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The European Commission launched a soil assessment component to the periodic LUCAS Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey in 2009. Composite soil samples from 0-20-cm depth were taken, air-dried and sieved to 2 mm in order to analyse physical and chemical parameters of topsoil in 25 Member States (EU-27 except Bulgaria, Romania, Malta and Cyprus). The aim of the LUCAS Soil Component was to create a harmonised and comparable dataset of main properties of topsoil at the EU. The LUCAS Soil Component was extended to Bulgaria and Romania in 2012. Overall, ca. 22,000 soil samples were collected and analysed. All samples were analysed for percentage of coarse fragments, particle-size distribution, pH, organic carbon, carbonates, phosphorous, total nitrogen, extractable potassium, cation exchange capacity, multispectral properties and heavy metals. In 2015, the soil sampling was repeated in the same set of points of LUCAS 2009/2012 to monitor changes in topsoil physical and chemical parameters across the EU. The soil component was extended to points above elevations of 1000 m, which were not sampled in LUCAS 2009/2012. Furthermore, soil samples were taken in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Switzerland. The soil sampling was carried out following the instructions already used in LUCAS 2009/2012. Approximately 27,000 samples were collected and will be analysed during 2016 and 2017. In 2018, a new soil sampling campaign will be carried out within the LUCAS framework. Soil samples will be taken in repeated points of LUCAS 2009/2012 and LUCAS 2015. The novelty of the survey is that new physical, chemical and biological parameters will be analysed. Key parameters for evaluating soil quality, such as bulk density and soil biodiversity, will be analysed. These analyses require specific methods of soil sampling, preparation and storage of samples. Furthermore, field measurements such as the thickness of organic layer in peat soils, and visual assessment of signs of soil erosion will be carried out in 2018. This technical report compiles the instructions for collecting the various soil samples and for performing field measurements in the soil survey of 2018. These instructions will be used for all LUCAS surveyors, to create a comparable database of soil characteristics all over Europe.

The maps of predicted distribution of SOC content in Europe are based on aggregated 23,835 soil samples collected from the LUCAS Project (samples from agricultural soil), the BioSoil Project (samples from European forest soil), and the “Soil Transformations in European Catchments” (SoilTrEC) Project (samples from local soil data coming from five different critical zone observatories (CZOs) in Europe). The Predicted SOC content was the lowest in permanent crops and arable lands; highest values are found in wetlands and grasslands. Moreover, Hungary and Portugal show the lowest SOC content with the averages 2.21% and 2.68%, whereas Ireland (13.29%) and Sweden (11.15%) hshow ighest SOC contents.  

Spatial coverage: 25 European Union Member States (excluded Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia), and Switzerland
Pixel size: 1Km
Projection: ETRS89-LAEA-10-52
Temporal coverage: 2014
Input data source: LUCAS, BioSoil and CZOs point data

Via this page you can register for downloading the output and input data that are mentioned in the paper

The data are described in:

“Combining soil databases for topsoil organic carbon mapping in Europe” (E. Aksoy, Y.Yigini and L. Montanarella), published in PLOS ONE. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152098, that is summarized as follows: 

Accuracy in assessing the distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) is important because it plays a key role in the functions of both natural ecosystems and agricultural systems. There are several studies in the literature with the aim of finding the best method to assess and map the distribution of SOC content for Europe. This study aims to search for the effects and performances of using aggregated soil samples coming from different studies and land-uses.

The total number of the soil samples in this study was 23,835 and they were collected from the “Land Use/Cover Area frame Statistical Survey” (LUCAS) Project (samples from agricultural soil), the BioSoil Project (samples from forest soil), and the “Soil Transformations in European Catchments” (SoilTrEC) Project (samples from local soil data coming from five different critical zone observatories (CZOs) in Europe). Moreover, 15 spatial indicators (slope, aspect, elevation, compound topographic index (CTI), CORINE land-cover classification, parent material, texture, world reference base (WRB) soil classification, geological formations, annual average temperature, min-max temperature, total precipitation and average precipitation (for the years 1960–1990 and 2000–2010)) were used as auxiliary variables in this prediction. One of the most popular geostatistical techniques, Regression-Kriging (RK), was applied to build the model and assess the distribution of SOC.

This study showed that, even though the RK method was appropriate for successful SOC mapping, using combined databases did not increase the statistical significance of the method results for assessing the SOC distribution as much as expected. Combining local data coming from CZOs with LUCAS samples was found as more significant than combining the two big datasets of the LUCAS and Biosoil Projects. Moreover, the effect of the chosen auxiliary variables on SOC prediction seems more important than increasing the number of the soil samples. According to the results: SOC variation was mainly affected by elevation, slope, CTI, average temperature, average and total precipitation, texture, WRB and CORINE variables at the European scale in the model. Moreover, the highest average SOC contents were found in the wetland areas; agricultural areas have much lower SOC content than forest and semi natural areas; Ireland, Sweden and Finland show the highest SOC values; Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Spain and Italy show the lowest values with an average 3%.

 

Data (available: 3 output datasets and 1 input dataset):

0.     Input: soil sample point data; attribute: SOC for each point.

1.     Predicted distribution of SOC content by using 1 dataset (LUCAS) (Figure 3 in the article)

2.     Predicted distribution of SOC content by using 2 datasets (LUCAS-CZOs) (Figure 4 in the article)

3.     Predicted distribution of SOC content by using 3 datasets (LUCAS-CZOs-BIOSOIL) (Figure 5 in the article)

 

Acknowledgments

Funding support is acknowledged from the European Commission FP 7 Collaborative Project “Soil Transformations in European Catchments” (SoilTrEC) (Grant Agreement no. 244118).

Soil condition underpins food security, green growth, bioeconomies and aboveground biodiversity; it regulates climate, the hydrological and nutrient cycles, while  mitigating climate change. Soils provide resilience against floods and droughts, buffer the effects of pollutants and preserve cultural heritage. Healthy, functional soils underpin several targets of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Pressures on this finite, non-renewable resource, due to competition for land or inappropriate land management choices, severely impact soil functions. Amplified by climate change, these pressures lead to degradation processes such as erosion, contamination, loss of organic matter, shallow landsliding and, in extreme cases, a complete loss of the resource.

https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/public_path/shared_folder/doc_pub/JRC_Soil_Highlights_eBook_0.pdf

 

 

On this report the findings of the questionnaire commissioned by the European Commission Joint Research Centre for the revision of the Indicator "Progress in the management of contaminated site in Europe" in 2016 are presented. It has been produced with the contribution of data provided by the National Reference Centres (NRCs) in member states and cooperating countries within EIONET and funded by the country to work with the EEA and relevant European Topic Centres (ETCs) in specific thematic areas related to the EEA work programme

 

With the aim  of sharing best practices of soil restoration and management of contaminated sites among European countries and to raise awareness of the enormous efforts made to succeed in such difficult commitment, the experts of the EIONET Soil working group on contaminated sites and brownfields agreed to gather their country's interesting cases and successful stories of recovery of contaminated areas. This second edition of the monograph presents seventeen new cases from eight European countries and its Regions of how polluted sites and brownfields have been remediated like new methodologies of sustainable restoration of the subsoil, development of innovative technologies, and funding mechanisms etc. These stories have been compiled to present what national, regional or local governments are doing to improve the quality of the environment and the living conditions of their population. A second aim is the promotion of best practices among industry, consultancies and business operators.

 

http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC102681/kj0217891enn.pdf

A new baseline of organic carbon stock in European agricultural soils using a modelling approach Proposed European policy in the agricultural sector will place higher emphasis on soil organic carbon (SOC), both as an indicator of soil quality and as a means to offset CO2 emissions through soil carbon (C) sequestration. Despite detailed national SOC datasets in several European Union (EU) Member States, a consistent C stock estimation at EU scale remains problematic. Data are often not directly comparable, different methods have been used to obtain values (e.g. sampling, laboratory analysis, etc.) and access may be restricted. Therefore, any evolution of EU policies on C accounting and sequestration may be constrained by a lack of an accurate SOC estimation and the availability of tools to carry out scenario analysis, especially for agricultural soils. Under this context, a comprehensive model was established at a pan-European scale (EU + Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Norway) using the agro-ecosystem SOC model CENTURY. Almost 164,000 combinations of soil-climate-land use were computed, including the main arable crops, orchards and pasture. The model was implemented with the main management practices (e.g. irrigation, mineral and organic fertilization, tillage, etc.) derived from official statistics. The model results were tested against inventories from the European Environment and Observation Network (EIONET) and approximately 20,000 soil samples from the 2009 LUCAS survey, a monitoring project aiming at producing the first coherent, comprehensive and harmonized top-soil dataset of the EU based on harmonized sampling and analytical methods. The CENTURY model estimation of the current 0-30 cm SOC stock of agricultural soils was 17.64 Gt. The model predicted an overall increase of this pool according to different climate-emission scenarios up to 2100, with C loss in the south and east of the area (involving 30% of the whole simulated agricultural land) compensated by a gain in central and northern regions. Generally, higher soil respiration was offset by higher C input as a consequence of increased CO2 atmospheric concentration and favourable crop growing conditions, especially in northern Europe. Considering the importance of SOC in future EU policies, this platform of simulation appears to be a very promising tool to orient future policymaking decisions. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Highly spatially- and seasonally-resolved predictive contamination maps for persistent organic pollutants: Development and validation A reliable spatial assessment of the POPs contamination in soils is essential for burden studies and flux evaluations. Soil characteristics and properties vary enormously even within small spatial scale and over time; therefore soil capacity of accumulating POPs varies greatly. In order to include this very high spatial and temporal variability, models can be used for assessing soil accumulation capacity in a specific time and space and, from it, the spatial distribution and temporal trends of POPs concentrations. In this work, predictive contamination maps of the accumulation capacity of soils were developed at a space resolution of 1 × 1 m with a time frame of one day, in a study area located in the central Alps. Physical algorithms for temperature and organic carbon estimation along the soil profile and across the year were fitted to estimate the horizontal, vertical and seasonal distribution of the contamination potential for PCBs in soil (Ksa maps).The resulting maps were cross-validated with an independent set of PCB contamination data, showing very good agreement (e.g. for CB-153, R2 = 0.80, p-value = 2.2 · 10- 06). Slopes of the regression between predicted Ksa and experimental concentrations were used to map the soil contamination for the whole area, taking into account soil characteristics and temperatures conditions. These maps offer the opportunity to evaluate burden (concentration maps) and fluxes (emission maps) with highly resolved temporal and spatial detail.In addition, in order to explain the observed low autumn PCB concentrations in soil related to the high Ksa values of this period, a dynamic model of seasonal variation of soil concentrations was developed basing on rate parameters fitted on measured concentrations. The model was able to describe, at least partially, the observed different behaviour between the quite rapid discharge phase in summer and the slow recharge phase in autumn. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Prediction of Soil Organic Carbon at the European Scale by Visible and Near InfraRed Reflectance Spectroscopy Soil organic carbon is a key soil property related to soil fertility, aggregate stability and the exchange of CO2 with the atmosphere. Existing soil maps and inventories can rarely be used to monitor the state and evolution in soil organic carbon content due to their poor spatial resolution, lack of consistency and high updating costs. Visible and Near Infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy is an alternative method to provide cheap and high-density soil data. However, there are still some uncertainties on its capacity to produce reliable predictions for areas characterized by large soil diversity. Using a large-scale EU soil survey of about 20,000 samples and covering 23 countries, we assessed the performance of reflectance spectroscopy for the prediction of soil organic carbon content. The best calibrations achieved a root mean square error ranging from 4.1 to 15 g C kg-1 for mineral soils and a root mean square error of 50 g C kg-1 for organic soil materials. Model errors are shown to be related to the levels of soil organic carbon and sand content in the samples. Although errors are ~5 times larger than the reproducibility error of the laboratory method, reflectance spectroscopy provides unbiased estimates of the soil organic carbon content that could be used for assessing the mean soil organic carbon content of large geographical entities or countries. This study is a first step towards providing uniform continental-scale spectroscopic estimations of soil organic carbon, meeting an increasing demand for information on the state of the soil that can be used in biogeochemical models and the monitoring of soil degradation. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Contaminated sites in Europe: Review of the current situation based on data collected through a European Network Under the European Union (EU)Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection, the European Commission has identified soil contamination as a priority for the collection of policy-relevant soil data at European scale. In order to support EU soil management policies, soilrelated indicators need to be developed which requires appropriate data collection and establishment of harmonized datasets for the EU Member States. In 2011-12, the European Soil Data Centre of the European Commission conducted a project to collect data on contaminated sites from national institutions in Europe using the European Environment Information and Observation Network for soil (EIONET-SOIL). This paper presents the results obtained fromanalysing the soil contaminated sites data submitted by participating countries. According to the received data, the number of estimated potential contaminated sites is more than 2.5 million and the identified contaminated sites around 342 thousand. Municipal and industrial wastes contribute most to soil contamination (38%), followed by the industrial/commercial sector (34%).Mineral oil and heavymetals are themain contaminants contributing around 60% to soil contamination. In terms of budget, the management of contaminated sites is estimated to cost around 6 billion Euros (C) annually. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Willingness to pay for soil information derived by digital maps: A choice experiment approach Soil surveys and the information they provide are commonly believed to be good investment, with significant benefits accrued to their users. To date, the empirical evidence for this comes from studies that have shown how enhanced soil information can alter agricultural practices in order to yield higher returns. This study attempts to estimate the economic value of soil information generated by a host of new proximal and in situ geophysical methods for the assessment of the following soil properties: carbon content, water content, clay content, bulk density and soil depth. The study also adopts a novel approach to the economic valuation of soil information by employing for the first time a choice experiment in order to estimate the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of potential users of the digital maps and their features. The choice experiment took the form of an online survey, administered to about a thousand individuals from the wider soil community. The results reveal significant WTP for maps of high resolution and accuracy that offer map interpretation in addition to a number of soil properties. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

The LUCAS topsoil database and derived information on the regional variability of cropland topsoil properties in the European Union The Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey (LUCAS) is a pilot project to monitor changes in the management and nature of the land surface of the European Union. Sampling is based on the intersection points of a 2 x 2 km grid covering the EU. In the 2009 LUCAS exercise, the sampling of soil complemented the general land use and land cover survey, through the collection of topsoil samples from around 10% of the sites visited in that year. Nearly 21,000 soil samples were collected in twenty-five EU Member States (EU-27 except Bulgaria and Romania) with the aim to produce the first coherent physicochemical database of soils at pan-European Scale. Soil samples have been analysed for basic soil properties, including particle size distribution, pH, organic carbon, carbonates, NPK and CEC, and multispectral properties. Preliminary studies show the outstanding potential of the dataset in enhancing the knowledge base for soils in the EU. The current paper provides an introduction to the LUCAS Topsoil 2009 project and provides an example of data applicability by highlighting some of the results on organic carbon measurements in a regional comparison. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Tier-based approaches for landslide susceptibility assessment in Europe In the framework of the European Soil Thematic Strategy and the associated proposal of a Framework Directive on the protection and sustainable use of soil, landslides were recognised as a soil threat requiring specific strategies for priority area identification, spatial hazard assessment and management. This contribution outlines the general specifications for nested, Tier-based geographical landslide zonings at small spatial scales to identify priority areas susceptible to landslides (Tier 1) and to perform quantitative susceptibility evaluations within these (Tier 2). A heuristic, synoptic-scale Tier 1 assessment exploiting a reduced set of geoenvironmental factors derived from common pan-European data sources is proposed for the European Union and adjacent countries. Evaluation of the susceptibility estimate with national-level landslide inventory data suggests that a zonation of Europe according to, e.g. morphology and climate, and performing separate susceptibility assessments per zone could give more reliable results. To improve the Tier 1 assessment, a geomorphological terrain zoning and landslide typology differentiation are then applied for France. A multivariate landslide susceptibility assessment using additional information on landslide conditioning and triggering factors, together with a historical catalogue of landslides, is proposed for Tier 2 analysis. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Report on landslide mapping concepts and methods for landslide risk management in Europe. Landslide inventories and susceptibility and hazard maps are key tools for land use planning and management, civil protection plans, civil engineering works, and risk reduction programmes. Their importance helps understanding why approximately one sixth of all contributions to the Second World Landslide Forum were related to recent advances in these topics. This volume presents the state of the art on landslide inventory and susceptibility and hazard zoning. It contains experiences, methods and techniques applied in different physiographic, geological and climate settings of the world and for different types of landslides, from site-specific investigations to global scale analysis Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Tier-based approaches for landslide susceptibility assessment in Europe In the framework of the European Soil Thematic Strategy and the associated proposal of a Framework Directive on the protection and sustainable use of soil, landslides were recognised as a soil threat requiring specific strategies for priority area identification, spatial hazard assessment and management. This contribution outlines the general specifications for nested, Tier-based geographical landslide zonings at small spatial scales to identify priority areas susceptible to landslides (Tier 1) and to perform quantitative susceptibility evaluations within these (Tier 2). A heuristic, synoptic-scale Tier 1 assessment exploiting a reduced set of geoenvironmental factors derived from common pan-European data sources is proposed for the European Union and adjacent countries. Evaluation of the susceptibility estimate with national-level landslide inventory data suggests that a zonation of Europe according to, e.g. morphology and climate, and performing separate susceptibility assessments per zone could give more reliable results. To improve the Tier 1 assessment, a geomorphological terrain zoning and landslide typology differentiation are then applied for France. A multivariate landslide susceptibility assessment using additional information on landslide conditioning and triggering factors, together with a historical catalogue of landslides, is proposed for Tier 2 analysis. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Spatial prediction of soil properties at European scale using the LUCAS database as an harmonization layer The Land Use and Cover Area frame Statistical survey (LUCAS) is a project, initiated by Eurostat, aimed at the collection of harmonized data about the state of land use/ land cover over the extent of European Union (EU). The survey, initiated in 2006, started with the classification, through photo-interpretation, of 106 georeferenced points placed at the nodes of a 2km grid covering EU. Among these 2
105 were selected for validation and a topsoil survey was conducted at about 10% of these sites. Topsoil sampling locations were selected as to be representative of European landscape using a latin hypercube stratified random sampling, taking into account CORINE land cover 2000, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) DEM and its derived slope, aspect and curvature. In this study we will discuss how the LUCAS database can be used to map soil properties at continental scale over the geographical extent of Europe. Several soil properties (namely: soil texture, pH, carbon and nitrogen content) were predicted using hybrid approaches like regression kriging. Regression models were fitted using, along other variables, remotely sensed data coming from the MODIS sensor. The high temporal resolution of MODIS allowed detecting changes in the vegetative response due to soil properties, which can then be used to map soil features distribution. We will also discuss the prediction of intrinsically collinear variables like soil texture which required the use of models capable of dealing with multivariate constrained dependent variables like Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines. Cross validation of the fitted models proved that the LUCAS dataset constitutes a good sample for mapping puropses leading to regression R2 between 0.4 and 0.7 for different soil properties and normalised errors between 4 and 10%. Finally a strategy about how to use LUCAS as an harmonization layer to attune heterogeneous soil information sources is presented and discussed Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

SoilTrEC: A Global Initiative on Critical Zone Research and Integration Global soils provide a variety of ecosystem services. However, currently, global soils are under various threats and in specific cases catastrophic decline in these services is observed across the continents. In this context, , the European Commission published the Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection identifies a specific policy need to address the threats to soil and ecosystem services that it provides. SoilTrEC which stands for Soil Transformations in European Catchments aims to research on soil processes and functions in a CZ context and, to provide recommendations to the stakeholders to develop appropriate policies on soil protection and ecosystem services. This paper presents an overview of the SoilTrEC project, its organizational structure, the methodology and the expected outcomes. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Bioremediation trial on aged PCB polluted soils - A bench study in Iceland Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) pose a threat to the envuronment due to their high adsorption capacity to soil organic matter, stability and low reactivity, low water solubility, toxicity and ability to accumulate. With Icelandic soils, research on contamination issies has been very limited, and no data has been reported either on PCB degradation potential or rate. The goals of this research were to assess the bioavailability of aged PBCs in the soils of the old NATO facility in Keflavík, Iceland, and to find the best feasable biostimulation method to decrease the pollution. The effectiveness of different iostimulation additives at different temperatures and oxygen levels were tested. PCB bioavailability to soil fauna was assessed with earthworms (Eisenia foetia). PCBs were biovailable to earthworms, with less chlorinated congeners showing higher bioaccumulation factors than highly chlorinated congeners. Biostimulation with pine needles at 10 degrees under aerobic conditions resulted in nearly 38% degradation of total PCBs after two months incubation. Detection of aerobic PCB degrading bphA gene supports the indigenous capability of the soils to aerobically degrade PCBs. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

European Scenarios for Exposure of Soil Organisms to Pesticides Standardised exposure scenarios play an important role in European pesticide authorisation procedures (a scenario is a combination of climate, weather and crop data to be used in exposure models). The European Food Safety Authority developed such scenarios for the assessment of exposure of soil organisms to pesticides. Scenarios were needed for both the concentration in total soil and for the concentration in the liquid phase. The goal of the exposure assessment is the 90th percentile of the exposure concentration in the area of agricultural use of a pesticide in each of three regulatory European zones (North, Centre and South). A statistical approach was adopted to find scenarios that are consistent with this exposure goal. Scenario development began with the simulation of the concentration distribution in the entire area of use by means of a simple analytical model. In the subsequent two steps, procedures were applied to account for parameter uncertainty and scenario uncertainty (i.e. the likelihood that a scenario that is derived for one pesticide is not conservative enough for another pesticide). In the final step, the six scenarios were selected by defining their average air temperature, soil organic-matter content and their soil textural class. Organic matter of the selected scenarios decreased in the order North-Centre-South. Because organic matter has a different effect on the concentration in total soil than it has on the concentration in the liquid phase, the concentration in total soil decreased in the order North-Centre-South whereas the concentration in the liquid phase decreased in the opposite order. The concentration differences between the three regulatory zones appeared to be no more than a factor of two. These differences were comparatively small in view of the considerable differences in climate and soil properties between the three zones. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Continental-scale assessment of provisioning soil functions in Europe Soil plays a crucial role in terrestrial ecosystems and maintaining life on Earth. The ecosystem services it provides to humans are manifold and complex. In this paper we propose a framework for the evaluation of soil ecosystem services on a continental scale in Europe and make an account of the repertoire of major soil functions and functioning capacities of soils. Soil functions and associated services are discussed in the context of the European soil protection strategy and related to the classification of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. In our attempt to characterize soil ecosystem services for the area of the EU in a spatially explicit manner we produced new data on provisioning soil ecosystem services, including productivity and raw material availability. Comparing the potentials for providing soil ecosystem services with individual soil functions in European areas highlight the complexity of decision making dilemma for resources utilization but also underlines the possibilities for resources use optimization and conscious management. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

The European Commission launched a soil assessment component to the periodic LUCAS Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey in 2009. In 2015, the Topsoil Survey was repeated in the same set of points of LUCAS 2009/2012 for monitoring changes in topsoil physical and chemical parameters across the EU. Currently, the European Commission is working on the organization of the upcoming LUCAS Soil Surveys (2018). This technical report is a proposal for analysing new physical, chemical and biological soil parameters within the forthcoming LUCAS Soil Surveys. Soil biodiversity is a key parameter that needs to be added to LUCAS Soil Surveys, due to the contribution of the soil biological community to soil functions such as food and biomass production, genetic pool for developing novel pharmaceuticals, and climate regulation. Among physical properties, bulk density is necessary to assess soil compaction and to estimate soil organic carbon stock in the EU. Field measurements such as signs of soil erosion and thickness of organic layer in Histosols is also important to assess two critical soil degradation processes in the EU: soil erosion and organic carbon decline due to land use changes and land take of Histosols. Finally, it could be interesting to organize a survey of soil profiles to collect information that will help to understand soil-forming processes and to evaluate soil ability for carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, water storage, and contaminant filtering.

An estimate of potential threats levels to soil biodiversity in EU Life within the soil is vital for maintaining life on Earth due to the numerous ecosystem services that it provides. However, there is evidence that pressures on the soil biota are increasing which may undermine some of these ecosystem services. Current levels of belowground biodiversity are relatively poorly known, and so no benchmark exists by which to measure possible future losses of biodiversity. Furthermore, the relative risk that each type of anthropogenic pressures places on the soil biota remains unclear. Potential threats to soil biodiversity were calculated through the use of a composite score produced from data collected from 20 international experts using the budget allocation methodology. This allowed relative weightings to be given to each of the identified pressures for which data were available in the European Soil Data Centre (ESDC). A total of seven different indicators were used for the calculating the composite scores. These data were applied through a model using ArcGIS to produce a spatial analysis of composite pressures on soil biodiversity at the European scale. The model highlights the variation of the composite result of the potential threats to soil biodiversity. A sensitivity analysis demonstrated that the intensity of land exploitation, both in terms of agriculture and use intensity, as well as in terms of land use dynamics, were the main factors applying pressure on soil biodiversity. It is important to note that the model should not be viewed as an estimate of the current level of soil biodiversity in Europe, but as an estimate of pressures that are currently being exerted. The results obtained should be seen as a starting point for further investigation on this relatively unknown issue and demonstrate the utility of this type of model which may be applied to other regions and scales. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

This report presents the result of WP2 of the RECARE project. One of the objectives of WP2 (Base for RECARE data collection and methods) is to provide an improved overview of existing information on soil threats and degradation at the European scale. The report is written by a group of experts from the RECARE team, coordinated by Bioforsk. In total, 60 persons were included in the process of writing, reviewing and editing the report. Eleven soil threats were identified for the report. These soil threats are soil erosion by water, soil erosion by wind, decline of organic matter (OM) in peat, decline of OM in minerals soils, soil compaction, soil sealing, soil contamination, soil salinization, desertification, flooding and landslides and decline in soil biodiversity.
Editors: Jannes Stolte, Mehreteab Tesfai, Lillian Øygarden, Sigrun Kværnø (NIBIO), Jacob Keizer, Frank Verheijen (University of Aveiro), Panos Panagos, Cristiano Ballabio (JRC), Rudi Hessel (Alterra WUR)
EUR27607

This document is published at the initiative of the Eionet National Reference Centres for Soil, which established in 2015 an ad-hoc working group on contaminated sites and brownfields in Europe.The objective was to collect cases and successful stories of remediated sites and brownfields, harmonise and facilitate exchanges of information on contaminated soils and soil remediation between the Eionet contributing countries. These stories have been compiled in the present report as a publication to the International Year of Soil 2015. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the remediation of contaminated sites and brownfields rehabilitation which is essential for sustainable land use management and to share best practices and new techniques in soil remediation and management of contaminated sites, meanwhile raising awareness of the enormous efforts needed to succeed. This document presents examples of success stories of remediation of contaminated soils in various contexts and different European countries. It is not meant to provide an exhaustive inventory of remediated sites in all countries.

Thirteen countries comprising 19 European regions present a total of 29 cases which illustrate how soil and brownfields remediation along with sustainable land management have become essential for reversing the trend of soil degradation and ensuring the provision of ecosystem services by soil.

An energy-biochar chain involving biomass gasification and rice cultivation in Northern Italy The competing demand for food and bioenergy requires new solutions for the agricultural sector, which cannot be spoiled out of its fundamental role of feeding a world population continuously growing. In this context, the production of bioenergy from crop residues and residual biomass may be an interesting solution, since do not affect food production while creating energy. In particular, the gasification technology produces both energy and biochar, which seems to have positive agronomic effects in many experimental fields worldwide, also sequestering carbon in soil. However a full assessment of the energetic performances of gasification plants, as well as their impact in term of greenhouse gases (GHG), needs to be done. In this paper we complete a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of an advanced gasification plant located in northwestern Italy, in particular focusing on the GHG balance of the supply chain, including the field distribution of the resulting biochar in a typical paddy rice field. The results indicate that biochar has marginal, but positive effect on rice yield, not affecting soil aggregation in the short-term. Moreover, LCA suggested net emissions ranging between -0.54 and -2.1 t CO2e t-1 biochar depending on the allocation scenario adopted. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Extending Geographic and Thematic Range of SPADE/M with HYPRES Soil Profile Data The measured soil profile data of the Hydraulic Properties of European Soils (HYPRES) were evaluated for their potential use in extending the geographic coverage and thematic range of the profiles of the Soil Profile Analytical Database of Europe of measured profiles (SPADE/M) database. The aim of increasing the number of measured profiles is to improve the definition of pedo-transfer rules (PTRs) to extend the range of parameters characterizing soils and the validation of model runs.The HYPRES and SPADE/M databases follow different concepts in the compilation of soil profiles. These differences were reflected in the organization of storing profile data in the databases. A specific conceptual problem to extending the SPADE/M data set is posed by recording repeated measurements in the HYPRES database for horizons of a profile and multiple profiles for a plot. The two data sets also differ with respect to the properties recorded, the measurement units and the database model. To increase the number of measured soil profile data of the SPADE/M data set with HYPRES profiles the data from the latter has to be standardized to be adjusted to comply with the specifications of the SPADE/M data set. The standardization process involves conversions of units or reference systems, such as the plot co-ordinate transformation or the extraction of properties from comment fields, but also conceptual adaptations of the method used to characterize a soil horizon in the database. The outcome of the standardization process is a series of soil profiles which can be seamlessly added to the SPADE/M data set. Author(s): R. Hiederer Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union 2011 – 43 pp. – EUR 26540 EN Scientific and Technical Research series – ISBN 78-92-79-21593-3(online), doi:10.2788/8209 Download report: (Size: 1 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 21/08/2014

European perspective of ecosystem services and related policies In this paper we focus on the importance of terrestrial ecosystems and the services they provide. EU policies, contributing to the conservation and maintenance of the ecosystem services in Europe are discussed and their current impacts briefly reviewed in the light of the main challenges that European ecosystems may face in the near future. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Estimating the soil organic carbon content for European NUTS2 regions based on LUCAS data collection Soil organic carbon is one of the attributes of the recently developed LUCAS Soil database. The request for data on soil organic carbon and other soil attributes arose from an on-going debate about efforts to establish harmonised datasets for all EU countries with data on soil threats in order to support modelling activities and to display variations in these soil conditions across Europe. In 2009, the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) conducted the LUCAS soil survey by sampling more than 20,000 points across 23 EU member states. This paper describes the results obtained from analyzing the soil organic carbon data in the LUCAS soil database. The collected data were compared with the modelled data of the European topsoil organic carbon content developed at the JRC. The best fitted comparison was performed at NUTS2 (Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics, European regions) level and demonstrated the underestimation of modelled data in southern Europe, overestimation in the central eastern new member states. There is a good correlation in certain regions for countries such as the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Italy, Ireland, and France. Soil organic carbon content statistics at the national level have been available for some EU countries for the past two decades, but statistics at the regional level are non-existent for almost all countries. Where they do exist the methods used to produce them are not consistent across countries. This article assesses the feasibility of producing comparable estimates of the soil organic carbon content at NUTS2 regional level for the European Union (EU27) and draws a comparison with existing modelled data. In addition to the data analysis, we suggest how the modelled data can be improved in future updates with better calibration of the model. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Soil carbon sequestration for climate food security and ecosystem services The international conference SOIL CARBON SEQUESTRATION for climate, food security and ecosystem services – linking science, policy and action (SCS2013) took place in Reykjavik Iceland on 27. – 29. May 2013. The conference was organized by the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland, the Agricultural University of Iceland and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (Collaboration Agreement No 31059) in partnership with a group of international and UN agencies, universities and non-governmental organizations. The scientific soil community acknowledges that there is an urgent need to communicate better the value of soil carbon to a broader public. The message so far has not actively reached the media, the public and policy makers. The SCS2013 conference brought together a broad spectrum of soil carbon experts, in order to link science, policy and action on soil carbon sequestration issues. Approximately 200 people from 40 countries from all continents attended the conference: young and high level scientists; present and future leaders in restoration and land management; administrators and policymakers. The conference received extensive media coverage, both in Iceland and globally. Despite coming from different countries and backgrounds, with varied scientific interests and convictions, the overall message was that soil and soil management, specifically soil carbon, needs be a substantial part of the solution in mitigating climate change, ensuring food security and providing ecosystem services. Furthermore soil conservation, preservation and restoration could be considered as "win-win" processes for meeting other goals. The SCS2013 conference represented an excellent example of bridge between scientists, land managers and policy makers. The EC was actively involved in the conference and is still willing to bridge the communication gap between science and policy and to continue to act as interface. The conference proceedings aim to present how the potential role of soil carbon sequestration has been discussed along different sessions (forest/ cropland/ revegetation/ desertification/ wetland/ rangeland/ verification) and from different perspectives. Editors: Guðmundur Halldórsson, Francesca Bampa, Arna Björk Þorsteinsdóttir, Bjarni D. Sigurdsson, Luca Montanarella and Andrés Arnalds . Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union 2014 – 314 pp. – EUR 26540 EN Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1831-9424 (online) ISBN 978-92-79-35595-0(PDF), doi:10.2788/17815 Download report: (Size: 117 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 02/07/2014

Estimating soil organic carbon in Europe based on data collected through an European network In 2010, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC), which is charged with the collection of soil data at European scale and hosts the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), conducted a project to collect data on soil organic carbon and soil erosion in Europe using the European Environment Information and Observation Network for soil (EIONET-SOIL). The data submitted by participating countries are their best estimate and represent an official point of view. The technical approach taken allows a country to easily update the records when new data become available. This paper presents the first results obtained from analyzing the soil organic carbon data submitted to EIONET-SOIL. The collected data were compared with the modelled data of the European topsoil organic carbon content developed at the JRC. The modelled data follow the general pattern of the geographic distribution of collected data, but show higher values compared to the EIONET-SOIL data. The important role of soil organic carbon (SOC) as an indicator of soil quality underlines the need for using common methods of sampling, analysing and reporting soil organic carbon to provide a standard product, such as EIONET-SOIL. Access the paper Last Update: 14/10/2014

Progress in the Management of Contaminated Sites in Europe This report presents the current state of knowledge about progress with the management of contaminated sites in Europe. It directly supports the EU Soil Thematic Strategy (COM(2006) 231), which identifies local soil contamination as an important issue. It presents facts, analyses and methods on the management of Contaminated Sites, which can inform policy makers, professional practitioners, researchers, citizens and the media. The report is based on data that were collected from the National Reference Centres for Soil in 39 countries belonging to the European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIO-NET) during a campaign organised by the JRC European Soil Data Centre in 2011-2012. The information presented in this report is based on a set of indicators which have been agreed on and used by the EIONET for more than a decade. This set of indicators contributes to the Core Set Indicator "Progress in the Management of Contaminated Sites" (CSI 015) of the European Environment Agency (EEA), which is used for reporting on the State of the Environment. Author(s) Marc van Liedekerke, Gundula Prokop, Sabine Rabl-Berger, Mark Kibblewhite and Geertrui Louwagie. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union 2014 – 64 pp. – UR – Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1831-9424 (online) ISBN 978-92-79-34846-4 (PDF), doi:10.2788/4658 Download report: (Size: 6 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 27/02/2014

European Soil Data Centre: Response to European policy support and public data requirements Panagos P., Van Liedekerke M., Jones A., Montanarella L. (2012) European Soil Data Centre: response to European policy support and public data requirements Land Use Policy, 29 (2), pp. 329-338. In the context of the European Union's Soil Thematic Strategy, policy makers require easy access to soil data and information of various types and scales to assess the state of soils at European level. To satisfy this need, the European Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA) decided to establish the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), located at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. The ESDAC is one of ten environmental data centres that have been established during the last 4 years in support of policy development, implementation and monitoring by the European Commission's Directorate General for Environment. The ESDAC, located at http://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu, has become the focal point for soil data and information at European Union level by hosting a series of soil products and web-based tools that allow access to the data. The ESDAC acts as the primary data contact point for the Commission and EEA to fulfill their information needs. The establishment and the evaluation of harmonised databases should facilitate improved soil protection measures. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837711000718 Last Update: 02/09/2013

European Hydropedological Data Inventory (EU-HYDI) There is a common need for reliable hydropedological information in Europe. In the last decades research institutes, universities and government agencies have developed local, regional and national datasets containing soil physical, chemical, hydrological and taxonomic information often combined with land use and landform data. The objective of the joint effort of the participants is to establish the European Hydropedological Data Inventory (EU-HYDI). This database holds 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. It contains data from 18 countries with contributions from 29 institutions. This report presents an overview of the database, details the individual contributed datasets and explains the quality assurance and harmonization process that lead to the final database. Author(s) Weynants Melanie et al. – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2013 – 168pp. – EUR26053EN Scientific and Technical Research series, ISSN 1831-9424, doi:10.2788/5936 Download report: (Size: 6 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 20/01/2014

Threats to the Soil Resource Base of Food Security in China and Europe To secure adequate food supply is the major challenge for humanity in the 21st century. Growing world population and its urbanization put pressure on this basic need, which is further threatened by the constant loss of fertile land. The assessment of sustainability of food supply under increasing pressure on land resources has been selected as one of the most important priority topics of the activities of Sino-EU Panel on Land and Soil (SEPLS). The Panel has performed a number of related researches and discussed the results on a scientific seminar in January 2012 in Nanjing, China. This report is an output of this seminar with a summary of the structured discussions on the below issues. Author(s) Gergely Tóth and Xiubin Li (eds.) – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2013 – 117pp. – EUR25632EN Scientific and Technical Research series, ISSN 1831-9424, doi:10.2788/71196 Download report: (Size: 4 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 10/09/2013

Metal toxicity and biodiversity in serpentine soils: Application of bioassay tests and microarthropod index Giovanna Visioli, Cristina Menta, Ciro Gardi, Federica Delia Conti Eco-toxicological or bioassays tests have intensively been discussed as tools for the evaluation of soil quality. Tests with soil organisms, including microarthropods and plants, allow direct estimates of important soil characteristics and functions. In this study we compared the results obtained by two in vitro standard bioassays following ISO or OECD guidelines: i) the short term-chronic phytotoxicity germination and root elongation test using three different plant species Lepidium sativum L. (Brassicaceae), Cucumis sativus L. (Cucurbitaceae) and Medicago sativa L. (Fabaceae) ii) the inhibition of reproduction of Folsomia candida (Collembola) by soil pollutants (ISO 11267:1999) to investigate the toxicity of a serpentine soil present in the Italian Apennines, rich in heavy metals such as Ni, Cr, Co. In addition, microarthropod communities were been characterized to evaluate the effects of metal contents on the soil fauna in natural conditions. Abundances, Acari/Collembola ratio, biodiversity indices and QBS-ar index were calculated. Our results demonstrate that the two in vitro tests discriminate differences correlated with metal and organic matter contents in four sub-sites within the serpentinite. Soil fauna characterization, not previously performed on serpentine soils, revealed differences in peculiar groups of microarthropods among the four sub-sites: microarthropod community was found to be rich and well diversified in the sub-site characterized by the less metal content and the higher organic matter content and vegetation. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653512012222 Last Update: 02/09/2013

LUCAS Topsoil Survey: methodology, data and results In 2009, the European Commission extended the periodic Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey (LUCAS) to sample and analyse the main properties of topsoil in 23 Member States of the European Union (EU). This topsoil survey represents the first attempt to build a consistent spatial database of the soil cover across The EU based on standard sampling and analytical procedures, with the analysis of all soil samples being carried out in a single laboratory. Approximately 20,000 points were selected out of the main LUCAS grid for the collection of soil samples. A standardised sampling procedure was used to collect around 0.5 kg of topsoil. The samples were dispatched to a central laboratory for physical and chemical analyses. Subsequently, Malta and Cyprus provided soil samples even though the main LUCAS survey was not carried on their territories. Cyprus has adapted the sampling methodology of LUCAS-Topsoil for (the southern part of the island) while Malta adjusted its national sampling grid to correspond to the LUCAS standards. Bulgaria and Romania have been sampled in 2012. However, the analysis is ongoing and the results are not included in this report.The final database contains 19,967 geo-referenced samples. This report provides a detailed insight to the design and methodology of the data collection and laboratory analysis. All samples have been analysed for the percentage of coarse fragments, particle size distribution (% clay, silt and sand content), pH (in CaCl2 and H2O), organic carbon (g/kg), carbonate content (g/kg), phosphorous content (mg/kg), total nitrogen content (g/kg), extractable potassium content (mg/kg), cation exchange capacity (cmol(+)/kg) and multispectral properties. Author(s) Gergely Tóth, Arwyn Jones and Luca Montanarella (eds.). – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2013 – 141pp. – EUR26102EN Scientific and Technical Research series, ISSN 1831-9424, doi:10.2788/97922 Download report: (Size: 8 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 4/09/2013

Combining satellite derived phenology with climate data for climate change impact assessment Ivits E., Cherlet M., Toth G., Sommer S., Mehl W., Vogt J., Micale F. Combining satellite derived phenology with climate data for climate change impact assessment (2012) Global and Planetary Change, 88-89 , pp. 85-97. The projected influence of climate change on the timing and volume of phytomass production is expected to affect a number of ecosystem services. In order to develop coherent and locally effective adaptation and mitigation strategies, spatially explicit information on the observed changes is needed. Long-term variations of the vegetative growing season in different environmental zones of Europe for 1982-2006 have been derived by analysing time series of GIMMS NDVI data. The associations of phenologically homogenous spatial clusters to time series of temperature and precipitation data were evaluated. North-East Europe showed a trend to an earlier and longer growing season, particularly in the northern Baltic areas. Despite the earlier greening up large areas of Europe exhibited rather stable season length indicating the shift of the entire growing season to an earlier period. The northern Mediterranean experience a growing season shift towards later dates while some agglomerations of earlier and shorter growing season were also seen. The correlation of phenological time series with climate data shows a cause-effect relationship over the semi natural areas consistent with results in literature. Managed ecosystems however appear to have heterogeneous change pattern with less or no correlation to climatic trends. Over these areas climatic trends seemed to overlap in a complex manner with more pronounced effects of local biophysical conditions and/or land management practices. Our results underline the importance of satellite derived phenological observations to explain local nonconformities to climatic trends for climate change impact assessment. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112000562 Last Update: 02/09/2013

Mapping Soil Properties for Europe - Spatial Representation of Soil Database Attributes The European Soil Database (ESDB) provides the most detailed and comprehensive set of data for soil properties with pan-European coverage. However, using the ESDB soil properties in combination with spatial applications is hampered by the structure of the database for soil typological attributes. In this study a layer of mapped typological units was used to resolve issues related to the database structure for the spatial representation of soil properties and to map key soil properties to standardized spatial layers. The information available from the ESDB tends to be more suited to characterise the site of a soil unit, including morphological conditions. The range of soil property data was extended by the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD), which provides more detailed information on soil properties. Combining data from both databases was achieved by processing the attributes in a database management system and then linking the output to a spatial reference layer and by transferring attributes to the spatial layer from each database and processing the data by spatial overlay functions of a Geographic Information System (GIS). Author(s) Hiederer, R. – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2013 – 47pp. – EUR26082EN Scientific and Technical Research series, ISSN 1831-9424, doi:10.2788/94128 Download report: (Size: 6 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 27/08/2013

Prediction of soil organic carbon for different levels of soil moisture using Vis-NIR spectroscopy Nocita, M., Stevens, A., Noon, C., Van Wesemael, B. (2012) Prediction of soil organic carbon for different levels of soil moisture using Vis-NIR spectroscopy. Geoderma, 199: pp. 37-42. Visible and near infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy has produced promising results to infer soil organic carbon (SOC) content in the laboratory. However, using soil spectra measured directly in the field or with airborne imaging spectrometer remains challenging due to uncontrolled variations in surface soil properties, like vegetation cover, moisture and roughness. In particular, soil moisture may dramatically degrade predictions of SOC content when using an empirical/statistical approach. This study aims to quantify the effect of soil moisture on the accuracy of SOC predictions, and to propose a method to determine SOC content for moist samples with unknown moisture content. Soil samples (n=107) were collected along a transect, in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. The soil samples were air-dried for 7 days, moistened in steps of 0.05 g water g soil-1 until saturation, and scanned in the laboratory with a visible and near infrared spectrometer. We computed the normalized soil moisture index (NSMI) to estimate the soil moisture content of the samples (R2 = 0.74), and used it to spectrally classify the samples according to their moisture content. SOC content was predicted using separate partial least square regressions developed on groups of samples with similar NSMI values. The root mean square error of prediction (RMSE) after validation was below 5 g C kg-1, with a ratio of prediction to deviation (RPD) greater than 2. These results were better than the ones obtained with separate spectroscopic models with a-priori knowledge of soil moisture. Hence, the NSMI might be used as a proxy of moisture content to improve SOC content prediction for spectral data acquired outside the laboratory as the method is simple and does not need other data than a simple band ratio of the spectra. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001670611200290X Last Update: 02/09/2013

Soil Information in Support of Policy Making and Awareness Raising Bouma J., Broll G., Crane T.A., Dewitte O., Gardi C., Schulte R.P.O., Towers W. Soil information in support of policy making and awareness raising (2012) Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 4 (5) , pp. 552-558. Soils play an important role in defining sustainable land-use options when facing major global environmental challenges such as food security, climate change, fresh water scarcity and biodiversity loss. Facing these problems, the 2006 EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection (TSSP), provides an important focal point for soil research and awareness raising. Unfortunately, the TSSP has not yet been followed up with a legally binding Framework Directive mainly because of political barriers. Two approaches are discussed to overcome these barriers: First, we explore innovative ways to present soils and raise soil awareness. Soil information in terms of atlases, associated databases and interpretations, focusing on major environmental problems, is presented by the EU Joint Research Center (JRC) for Africa and South America using modern digital techniques and, particularly, a user-oriented approach. This contrasts with the traditional approach which is more soil-centered. Soil science has not yet effectively tapped the genuine and basic affinity of mankind with their soils. Therefore, more attention to local knowledge and management of soils is needed. Creating more awareness, by sharing experiences with various citizen groups, is also an effective mechanism to mobilize the political arena as is demonstrated by some German examples. Second, we show specific real-world examples as to the possible positive and innovative impact of the TSSP. An example is presented of Functional Soil Planning, based on maximizing soil functions at national and international level by customizing soil management at local level, balancing 'supply' and 'demand' by defining tradeoffs between conflicting functions. Finally, a case study for Scotland is presented dealing with EU policies for so-called: "Less Favoured Areas (LFA)". Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2012.07.001 Last Update: 02/09/2013

Soil Resources of Mediterranean and Caucasus Countries This book is result of the workshop on "Extension of the European Soil Database" held in Izmir/Turkey on 14-15 May 2012. The country reports on the status of soil mapping and the development of national soil information systems were presented briefly and discussed in relation to the objective on extension of the European soil database and information system. The most recent extension studies cover Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey this book features country chapters, with contributions from 13 of the above-mentioned countries. Editors(s) Yusuf Yigini, Panos Panagos, Luca Montanarella. Special thanks to the contributors: H. Ghazaryan (Armenia), A. Ismayilov (Azerbaijan), Z. Zomeni, A. Bruggeman (Cuprus), M.M. Kotb (Egypt), T.F. Urushadze, G.O. Ghambashidze (Georgia), A. Salih Mhaimeed (Iraq), O. Crouvi, R. Zaidenberg, M. Shapiro (Israel), M. H Al Ferihat (Jordan), T. Darwish (Lebanon), B. Nwer(Libya), Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Malta), B. Dudeen, W0 Abu Rmailah, M. Alsalimiya, M. Alamleh (Palestine), S. Senol, I. Bayramin (Turkey). – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2013 – 243pp. – EUR25988EN Scientific and Technical Research series, SSN 1831-9424, ISBN 978-92-79-30346-3, doi: 10.2788/91322 Download report: (Size: 17 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 03/06/2013

Soil processes and functions across an international network of Critical Zone Observatories: introduction to experimental methods and initial results Banwart, S., Menon, M, Panagos, P. et al, (2012) Soil processes and functions across an international network of Critical Zone Observatories: Introduction to experimental methods and initial results. Comptes Rendus - Geoscience 344 (11-12) , pp. 758-772. Growth in human population and demand for wealth creates ever-increasing pressure on global soils, leading to soil losses and degradation worldwide. Critical Zone science, studies the impact linkages between these pressures, the resulting environmental state of soils, and potential interventions to protect soil and reverse degradation. New research on soil processes is being driven by the scientific hypothesis that soil processes can be described along a life cycle of soil development. This begins with formation of new soil from parent material, development of the soil profile, and potential loss of the developed soil functions and the soil itself under overly intensive anthropogenic land use, thus closing the cycle. Four Critical Zone Observatories in Europe have been selected focusing research at sites that represent key stages along the hypothetical soil life cycle; incipient soil formation, productive use of soil for farming and forestry, and decline of soil due to longstanding intensive agriculture. Initial results from the research show that soil develops important biogeochemical properties on the time scale of decades and that soil carbon and the development of favourable soil structure develops over similar time scales. A new mathematical model of soil aggregate formation and degradation predicts that set-aside land at the most degraded site studied can develop substantially improved soil structure with the accumulation of soil carbon over a period of several years. Further results demonstrate the rapid dynamics of soil carbon; how quickly it can be lost, and also demonstrate how data from the CZOs can be used to determine parameter values for models at catchment scale. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631071312001885 Last Update: 02/09/2013

Mapping Soil Typologies - Spatial Decision Support Applied to European Soil Database For many applications of modelling environmental conditions or processes soil characteristics are needed in form of spatial data ready to be integrated in a GIS. A source of uniform data on characteristics of European soils is available from the European Soil Database (ESDB) of the European Soil Bureau. The soil information was collected by participating national institutions and underwent an extensive process of harmonizing the thematic content of recording the soil characteristics and ensuring spatial continuity along boundaries. In the database a many-to-1 link is used to relate soil characteristics to the geographic layer. Thus, considerably effort is required to represent specific soil characteristics in a single spatial layer. Author(s) Hiederer, R. – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2013 – 147pp. – EUR25932EN Scientific and Technical Research series, ISSN 1831-9424, doi:10.2788/87286 Download report: (Size: 5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 23/04/2013

Monthly soil erosion monitoring based on remotely sensed biophysical parameters: a case study in Strymonas river basin towards a functional pan-European service Panagos, P., Karydas, C.G., Gitas, I.Z., Montanarella, L. (2012) Monthly soil erosion monitoring based on remotely sensed biophysical parameters: a case study in Strymonas river basin towards a functional pan-European service. International Journal of Digital Earth , Vol. 5, Iss. 6, 2012, pp. 461-487 Currently, many soil erosion studies at local, regional, national or continental scale use models based on the USLE-family approaches. Applications of these models pay little attention to seasonal changes, despite evidence in the literature which suggests that erosion risk may change rapidly according to intra-annual rainfall figures and vegetation phenology. This paper emphasises the aspect of seasonality in soil erosion mapping by using month-step rainfall erosivity data and biophysical time series data derived from remote-sensing. The latter, together with other existing pan-European geo-databases sets the basis for a functional pan-European service for soil erosion monitoring at a scale of 1:500,000. This potential service has led to the establishment of a new modelling approach (called the G2 model) based on the inheritance of USLE-family models. The G2 model proposes innovative techniques for the estimation of vegetation and protection factors. The model has been applied in a 14,500 km2 study area in SE Europe covering a major part of the basin of the cross-border river, Strymonas. Model results were verified with erosion and sedimentation figures from previous research. The study confirmed that monthly erosion mapping would identify the critical months and would allow erosion figures to be linked to specific land uses. Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2011.587897 Last Update: 02/09/2013

Processing Indices of Change and Extremes from Regional Climate Change Data Indicators of climate change and extremes from regional models coming from the PRUDENCE project of the Danish Meteorological Institute, the consortial simulation of the Climate Limited-area Modelling Community and 12 runs of bias-corrected data from the ENSEMBLES project were processed. The resulting indicators were standardized to a common map projection, grid size and spatial extent to be directly available for further analysis or integration with other spatial data. The indicators were used in the data available from the European Climate Adaptation Platform (CLIMATE-ADAPT), the European Database of Vulnerabilities to Natural Hazards (EVDAB), the JRC activities within the FP7 RESPONSES project and support the evaluation of changes in soil organic carbon under climate scenarios. Author(s) Hiederer, R. – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2012 – 29pp. – EUR25339 Scientific and Technical Research series - ISBN 978-92-79-24994-5 , doi: 10.2788/27516 Download report: (Size: 1 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 09/04/2013

Legal frameworks for soil protection: current development and technical information requirements Kibblewhite M.G., Miko L., Montanarella L. Legal frameworks for soil protection: Current development and technical information requirements (2012) Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 4 (5) , pp. 573-577. Protection of soil resources is a priority for policy makers concerned with future food security and biodiversity conservation. Current global, continental and national progress with legal frameworks and supporting technical information is reviewed. Better soil monitoring information is needed to support new investment in, targeting of, and evaluation of soil protection measures. Some but not all soil monitoring methods are adequate. Spatial risk estimation is essential for assessing the economic costs and benefits of soil protection and to target risk mitigation. However, while qualitative vulnerability assessments are available, substantial challenges remain to support quantitative risk assessment and evaluation. More reliable information is required about the efficacy of options for soil protection for different soils under different land use and management scenarios. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343512000978# Last Update: 02/09/2013

Landslide inventories in Europe and policy recommendations for their interoperability and harmonisation - A JRC contribution to the EU-FP7 SafeLand project This report provides a detailed review of existing national landslide inventories as well as of a number of regional inventories in EU member states and neighbouring countries. For national landslide databases, it also analyses their ability to provide landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk assessments at national scale. In addition, the report proposes improvements in landslide databases for delineating areas at risk of landslides in agreement with the EU Soil Thematic Strategy and its associated Proposal for a Soil Framework Directive, and for achieving interoperability and harmonisation in agreement with the INSPIRE Directive. Author(s):Van Den Eeckhaut, M., Hervás, J., 2012 – 202pp. – EUR 25666 EN – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2012 – 202 pp. – 21.0 x 29.7 cm, EUR25666 Scientific and Technical Research series - ISBN 978-92-79-27994-2, doi:10.2788/75587 Download report: (Size: 19.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 08/02/2013

EFSA Spatial Data Version 1.1 Data Properties and Processing In the context of the submissions of exposure estimates of pesticides in the soil and according to regulation (EC) 1107/2009 1 a set of spatial data pertinent to evaluating the environmental fate and behaviour of pesticides in the soil was published in 2011 as support to the FATE and the ECOREGION EFSA PPR Working Groups. After the first EFSA Spatial Data set was made available in 2011 users commented on inconsistencies in the data, mainly with respect to the spatial characteristics of various layers. The JRC found that the problem was more complex than just a geographic misalignment of layers and concluded that to fully address the problem all data layers needed to be reprocessed from their respective sources and recompiled to comply with the specifications. This task was performed by the JRC, which resulted in an update to the previous data referred to as EFSA Spatial Data Version 1.1. Author(s):Roland Hiederer. 2012 – 50pp. – EUR 25327 EN – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2012 – 30 pp. – 21.0 x 29.7 cm, EUR25546 Scientific and Technical Research series - ISSN 1831-9424, doi:10.2788/54453 Download report: (Size: 1.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 05/12/2012

Object-oriented Identification of Forested Landslides with Derivatives of Single Pulse LiDAR Data Van Den Eeckhaut M., Kerle N., Poesen J., Hervas J. Object-oriented identification of forested landslides with derivatives of single pulse LiDAR data (2012) Geomorphology, 173-174 , pp. 30-42. In contrast to the many studies that use expert-based analysis of LiDAR derivatives for landslide mapping in forested terrain, only few studies have attempted to develop (semi-)automatic methods for extracting landslides from LiDAR derivatives. While all these studies are pixel-based, it has not yet been tested whether object-oriented analysis (OOA) could be an alternative. This study investigates the potential of OOA using only single pulse LiDAR derivatives, such as slope gradient, roughness and curvature to map landslides. More specifically, the focus is on both LiDAR data segmentation and classification of slow-moving landslides in densely vegetated areas, where spectral data do not allow accurate landslide identification. A multistage procedure has been developed and tested in the Flemish Ardennes (Belgium). The procedure consists of (1) image binarization and multiresolution segmentation, (2) classification of landslide parts (main scarps and landslide body segments) and non-landslide features (i.e. earth banks and cropland fields) with supervised support vector machines at the appropriate scale, (3) delineation of landslide flanks, (4) growing of a landslide body starting from its main scarp, and (5) final cleaning of the inventory map. The results obtained show that OOA using LiDAR derivatives allows recognition and characterization of profound morphologic properties of forested deep-seated landslides on soil-covered hillslopes, because more than 90% of the main scarps and 70% of the landslide bodies of an expert-based inventory were accurately identified with OOA. For mountainous areas with bedrock, on the other hand, creation of a transferable model is expected to be more difficult. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169555X12002620 Last Update: 02/09/2013

Will there be enough plant nutrients to feed a world of 9 billion in 2050? Will there be enough plant nutrients to feed a world of 9 billion in 2050? is the central question addressed by a JRC study. This exercise was based on consultations with experts and a thematic workshop focused on three areas of interest: 1) the demand for fertilizers to sustain crop production necessary to feed the world in 2050; 2) perspectives on the supply of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) to world agriculture and 3) the role of innovation and technology in changing the match between demand and supply of fertilizers. Implications of the main findings for current EU and international policies were addressed. "There is no specific reason to be alarmed about the overall supply of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus for the world's agriculture but because of changing conditions in production, demand and use, continuous vigilance is called for." Author(s):Jean-Paul Malingreau, Hugh Eva, Albino Maggio. 2012 – 30pp. – EUR 25327 EN – Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union – 2012 – 30 pp. – 21.0 x 29.7 cm, EUR – Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1831-9424 (online) ISSN 1018-5593 (print), ISBN 978-92-79-24910-5 (pdf),ISBN 978-92-79-24909-9 (print), doi: 10.2788/26603 Download report: (Size: 1.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 26/09/2012

Global governance of soil resources as a necessary condition for sustainable development Montanarella L., Vargas R. Global governance of soil resources as a necessary condition for sustainable development (2012) Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 4 (5) , pp. 559-564. In the current era of multiple crises, from food price, through climate change to economic failure, policy makers around the world are exploring opportunities to make a shift to a green economy. The international community is seeking new ways of developing the concept of sustainable development up to and beyond the Earth Summit in 2012, mainly with regards to practical ways for the coherent implementation of the three pillars of sustainability, moving away from trade-offs to synergies between the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development. Within that context, special attention to global soil resources should be paid, given that global soil resources constitutes the basis for the provision of ecosystem services and at the same time are limited and currently under pressure by various threats including competing land uses, like energy production, housing and infrastructure, nature protection, mining and industrial activities. Future food security for a growing population can only be assured if sufficient area of fertile soils and water will be available for food production. Available legal frameworks for soil protection at national and regional level seem not to be able to regulate the current use of soil resources in order to assure long- term sustainability. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343512000735 Last Update: 02/09/2013