Gully erosion in the EU

Development of LUCAS Gully Erosion Model (GE-LUCAS v1.1) and a pan-European inventory of gully erosion channels comprising 3,116 locations (~0.8% of all monitored locations) affected by gully erosion throughout the European Union. In addition, it is available the gully erosion channels probability across the EU and the U.K. based on GE-LUCAS v1.1 points.
Resource Type: 
Datasets
Soil Threats Data
Registration is requested: 
Yes
Year: 
2025
Themes: 
Gully Erosion
Keywords: 
Gully

Title:Gully erosion in the EU
Description:  Gully erosion channels usually form on hillsides, foothills, and to a lesser extent, on valley bottoms when soil is incised by concentrated overland flow. They primarily form or expand during heavy rainfall events, when overland flow occurs by infiltration-excess. Gullies, being highly dynamic landforms, frequently result in a diverse range of on-site and off-site effects, including the formation of Badlands. The LUCAS 2022 survey extended the visual detection of gully erosion channels to all 399,591 locations of the monitoring grid across the EU. The survey focused on gully channels. LUCAS feature detection 2022 surveyed 399,591 locations through in situ (49.8%) and on-screen (50.2%) observations. Here we a predictive interpolation of the gully erosion channels probability across the EU and the U.K. In addition, point data with gully occurence (and pictures) are also available.

This data format includes:

  • 399,591 records that represents the locations of the LUCAS 2022 observations.
  • Geometry vector data model consists of 3,116 records representing the LUCAS2022 locations where gullies were detected.
  • Probabilistic spatial interpolations of gully occurrence from the Random Forest classifier model in the EU and the UK
  • Significant amount of pictures with locations where gullies were observed.

Spatial coverage: European Union (EU)
Pixel size: 100m
Temporal coverage:  2022
Projection: ETRS89

Reference: Borrelli, P.,  Matthews, F., Alewell, C., Kaffas, K., Poesen, J., Saggau, P.,  Prăvălie, R., Vanmaercke, M., Panagos, P.  2025.  A hybrid in situ and on-screen survey to monitor gully erosion across the European Union. Nature Scientific Data 12, 755

 

 

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  • The data provided has been prepared for use by internal research activities in the Joint Research Centre (JRC) Ispra.
  • The data are the result of JRC research activities and are primarily made available for further research. The JRC does not accept any liability whatsoever for any error, missing data or omission in the data, or for any loss or damage arising from its use. The JRC agrees to provide the data free of charge but is not bound to justify the content and values contained in the databases.
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Reference of source (Citations) :

Borrelli, P.,  Matthews, F., Alewell, C., Kaffas, K., Poesen, J., Saggau, P.,  Prăvălie, R., Vanmaercke, M., Panagos, P.  2025.  A hybrid in situ and on-screen survey to monitor gully erosion across the European Union. Nature Scientific Data 12, 755

When making reference to the ESDAC

  • Panagos, P., Van Liedekerke, M., Borrelli, P., Köninger, J., Ballabio, C., Orgiazzi, A., Lugato, E., Liakos, L., Hervas, J., Jones, A.  Montanarella, L. 2022. European Soil Data Centre 2.0: Soil data and knowledge in support of the EU policies. European Journal of Soil Science, 73(6), e13315. DOI: 10.1111/ejss.13315
  • Panagos P., Van Liedekerke M., Jones A., Montanarella L., “European Soil Data Centre: Response to European policy support and public data requirements”; (2012) Land Use Policy, 29 (2), pp. 329-338. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2011.07.003
  • European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu, European Commission, Joint Research Centre