Soil Mission Projects

Collaboration of Soil Mission Projects with the EU Soil Observatory

The EU Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ (Mission Soil) is one of five Missions funded under the EU Research and Innovation (R&I) Programme Horizon Europe. Its goal is to create 100 Living Labs and Lighthouses by 2030 to promote sustainable land and soil management in urban and rural areas. The Mission Soil is rooted in research and innovation and was launched under HORIZON Europe, the EU Research and Innovation (R&I) Programme. Funded projects gather partners from all over Europe and beyond to work together towards achieving the Mission Soil objectives.

More information about the Funder projects under the Mission Soil.

In this page, you will find information about the collaboration between the Soil Mission projects and the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO). The list of examples is not exchaustive and it becomes available in reverse chronological order. The examples listed below resulted in published work or datasets available in the EU Soil Observatory. There are more bilateral collaboration which are under development.

2024

AI4SoilHealth and EU Soil Observatory have developed the observed/typical soil organic carbon (O/T SOC) index. This is an advancment compared to the classical SOC to clay ration (SOC/clay). "Typical” SOC is the average concentration in different pedo-climate zones. Compared with SOC/clay, O/T SOC was less sensitive to clay content, land cover, and climate, less geographically skewed, and better reflected differences in soil porosity and SOC stock, supporting 2 EU Soil Health Mission objectives (consolidating SOC stocks; improving soil structure for crops and biota). The produced maps (available in ESDAC) illustrate the observed/typical soil organic carbon (SOC) index classes and the 12 pedoclimate zones, derived from LUCAS 2009-18 observations, to stratify the landscape into areas suitable for benchmarking soil organic carbon (SOC) concentrations for pan-European soil health assessment. The work has been documented in the publication.

ECHO and EU Soil Observatory have published the report: A review of existing tools for citizen science research on soil health. In this work, we reviewed over 60 citizen science projects, across the globe, that considered soil health. We collected citizen science projects based on literature searIn this work, we reviewed over 60 citizen science projects, across the globe, that considered soil health. We collected citizen science projects based on literature search, expert interviews, suggestions from project partners and through the mailing lists of the European Network for Soil Awareness (ENSA) and the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC). We then screened all projects for the following characteristics: geographic coverage, duration, scientific factors (e.g. soil properties considered, fieldwork), technological factors (e.g. applications used) and their citizen engagement (e.g. target groups). Two-thirds of the reviewed studies were based in Europe and mostly conducted at regional- or national scales. We recommend to align the citizen science methodology with the desired level of participation. We also identified a need for the development of standardised, user-friendly and costeffective methodologies to generate soil data.

AI4SoilHealth and EU Soil Observatory and  scientists from the University of Bucharest, supported by the EU’s NextGenerationEU instrument through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan of Romania have worked together for the development of the Land Degradation Assessment. This collaboration took place in the context of a Nature Communications  publication. The 12 indicators included in this land degradation assessment are: Water erosion, Wind erosion, Soil organic carbon loss, Soil salinization, Soil acidification, Soil compaction, Soil nutrient imbalances, Soil pollution via pesticides, Soil pollution via heavy metals, Vegetation degradation,  Groundwater decline and Aridity.

AI4SoilHealth , Soil O-LIVE and EU Soil Observatory have worked together to develop a Roadmap towards assessing soil health in the EU by 2030 achieving the Green Deal objectives. The body of knowledge will soon be enriched thanks to the investment of 1 billion euros towards the Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’, which has the ambition to promote the development of new harmonized bottom-up and top-down soil health indicators. New data and knowledge are also anticipated through the national soil monitoring schemes to support the implementation of the Soil Monitoring Law. This is drafted in the publication.

AI4SoilHealth and EU Soil Observatory have developed the Global soil erodibility (K) assessment including the effects of saturated hydraulic conductivity. This resulted in the dataset (available in ESDAC) and a publication which encompasses global soil erodibility (K) factor maps, with the K factor being estimated through the Wischmeier and Smith (1978) method. In addition, measured values of saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) have been incorporated into the original method to formulate the Ksat-based soil erodibility (Kksat factor) map.

AI4SoilHealth and EU Soil Observatory have worked together for the development of the EU Bulk density map. This collaboration took place in the context of a publication which applied a methodological framework using an advanced Cubist rule-based regression model to optimize the spatial prediction of bulk density in Europe. The EUSO spatialised the circa 6000 LUCAS samples and developed the high-resolution map (100 m) of bulk density for the 0–20 cm depth and the maps at 0–10 and 10–20 cm depth.

ECHO and EU Soil Observatory developed the first database on Soil health related citizen-science projects . Soil-related citizen science projects have gained significant interest driven by the prominence of soil within public policy agendas. EUSO in collaboration with ECHO makes a review on previous citizen science projects, initiatives and activities that have engaged citizens to monitor soil. The database includes all those initiatives.

2023

HuMUS has just launched an open call for pilot projects with the aim of fostering new spaces of dialogue for the participatory governance of soil health and quality issues at regional and/or local levels in Europe. A total budget of €600 000 will be allocated to fund 20 pilot project proposals led by municipalities, regions or other public entities. Participation is open also to private and non governmental stakeholders at local and regional levels, such as agricultural enterprises, associations of land managers (e.g., farmer associations), civil society organisations and research institutions throughout Europe. Deadline for submitting proposals is 29 February 2024. In addition to the funding, the HuMUS partners will provide coaching, mentoring and advice to support like-minded initiatives and contribute to raising awareness about the value of soil and the importance of tackling related issues in a participatory fashion. More info: https://humus-project.eu/open-call/  (Dec. 2023)

AI4SoilHealth and EU Soil Observatory have worked together for the development of the Global Soil Erodiblity dataset. EUSO has faciliated the data inputs in saturated hydraulic conductivity dataset. In addition, both parties have worked together for the Global K-factor development. This dataset encompasses global soil erodibility (K) factor maps, with the K factor being estimated through the Wischmeier and Smith (1978) method. In addition, measured values of saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) have been incorporated into the original method to formulate the Ksat-based soil erodibility (Kksat factor) map. A third k-factor dataset which was included in the GloSEM (Borrelli et al., 2017) is also included (Nov. 2023).

ECHO and EU Soil Observatory made a Call for contribution on "repository of citizen science projects on soil". Citizen engagement to promote soil health and bring soils closer to citizen’s values is a key objective of the EU Soil Observatory. Your expertise on citizen science in the context of soil research is valuable in achieving this objective. The ECHO project is a recent HORIZON research project on citizen science monitoring of soils funded under Mission Soil.  EUSO in collaboration with ECHO makes a review on previous citizen science projects, initiatives and activities that have engaged citizens to monitor soil. The aim is to have an overview of the current state of the art, creating a repository of potentially useful resources from past citizen science initiatives in the field. More inforamagtion about the call: https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/euso/citizen-engagement (Oct 2023).

SOIL O-LIVE and EUSO have signed the collaboration agreement No 36648. The collaboration indluces among others: a) Development of models and data for monitoring soil health in olive plantations; b) Transfer of project Data, knowledge and indicators to EU Soil Observatory;  c) Building capacity for policy support in soil related EU policies and d) scientific synergies as joint publications, workshops, seminars and exchange of data and knowledge (June 2023).