Documents

Over the years, the JRC has produced many publications. These are found in this section. They have been sub-divided in various categories (see Subcategory buttons below). All more than 550 documents can also be inspected irrespective of the category (see 'All documents' below).

Publications in Journals include more than 390 published papers from the Soil Group in the JRC (EU Soil Observatory). Most of the papers refer to the last 10 years (2013-2023). In many cases the papers document the datasets published in ESDAC.

As example statistics, Since the establishement of the EUSO,  the group published:

  • 23 papers in 2020,
  • 27 papers in 2021
  • 40 papers in 2022
  • 46 papers in 2023

Most of them in high impact journals including Nature Communicaitons, Climate Change, Global Change Biology, etc. Almost all the publications are Open Access. As publications, we present articles published in peer-review journals indexed in Scopus or Web of Science.

 

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EUSO Annual Bulletin - 2022
EUSO Annual Bulletin - 2022
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Scientific-Technical Reports
Year: 2023
Publisher: Publications Office of European Union
Attachments: PDF icon JRC133346.pdf

This report presents the activities of the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO) that took place during 2021. Through its five main objectives, the EUSO contributes to improving the monitoring of soils, to creating and sharing knowledge and data about EU soils, in particular producing tailored outputs in support of policy development and to the wider public. These activities feed into the overarching knowledge management objective under which the EUSO provided extensive policy support to a range of policy areas, notably the upcoming Soil Health Law and the Horizon Europe’s Soil Mission.

A key element of the EU Soil Observatory are the six EUSO Working Groups (WG) that aim to discuss policy or technical advances on a particular topic. Their activities in 2022 were diverse and ranged from providing policy support (Soil Monitoring, Soil Pollution WGs), technical progress on integration of soil data (Soil Data WG) or advancing scientific knowledge about soils (Soil Erosion WG).

This report also highlights the developments to be expected in 2023. In particular, the EUSO will produce reports on soil pollution, soil organic carbon trends, pesticides in soils, land degradation and a soil fertility index and work on the state of soil health in the EU. A key development will be the publication of the EUSO soil health dashboard. The EUSO will support dedicated Soil Mission research projects and will continue to provide support for the upcoming Soil Health Law proposal. The EUSO is also planning a 2023 EU Soil Week.

Link: https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/public_path//shared_folder/doc_pub/JRC133346.pdf

Pesticides residues in European agricultural soils
Pesticides residues in European agricultural soils
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Scientific-Technical Reports
Year: 2023
In the past 20 years, the use of pesticides in agricultural lands have been target of several European Union (EU) regulations. More recently, and in line with several EU sustainability goals, the use of pesticides has been targeted by relevant policy ambitions aiming to reduce their use and risk following health and environmental concerns. Nonetheless, the current knowledge on soil contamination by pesticides residues is limited, due to a lack of systematic soil monitoring studies addressing soil pollution, especially at EU scale.
 
To fulfil this knowledge gap, the EU Soil Observatory led a study targeting residues of active ingredients of pesticides used as crop protection products in soil samples collected from the 2018 LUCAS survey. This is the largest study providing a comprehensive characterisation on the extent of residues of active ingredients from pesticides in the soils of the EU. This work establishes an initial EU baseline, and project a future assessment of the effectiveness of EU policies and regulations targeting pesticides use and soil pollution. Moreover, this study provides the first steps on the development of risk indicators for soil, allowing to present the first temporal assessment of pesticides in EU soils following a pilot study with samples from 2015 LUCAS survey.
 
This study highlights that pesticide residues in soils are widespread in the European agricultural land (74.5% sites), whereas most of the sites (57.1%) present mixtures of substances (two or more). Additionally, an indicator of the ecotoxicological impact for soil organisms was developed. This indicator compared the concentration of these substances with the no effect concentration (NOEC)
for soil organisms, identifying areas at higher risk (1.7% sites). But also, allowed to estimate an increase in ecotoxicological risk when compared with a previous assessment (2015-2018). Finally, among the substances found was also possible to identify banned and non-approved substances in soils (12%), according to the 2018 regulations (Regulation 1107/2009),The current study brought by the EU Soil Observatory and LUCAS 2018 soil module provides a significant contribution to the status of current knowledge on soil pollution in the EU. The insights provided in this report may help identifying target policies in creating a toxic-free environment.
 
Go to the report.
Patterns in soil microbial diversity across Europe
Patterns in soil microbial diversity across Europe
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

Factors driving microbial community composition and diversity are well established but the relationship with microbial functioning is poorly understood, especially at large scales. We analysed microbial biodiversity metrics and distribution of potential functional groups along a gradient of increasing land-use perturbation, detecting over 79,000 bacterial and 25,000 fungal OTUs in 715 sites across 24 European countries. We found the lowest bacterial and fungal diversity in less-disturbed environments (woodlands) compared to grasslands and highly-disturbed environments (croplands). Highly-disturbed environments contain significantly more bacterial chemoheterotrophs, harbour a higher proportion of fungal plant pathogens and saprotrophs, and have less beneficial fungal plant symbionts compared to woodlands and extensively-managed grasslands. Spatial patterns of microbial communities and predicted functions are best explained when interactions among the major determinants (vegetation cover, climate, soil properties) are considered. We propose guidelines for environmental policy actions and argue that taxonomical and functional diversity should be considered simultaneously for monitoring purposes.

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37937-4

Projected landscape-scale repercussions of global action for climate and biodiversity protection
Projected landscape-scale repercussions of global action for climate and biodiversity protection
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023
Land conservation and increased carbon uptake on land are fundamental to achieving the ambitious targets of the climate and biodiversity conventions. Yet, it remains largely unknown how such ambitions, along with an increasing demand for agricultural products, could drive landscape-scale changes and affect other key regulating nature’s contributions to people (NCP) that sustain land productivity outside conservation priority areas. By using an integrated, globally consistent modelling approach, we show that ambitious carbon-focused land restoration action and the enlargement of protected areas alone may be insufficient to reverse negative trends in landscape heterogeneity, pollination supply, and soil loss. However, we also find that these actions could be combined with dedicated interventions that support critical NCP and biodiversity conservation outside of protected areas. In particular, our models indicate that conserving at least 20% semi-natural habitat within farmed landscapes could primarily be achieved by spatially relocating cropland outside conservation priority areas, without additional carbon losses from land-use change, primary land conversion or reductions in agricultural productivity.
 

 

Soil biodiversity needs policy without borders
Soil biodiversity needs policy without borders
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023
Soil biodiversity is crucial for healthy soils, on which we all depend for food, human health, aboveground biodiversity, and climate control. It is well known that land use intensification, climate change, environmental pollution, and mining activities degrade soil biodiversity. However, most current and intended policies on soil protection not only lack a holistic view on how biological, physical, and chemical components of soil health are integrated but also overlook how soils across national borders and continents are connected by human activities. The challenge is to use recent advancements in understanding the distribution and functional roles of soil biodiversity in developing policy on restoring and protecting soil health across borders. Thus, policy should focus not only on soils within a nation or union of nations but also on preventing negative footprints on each other’s soils.
 
Numerous factors—such as urbanization, automation, disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and even wars—influence how land is used, which affects the capacity of soils to perform multiple functions, also called soil health (1). Searching for sustainable land use while providing food and feed for a more demanding population and dealing with growing demands on land for multiple other functions requires insights into the many factors that influence land use. Often, land use options are considered trade-offs, and the challenge is to search for win-win options, for example, climate change mitigation by biodiversity restoration. A transdisciplinary approach may help to understand possibilities and trade-offs to achieve a more sustainable society (2). Although an awareness that healthy soils are the basis of a healthy society is growing, anchoring this view into policy is still a challenge.
 
Soil protection requires an integrated legal framework to address the multitude of processes that are involved in land degradation, but most existing soil laws that should protect soils now focus on single issues, such as desertification or soil contamination. Moreover, soil protection laws are mostly national (3), although soil protection does not stop at national frontiers. For instance, current climate change caused by poor land use and industrialization outside sub-Arctic regions causes melting of the permafrost, which in turn exacerbates climate change through the release of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere.
 
Although it is widely acknowledged that plants, birds, butterflies, and many other animal species need to be protected, little explicit attention exists for protecting soil biodiversity (4). The European Union (EU) Soil Strategy for 2030 (5) has been set up to combat declining soil health in Europe and beyond. The ambition is to have healthy soils in the entirety of Europe by 2050. An important aspect of this ambition is that the EU is planning to propose a binding European Soil Health Law in 2023. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first and most inclusive soil health protection law that recognizes the ecosystem services provided by healthy soils and the need to protect those services for future generations. Proposing a soil health law is an important step toward a sustainable society; however, the real challenge is to make it work.
To make the EU’s Soil Health Law operational, soil health needs to be measurable. Different from soil quality, which is largely chemical in focus and mostly used to characterize the status of soil to sustain crop productivity, soil health is a more holistic concept (6). It is based on the recognition of the ecosystem services that soils provide. As defined in the EU soil strategy, soils are healthy when they are in good chemical, biological, and physical condition and are able to continuously provide as many of the ecosystem services as possible. Soil health addresses the sustainability goals set by the United Nations (UN), which have been adopted by many countries. However, finding effective, easy-to-measure indicators for soil health is challenging, because there is no one-size-fits-all indicator for all circumstances, just as in the case of soil quality (7).
 
 
Policy implications of multiple concurrent soil erosion processes in European farmland
Policy implications of multiple concurrent soil erosion processes in European farmland
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023
Soil erosion is a serious threat to soil functions leading to land productivity decline and multiple off-site effects. Here we show, using a multi-model approach, the spatial risk of soil erosion by water, wind, tillage and harvesting and where the co-occurrence of these different processes is observed. Moreover, we analysed where these locations of multiple erosion co-occurrence are likely to intersect with the projected increase of dry/wet climate conditions. Of the ~110 million hectares (M ha) of arable land in the European Union, our estimates show that 43 M ha are vulnerable to a single driver of erosion, 15.6 M ha to two drivers and 0.81 M ha to three or more drivers. About 3.2 M ha of arable land are vulnerable to the possible interaction of increased flood, drought, water and wind erosion. We contend that this set of predictions serves as a basis for developing an efficient stratified monitoring network and informing targeted mitigation strategies under the Common Agricultural Policy 2023–2027. The road to the sustainable, carbon-neutral and biodiversity-friendly system of agriculture advocated for in the EU Green Deal goes through a thematic strategy for soil protection from multiple concurrent erosion processes.
 
Publisher Correction: Patterns in soil microbial diversity across Europe
Publisher Correction: Patterns in soil microbial diversity across Europe
Resource Type: Publications in Journals, Documents, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

The original version of this Article contained an error in Fig. 1a, in which part of the ‘LUCAS Vegetation cover’ legend was omitted. This has now been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39596-x

 The overlooked threat of land take from wind energy infrastructures: Quantification, drivers and policy gaps
The overlooked threat of land take from wind energy infrastructures: Quantification, drivers and policy gaps
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

Wind harnessing is a fast-developing and cost-effective Renewable Energy Source, but the land impacts of wind power stations are often overlooked or underestimated. We digitized land take, i.e., the generation of artificial land, derived from 90 wind power stations in Greece constructed between 2002 and 2020 (1.2 GW). We found substantial land take impacts of 7729 m2/MW (3.5 m2/MWh) of new artificial land, 148 m/MW of new roads and 174 m/MW of widened roads on average. Models showed that the number and size of wind turbines, the absence of other existing infrastructures and the elevational difference across new access roads increased artificial land generation. The elevational difference across new and widened access roads also increased their length. New wind power stations in Greece are planned to be installed at higher elevations and in terrains facing higher risks for soil erosion and soil biodiversity. The general tendency in the European Union is to sit fewer wind power stations in mountainous and forested land. Still, this pattern is inversed in several countries, particularly in Southern Europe. After screening 29 policy and legal documents, we found that land take is indirectly inferred in the global policy but more directly in the European policy through five non-legally binding documents and three Directives. However, the current European energy policies seem to conflict with nature conservation policies, risking land take acceleration. The study provides insights for reducing land take when planning and constructing wind power stations. We underline the need for better quantification of land take and its integration in the complex process of sustainable spatial planning of investments.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030147972302128X?via%3Dihub

Towards a better understanding of pathways of multiple co-occurring erosion processes on global cropland
Towards a better understanding of pathways of multiple co-occurring erosion processes on global cropland
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

Soil erosion is a complex process involving multiple natural and anthropic agents, causing the deterioration of multiple components comprising soil health. Here, we provide an estimate of the spatial patterns of cropland susceptibility to erosion by sheet and rill, gully, wind, tillage, and root crops harvesting and report the co-occurrence of these processes using a multi-model approach. In addition, to give a global overview of potential future changes, we identify the locations where these multiple concurrent soil erosion processes may be expected to intersect with projected dry/wet climate changes by 2070. Of a modelled 1.48 billion hectares (B ha) of global cropland, our results indicate that 0.56 B ha (∼36% of the total area) are highly susceptible (classes 4 and 5) to a single erosion process, 0.27 B ha (∼18% of the total area) to two processes and 0.02 B ha (1.4% of the total area) to three or more processes. An estimated 0.82 B ha of croplands are susceptible to possible increases in water (0.68 B ha) and wind (0.14 B ha) erosion. We contend that the presented set of estimates represents a basis for enhancing our foundational knowledge on the geography of soil erosion at the global scale. The generated insight on multiple erosion processes can be a useful starting point for decision-makers working with ex-post and ex-ante policy evaluation of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 15 (Life on Land) activities. Scientifically, this work provides the hitherto most comprehensive assessment of soil erosion risks at the global scale, based on state-of-the-art models.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209563392300062X?via%3Dihub

EUSEDcollab: a network of data from European catchments to monitor net soil erosion by water
EUSEDcollab: a network of data from European catchments to monitor net soil erosion by water
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

As a network of researchers we release an open-access database (EUSEDcollab) of water discharge and suspended sediment yield time series records collected in small to medium sized catchments in Europe. EUSEDcollab is compiled to overcome the scarcity of open-access data at relevant spatial scales for studies on runoff, soil loss by water erosion and sediment delivery. Multi-source measurement data from numerous researchers and institutions were harmonised into a common time series and metadata structure. Data reuse is facilitated through accompanying metadata descriptors providing background technical information for each monitoring station setup. Across ten European countries, EUSEDcollab covers over 1600 catchment years of data from 245 catchments at event (11 catchments), daily (22 catchments) and monthly (212 catchments) temporal resolution, and is unique in its focus on small to medium catchment drainage areas (median = 43 km2, min = 0.04 km2, max = 817 km2) with applicability for soil erosion research. We release this database with the aim of uniting people, knowledge and data through the European Union Soil Observatory (EUSO).

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02393-8

Let's give a voice to young soil researchers
Let's give a voice to young soil researchers
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023

Young soil researchers represent a generation that will respond to future soil challenges and implement connected policy developments. They will deal with emerging challenges and opportunities for soil protection, such as climate change, land use change, scenario analysis, big data, modelling integration, one health aspects, and soil living laboratories. In this context, the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO) provides an inclusive forum for participatory research in the EU and beyond. In 2021, at the first gathering of the EUSO Stakeholders Forum, young researchers were actively engaged through the establishment of the EU Young Soil Researchers Forum. This resulted in interesting presentations, discussions, and research outputs, which have been brought together in this virtual thematicissue. Similar support for young soil researchers is expected at the 2024 EUSO Stakeholders Forum.

https://bsssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejss.13441

Global rainfall erosivity database (GloREDa) and monthly R-factor data at 1 km spatial resolution
Global rainfall erosivity database (GloREDa) and monthly R-factor data at 1 km spatial resolution
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023
Here, we present and release the Global Rainfall Erosivity Database (GloREDa), a multi-source platform containing rainfall erosivity values for almost 4000 stations globally. The database was compiled through a global collaboration between a network of researchers, meteorological services and environmental organisations from 65 countries. GloREDa is the first open access database of rainfall erosivity (R-factor) based on hourly and sub-hourly rainfall records at a global scale. This database is now stored and accessible for download in the long-term European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC) repository of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. This will ensure the further development of the database with insertions of new records, maintenance of the data and provision of a helpdesk.
 
In addition to the annual erosivity data, this release also includes the mean monthly erosivity data for 94% of the GloREDa stations. Based on these mean monthly R-factor values, we predict the global monthly erosivity datasets at 1 km resolution using the ensemble machine learning approach (ML) as implemented in the mlr package for R. The produced monthly raster data (GeoTIFF format) may be useful for soil erosion prediction modelling, sediment distribution analysis, climate change predictions, flood, and natural disaster assessments and can be valuable inputs for Land and Earth Systems modelling.
 
 Ecosystem type drives soil eukaryotic diversity and composition in Europe
Ecosystem type drives soil eukaryotic diversity and composition in Europe
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

Soil eukaryotes play a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem functions and services, yet the factors driving their diversity and distribution remain poorly understood. While many studies focus on some eukaryotic groups (mostly fungi), they are limited in their spatial scale. Here, we analyzed an unprecedented amount of observational data of soil eukaryomes at continental scale (787 sites across Europe) to gain further insights into the impact of a wide range of environmental conditions (climatic and edaphic) on their community composition and structure. We found that the diversity of fungi, protists, rotifers, tardigrades, nematodes, arthropods, and annelids was predominantly shaped by ecosystem type (annual and permanent croplands, managed and unmanaged grasslands, coniferous and broadleaved woodlands), and higher diversity of fungi, protists, nematodes, arthropods, and annelids was observed in croplands than in less intensively managed systems, such as coniferous and broadleaved woodlands. Also in croplands, we found more specialized eukaryotes, while the composition between croplands was more homogeneous compared to the composition of other ecosystems. The observed high proportion of overlapping taxa between ecosystems also indicates that DNA has accumulated from previous land uses, hence mimicking the land transformations occurring in Europe in the last decades. This strong ecosystem-type influence was linked to soil properties, and particularly, soil pH was driving the richness of fungi, rotifers, and annelids, while plant-available phosphorus drove the richness of protists, tardigrades, and nematodes. Furthermore, the soil organic carbon to total nitrogen ratio crucially explained the richness of fungi, protists, nematodes, and arthropods, possibly linked to decades of agricultural inputs. Our results highlighted the importance of long-term environmental variables rather than variables measured at the time of the sampling in shaping soil eukaryotic communities, which reinforces the need to include those variables in addition to ecosystem type in future monitoring programs and conservation efforts.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16871

Spatial assessment of topsoil zinc concentrations in Europe
Spatial assessment of topsoil zinc concentrations in Europe
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023
Zinc (Zn) is essential to sustain crop production and human health, while it can be toxic when present in excess. In this manuscript, we applied a machine learning model on 21,682 soil samples from the Land Use and Coverage Area frame Survey (LUCAS) topsoil database of 2009/2012 to assess the spatial distribution in Europe of topsoil Zn concentrations measured by aqua regia extraction, and to identify the influence of natural drivers and anthropogenic sources on topsoil Zn concentrations. As a result, a map was produced showing topsoil Zn concentrations in Europe at a resolution of 250 m. The mean predicted Zn concentration in Europe was 41 mg kg−1, with a root mean squared error of around 40 mg kg−1 calculated for independent soil samples. We identified clay content as the most important factor explaining the overall distribution of soil Zn in Europe, with lower Zn concentrations in coarser soils. Next to texture, low Zn concentrations were found in soils with low pH (e.g. Podzols), as well as in soils with pH above 8 (i.e., Calcisols). The presence of deposits and mining activities mainly explained the occurrence of relatively high Zn concentrations above 167 mg kg−1 (the one percentile highest concentrations) within 10 km from these sites. In addition, the relatively higher Zn levels found in grasslands in regions with high livestock density may point to manure as a significant source of Zn in these soils.
 
The map developed in this study can be used as a reference to assess the eco-toxicological risks associated with soil Zn concentrations in Europe and areas with Zn deficiency. In addition, it can provide a baseline for future policies in the context of pollution, soil health, human health, and crop nutrition.
 
 

 

Forty years of soil research funded by the European Commission: Trends and future
Forty years of soil research funded by the European Commission: Trends and future
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

The European Green Deal with its high ambition has set the European Union (EU) on a promising path towards greater soil protection. The EU Soil Strategy 2030, the Biodiversity Strategy 2030, the Farm to Fork Strategy, the Zero Pollution, the Nature Restoration Law and the European Climate Law, among others, include actions to protect our soils. Research and Innovation (R&I) will play a key role in developing new knowledge and tools enabling the transition to healthy soils. The main aim of this paper is to analyse past and near-future trends in EU's funding for R&I on soil-related issues. For this purpose, a review of EU-funded soil projects was conducted based on the data available in the Community Research and Development Information Service and the official portal for European data. Our analysis shows that over the past 40 years, the EU has invested significantly in developing integrated knowledge about the relationships between soil functions and ecosystem services and how human-induced pressures affect soil health. Following the adoption of the EU Soil Thematic Strategy in 2006, there was an increase in research funding for soil-related research. Furthermore, our analysis also illustrates an interesting interplay of permanent and changing soil themes. The Horizon Europe Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’, which aims to establish a network of 100 living labs and lighthouses to lead the transition towards healthy soils and safeguard human and planetary health by 2030, provides a further incentive for soil research. Together with the EU Soil Strategy 2030 and the new proposal for a Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience (Soil Monitoring Law), and the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO), the three instruments set up the political framework, concrete measures, and a monitoring system needed for the protection, restoration and sustainable use of soils.

https://bsssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejss.13423

Call for joint international actions to improve scientific understanding and address soil erosion and riverine sediment issues in mountainous regions
Call for joint international actions to improve scientific understanding and address soil erosion and riverine sediment issues in mountainous regions
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023

During the International Workshop on Soil Erosion and Riverine Sediment in Mountainous Regions held in November 2022, scientists from many countries shared their state-of-the-art knowledge and brainstormed to improve scientific understanding for coping with climate change and anthropogenic impacts. Information summarized in this discussion includes proposed key scientific questions and suggested joint actions to reduce soil erosion and riverine sediment problems in mountainous regions.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iswcr.2023.04.006

Retaining natural vegetation to safeguard biodiversity and humanity
Retaining natural vegetation to safeguard biodiversity and humanity
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

Global efforts to deliver internationally agreed goals to reduce carbon emissions, halt biodiversity loss, and retain essential ecosystem services have been poorly integrated. These goals rely in part on preserving natural (e.g., native, largely unmodified) and seminatural (e.g., low intensity or sustainable human use) forests, woodlands, and grasslands. To show how to unify these goals, we empirically derived spatially explicit, quantitative, area-based targets for the retention of natural and seminatural (e.g., native) terrestrial vegetation worldwide. We used a 250-m-resolution map of natural and seminatural vegetation cover and, from this, selected areas identified under different international agreements as being important for achieving global biodiversity, carbon, soil, and water targets. At least 67 million km2 of Earth's terrestrial vegetation (∼79% of the area of vegetation remaining) required retention to contribute to biodiversity, climate, soil, and freshwater conservation objectives under 4 United Nations’ resolutions. This equates to retaining natural and seminatural vegetation across at least 50% of the total terrestrial (excluding Antarctica) surface of Earth. Retention efforts could contribute to multiple goals simultaneously, especially where natural and seminatural vegetation can be managed to achieve cobenefits for biodiversity, carbon storage, and ecosystem service provision. Such management can and should co-occur and be driven by people who live in and rely on places where natural and sustainably managed vegetation remains in situ and must be complemented by restoration and appropriate management of more human-modified environments if global goals are to be realized.

https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14040

From regional to parcel scale: A high-resolution map of cover crops across Europe combining satellite data with statistical surveys
From regional to parcel scale: A high-resolution map of cover crops across Europe combining satellite data with statistical surveys
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023

The reformed Common Agricultural Policy of 2023–2027 aims to promote a more sustainable and fair agricultural system in the European Union. Among the proposed measures, the incentivized adoption of cover crops to cover the soil during winter provides numerous benefits such as improved soil structure and reduced nutrient leaching and erosion. Despite this recognized importance, the availability of spatial data on cover crops is scarce. The increasing availability of field parcel declarations in the European Union has not yet filled this data gap due to its insufficient information content, limited public availability and a lack of standardization at continental scale. At present, the best information available is regionally aggregated survey data, which although indicative, hinders the development of spatially accurate studies. In this work, we propose a statistical model relating Sentinel-1 data to the existence of cover crops at the 100-m spatial resolution over the entirety of the European Union and United Kingdom and estimate its parameters using the spatially aggregated survey data. To validate the method in a spatially-explicit way, predictions were compared against farmers' registered declarations in France, where the adoption of cover crops is widespread. The results indicate a good agreement between predictions and parcel-level data. When interpreted as a binary classifier, the model yielded an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.74 for the whole country. When the country was divided into five regions for the evaluation of regional biases, the AUC values were 0.77, 0.75, 0.74, 0.70, and 0.65 for the North, Center, West, East, and South regions respectively. Despite limitations such as the lack of data for validation outside France, and the non-standardized nomenclature for cover crops among Member States, this work constitutes the first effort to obtain a relevant cover crop map at a European scale for researchers and practitioners.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162300

Improving satellite-based global rainfall erosivity estimates through merging with gauge data
Improving satellite-based global rainfall erosivity estimates through merging with gauge data
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

Rainfall erosivity is a key factor that influences soil erosion by water. Rain-gauge measurements are commonly used to estimate rainfall erosivity. However, long-term gauge records with sub-hourly resolutions are lacking in large parts of the world. Satellite observations provide spatially continuous estimates of rainfall, but they are subject to biases that affect estimates of rainfall erosivity. We employed a novel approach to map global rainfall erosivity based on a high-temporal-resolution (30-min), long-term (2001–2020) satellite-based precipitation product—the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM-IMERG)—and mean annual rainfall erosivity from the Global Rainfall Erosivity Database (GloREDa) stations (n = 3286). We used a residual-based merging scheme to integrate GPM-IMERG-based rainfall erosivity with GloREDa using Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). The accuracy of the GWR-based merging scheme was evaluated with a 10-fold cross-validation against GloREDa stations. Based on GPM-IMERG-only, the global mean annual rainfall erosivity was estimated to be 1173 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 yr−1 with a standard deviation of 1736 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 yr−1. The mean value estimated via GPM-IMERG merged with GloREDa was 2020 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 yr−1 with a standard deviation of 3415 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 yr−1. Overall, GPM-IMERG-only estimates underestimated rainfall erosivity. The underestimations were greatest in areas of high rainfall erosivity. The accuracy of rainfall erosivity estimates from GPM-IMERG merged with GloREDa substantially improved (Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency = 0.83, percent bias = −2.4%, and root mean square error = 1122 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 yr−1) compared to estimates by GPM-IMERG-only (Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency = 0.51, percent bias = 27.8%, and root mean square error = 1730 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 yr−1). Improving satellite-based global rainfall erosivity estimates through integrating with gauge data is relevant as it can contribute to enhancing soil erosion modeling and, in turn, support land degradation neutrality programs.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.129555

Modelling phosphorus dynamics in four European long-term experiments
Modelling phosphorus dynamics in four European long-term experiments
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

Phosphorus (P) is a non-renewable geological macronutrient that plays an essential role in food security. The excessive use of P as a fertilizer and its subsequent diffuse loss leads to the deterioration of water quality, eutrophication, and loss of biodiversity. Ecosystem process-based models are a powerful tool to depict the P cycle, investigate the effects of management practices and climate change, and ultimately assess policy interventions that affect biogeochemical cycles. Of the limited number of P models in agricultural production systems, none have been tested in temperate conditions for periods of decades using long-term field experiments.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2022.103595

A field parcel-oriented approach to evaluate the crop cover-management factor and time-distributed erosion risk in Europe
A field parcel-oriented approach to evaluate the crop cover-management factor and time-distributed erosion risk in Europe
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023

The crop cover-management (C-) factor in arable landscapes describes the soil erosion susceptibility associated with seasonally cultivated crops. Previous informatic and computational limitations have led many modelling studies to prescribe C-factor values and assume spatial and temporal stationarity. However, the multiple influencing factors ranging from parcel-scale crop cultivation and management to regional-scale rainfall regimes motivates new methods to capture this variation when identifying at-risk areas. Here, we define a multi-component method to derive the C-factor by associating time series of canopy and residue surface cover from Sentinel-2 and climate-specific rainfall erosivity with Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) field parcel data from European Union member states. A scalable and standardised method is emphasised to increase the future interoperability and inter-comparability of soil erosion modelling studies deploying the C-factor. Additionally, field parcel simulation units with associated crop declarations provide a new reference scale to link predictions of soil erosion risk with specific management decisions and declarations by farmers. After implementing the method on a homogenised subsample of 8600 field parcels covering available IACS regions, several key findings are outlined: 1) time series information provides new opportunities to predict the time-criticality of erosion in specific crop cultivations, 2) the varying (a-)synchronicity between seasonal crop canopy cover and heavy rainstorms means that spatial variability is inherent within the C-factor across Europe, and 3) the addition of agricultural management practices (e.g. tillage practice descriptions) to open-access IACS repositories can facilitate more comprehensive evaluations of the C-factor and soil erosion risk.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iswcr.2022.09.005

Progress and challenges in sustainable land management initiatives: A global review
Progress and challenges in sustainable land management initiatives: A global review
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023

Sustainable land management (SLM) is widely recognized as the key to reducing rates of land degradation, and preventing desertification. Many efforts have been made worldwide by various stakeholders to adopt and/or develop various SLM practices. Nevertheless, a comprehensive review on the spatial distribution, prospects, and challenges of SLM practices and research is lacking. To address this gap, we gathered information from a global SLM database provided by the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) and two bibliographic databases of academic research. Over 1900 SLM practices and 1181 academic research papers from 129 and 90 countries were compiled and analyzed. Relatively better SLM dissemination was observed in dry subhumid countries and countries with medium scores on the Human Development Index (HDI), whereas dissemination and research were both lower in humid countries with low HDI values. Cropland was the main land use type targeted in both dissemination and research; degradation caused by water erosion and mitigation aimed at water erosion were also the main focus areas. Other dominant land use types (e.g., grazing) and SLM purposes (e.g., economic benefits) have received relatively less research attention compared to their dissemination. Overall, over 75 % of the 60 countries experiencing high soil erosion rates (>10 t ha−1 yr−1) also have low HDI scores, as well as poor SLM dissemination and research implying the limited evidence-based SLM dissemination in these countries. The limitation of research evidence can be addressed in the short term through integrating existing scientific research and SLM databases by adopting the proposed Research Evidence for SLM framework. There is, however, a great need for additional detailed studies of country-specific SLM challenges and prospects to create appropriate evidence-based SLM dissemination strategies to achieve multiple SLM benefits.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160027

Wildfires in Europe: Burned soils require attention
Wildfires in Europe: Burned soils require attention
Resource Type: European Soil Database & soil properties, Documents, Publications in Journals, Datasets, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

Annually, millions of hectares of land are affected by wildfires worldwide, disrupting ecosystems functioning by affecting on-site vegetation, soil, and above- and belowground biodiversity, but also triggering erosive off-site impacts such as water-bodies contamination or mudflows. Here, we present a soil erosion assessment following the 2017's wildfires at the European scale, including an analysis of vegetation recovery and soil erosion mitigation potential. Results indicate a sharp increase in soil losses with 19.4 million Mg additional erosion in the first post-fire year when compared to unburned conditions. Over five years, 44 million Mg additional soil losses were estimated, and 46% of the burned area presented no signs of full recovery. Post-fire mitigation could attenuate these impacts by 63–77%, reducing soil erosion to background levels by the 4th post-fire year. Our insights may help identifying target policies to reduce land degradation, as identified in the European Union Soil, Forest, and Biodiversity strategies.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2022.114936

Brief communication: A first hydrological investigation of extreme August 2023 floods in Slovenia, Europe
Brief communication: A first hydrological investigation of extreme August 2023 floods in Slovenia, Europe
Resource Type: Maps & Documents, Documents, Publications in Journals
Year: 2023

Extreme floods occurred from 4 to 6 August 2023 in Slovenia causing three casualties and causing total direct and indirect damage, including post-disaster needs according to the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), close to EUR 10 billion. The atypical summer weather conditions combined with the high air and sea temperatures in the Mediterranean and the high soil moisture led to the most extreme flood event in Slovenia in recent decades. The return periods of both daily and sub-daily precipitation extremes and peak discharges reached 250–500 years, and the runoff coefficient of a typical torrential and mostly forested mesoscale catchment was around 0.5. In addition, flooding, soil erosion, mass movements and river sediment transport processes caused major damage to buildings (more than 12 000 houses) and diverse infrastructure.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3885-2023

Climate change and cropland management compromise soil integrity and multifunctionality
Climate change and cropland management compromise soil integrity and multifunctionality
Resource Type: Documents, Publications in Journals, Maps & Documents
Year: 2023

Soils provide essential ecosystem functions that are threatened by climate change and intensified land use. We explore how climate and land use impact multiple soil function simultaneously, employing two datasets: (1) observational – 456 samples from the European Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey; and (2) experimental – 80 samples from Germany’s Global Change Experimental Facility. We aim to investigate whether manipulative field experiment results align with observable climate, land use, and soil multifunctionality trends across Europe, measuring seven ecosystem functions to calculate soil multifunctionality. The observational data showed Europe-wide declines in soil multifunctionality under rising temperatures and dry conditions, worsened by cropland management. Our experimental data confirmed these relationships, suggesting that changes in climate will reduce soil multifunctionality across croplands and grasslands. Land use changes from grasslands to croplands threaten the integrity of soil systems, and enhancing soil multifunctionality in arable systems is key to maintain multifunctionality in a changing climate.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3885-2023