
| Slovakia: Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute | restricted | Houskova | 22 | 97 |
| Spain: Evenor-Tech | restricted | Anaya | 1081 | 3787 |
| United Kingdom: Cranfield University | restricted | Cranfield | 119 | 426 |
Data structure
The European HYdropedological Data Inventory collects data from European soils focusing on soil physical, chemical and hydrological properties. It also contains information on geographical location, soil classification and land use/cover at the time of sampling. It was assembled with the aim of encompassing the soil variability in Europe.
The database consists of ten tables (CSV files): the first nine hold original data while the last contains harmonized data. Each profile from table GENERAL has a unique identifier of 8 digits. In tables BASIC, CHEMICAL, PSIZE, RET and COND, each sample is uniquely identified by its sample identifier: the profile identifier (8 digits) to which 2 digits are added for the sample. Tables can be linked through these two keys.
List of tables in EU-HYDI database
| Table Name | Description |
|---|
| GENERAL | General profile properties |
| BASIC | Basic and physical data at the sampling layer level |
| CHEMICAL | Chemical data at the sampling layer level |
| PSIZE | Measured particle size distribution data at the sampling layer level |
| RET | Measured soil water retention data at the sampling layer level |
| COND | Measured soil hydraulic conductivity data at the sampling layer level |
| METHOD | Measurement methods |
| PSD_EST | Harmonized particle size distribution |
Reference
Weynants, M., Montanarella, L., Tóth, G., Arnoldussen, A., Anaya Romero, M., Bilas, G., Borresen T., Cornelis W., Daroussin J., Gonalves M., Hannam J., Haugen L.E., Hennings V., Houskova B., Iovino M., Javaux M., Keay C.A., Kätterer T., Kvaerno S., Laktinova T., Lamorski K., Lilly A., Mako A., Matula S., Morari F., Nemes A., Patyka N.V., Romano N., Schindler U., Shein E., Slawinski C., Strauss P, Tóth B., Wösten, H. (2013). European HYdropedological data inventory (EU-HYDI). EUR – Scientific and Technical Research series – vol. EUR 26053 EN. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, GD Luxembourg. DOI:10.2788/5936
Mélanie Weynants. (2024). melwey/euhydi_public: v1.1.0. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10987813
Mélanie Weynants. (2024). melwey/eu_hydi_build: v1.1. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10987908
Note that the complete version of his dataset has been used for elaborating another dataset on ESDAC: "3D Soil Hydraulic Database of Europe at 1 km and 250 m resolution"
