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The new European Green Deal has the ambition to make the European Union the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The European Commission presented an ambitious package of measures within the Biodiversity Strategy 2030, the Farm to Fork and the European Climate Law including actions to protect our soils. The Farm to Fork strategy addresses soil pollution with 50 % reduction in use of chemical pesticides by 2030 and aims 20 % reduction in fertilizer use plus a decrease of nutrient losses by at least 50%. The Biodiversity Strategy has the ambition to set a minimum of 30 % of the EU’s land area as protected areas, limit urban sprawl, reduce the pesticides risk, bring back at least 10 % of agricultural area under high-diversity landscape features, put forward the 25 % of the EU’s agricultural land as organically farmed, progress in the remediation of contaminated sites, reduce land degradation and plant more than three billion new trees. The maintenance of wetlands and the enhancement of soil organic carbon are also addressed in the European Climate Law. The new EU Soil Observatory will be collecting policy relevant data and developing indicators for the regular assessment and progress towards the ambitious targets of the Green Deal.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837720304257

To reach the Paris climate targets, the mitigation capacity needs to be maximized across all components of the Earth system, especially land. Mitigation actions through land management, such as cover crops in agricultural soils, are often evaluated in terms of their carbon sequestration potential, while radiative forcing related to surface albedo changes is often ignored. The aim of this study was to assess the mitigation potential of cover crops, both as changes in biogenic greenhouse gas fluxes (CO2 and N2O) and albedo-driven radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). To achieve this, we have integrated a biogeochemistry model framework running on approximately 8000 locations across the European Union with detailed soil data, supplemented with time series of albedo measurements derived from satellite remote sensing. We found that carbon sequestration remained the dominant mitigation effect, with 1th and 3rd interquartile of 5.2–17.0 Mg CO2e ha−1 at 2050, and negligible changes in N2O emissions over that time-horizon. Cover crops were generally brighter than bare soils, hence, the reflected shortwave radiation at TOA ranged between 0.08–0.22 Wm−2 on average, broadly equivalent to a removal of 0.8–3.9 Mg CO2e ha−1. Through scenarios analysis, we further showed how the mitigation potential could be substantially increased by growing a high albedo chlorophyll-deficient cover crop. This radiative land management option has an additional benefit of providing its mitigation effect more rapidly than carbon sequestration, although additional studies might be warranted to evaluate local and non-local associated climatic effects, such as changes in patterns of surface temperature and precipitation.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aba137

The occurrence of hydrological extremes in the Amazon region and the associated sediment loss during rainfall events are key features in the global climate system. Climate extremes alter the sediment and carbon balance but the ecological consequences of such changes are poorly understood in this region. With the aim of examining the interactions between precipitation and landscape-scale controls of sediment export from the Amazon basin, we developed a parsimonious hydro-climatological model on a multi-year series (1997–2014) of sediment discharge data taken at the outlet of Óbidos (Brazil) watershed (the narrowest and swiftest part of the Amazon River). The calibrated model (correlation coefficient equal to 0.84) captured the sediment load variability of an independent dataset from a different watershed (the Magdalena River basin), and performed better than three alternative approaches. Our model captured the interdecadal variability and the long-term patterns of sediment export. In our reconstruction of yearly sediment discharge over 1859–2014, we observed that landscape erosion changes are mostly induced by single storm events, and result from coupled effects of droughts and storms over long time scales. By quantifying temporal variations in the sediment produced by weathering, this analysis enables a new understanding of the linkage between climate forcing and river response, which drives sediment dynamics in the Amazon basin.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/11/2/208

Recent assessment of global tree restoration potential reports that under current climate conditions there would be room for additional 0.9 billion hectares of woodlands and forests Bastin (2019). This could store 205 gigatonnes of carbon making forest restoration a viable strategy for climate change mitigation. Commenting on Bastin (2019), Chazdon and Brancalion (2019) call for holistic approaches because forest restoration is a mechanism to achieve multiple goals that go beyond climate mitigation, also including biodiversity conservation, socioeconomic benefits, food security, and ecosystem services. A timely scientific debate considering the recent decision of the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, to declare the coming decade 2021–2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095633919301996

Soil erosion is a major global soil degradation threat to land, freshwater, and oceans. Wind and water are the major drivers, with water erosion over land being the focus of this work; excluding gullying and river bank erosion. Improving knowledge of the probable future rates of soil erosion, accelerated by human activity, is important both for policy makers engaged in land use decision-making and for earth-system modelers seeking to reduce uncertainty on global predictions. Here we predict future rates of erosion by modeling change in potential global soil erosion by water using three alternative (2.6, 4.5, and 8.5) Shared Socioeconomic Pathway and Representative Concentration Pathway (SSP-RCP) scenarios. Global predictions rely on a high spatial resolution Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE)-based semiempirical modeling approach (GloSEM). The baseline model (2015) predicts global potential soil erosion rates of 43+9.2−7 Pg yr−1, with current conservation agriculture (CA) practices estimated to reduce this by ∼5%. Our future scenarios suggest that socioeconomic developments impacting land use will either decrease (SSP1-RCP2.6–10%) or increase (SSP2-RCP4.5 +2%, SSP5-RCP8.5 +10%) water erosion by 2070. Climate projections, for all global dynamics scenarios, indicate a trend, moving toward a more vigorous hydrological cycle, which could increase global water erosion (+30 to +66%). Accepting some degrees of uncertainty, our findings provide insights into how possible future socioeconomic development will affect soil erosion by water using a globally consistent approach. This preliminary evidence seeks to inform efforts such as those of the United Nations to assess global soil erosion and inform decision makers developing national strategies for soil conservation.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/36/21994

Soils contribute to major ecosystem services (as defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005) by playing a crucial role in provisioning food and fibers, regulating water and geochemical cycles and delivering cultural services. Soils are rich in biodiversity and provide the habitat for a large number of species, many yet to be fully described. Due to this central role of soils in the delivery of ecosystem goods and services, the Soil Security concept was introduced to help Soil Science to be translated into policy guidelines for sustainable development and to be included in the Global Agenda (Koch et al., 2013; Bouma et al., 2019). Soils are indeed keys for reaching many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Especially SDG 2, related to fighting hunger and achieving food security, as well as SDG 15, on protecting the terrestrial environment for future generations, imply the application of sustainable soil management at the global scale. The IPCC report on Climate Change and Land names land and soil degradation through erosion, organic matter decline, contamination, soil sealing, compaction, loss of biodiversity or salinization as key challenges related to land use change (IPCC, 2019). Achieving food security and the elimination of hunger while simultaneously protecting our terrestrial environment is a great challenge that requires extensive, multidisciplinary research, including also human and social sciences: economists, geographers, sociologists, and urban planners.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2020.00023/full

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are obligate symbionts of most land plants. They have great ecological and economic impacts as they support plant nutrition and water supply, soil structure, and plant resistance to pathogens. Investigating AMF presence and distribution at small and large scales is critical. Therefore, research requires standard protocols to be easily implemented. In this chapter, we describe a workflow for AMF identification by high-throughput sequencing through Illumina MiSeq platform of two DNA target regions: small subunit (SSU) and internal transcribed spacer (ITS). The protocol can apply to both soil and root AMF communities.

https://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007%2F978-1-0716-0603-2_9

Soils harbor a substantial fraction of the world’s biodiversity, contributing to many crucial ecosystem functions. It is thus essential to identify general macroecological patterns related to the distribution and functioning of soil organisms to support their conservation and consideration by governance. These macroecological analyses need to represent the diversity of environmental conditions that can be found worldwide. Here we identify and characterize existing environmental gaps in soil taxa and ecosystem functioning data across soil macroecological studies and 17,186 sampling sites across the globe. These data gaps include important spatial, environmental, taxonomic, and functional gaps, and an almost complete absence of temporally explicit data. We also identify the limitations of soil macroecological studies to explore general patterns in soil biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships, with only 0.3% of all sampling sites having both information about biodiversity and function, although with different taxonomic groups and functions at each site. Based on this information, we provide clear priorities to support and expand soil macroecological research.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17688-2

The world's largest afforestation programs implemented by China made a great contribution to the global “greening up.” These programs have received worldwide attention due to its contribution toward achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, emerging studies have suggested that these campaigns, when not properly implemented, resulted in unintended ecological and water security concerns at the regional scale. While mounting evidence shows that afforestation causes substantial reduction in water yield at the watershed scale, process‐based studies on how forest plantations alter the partitioning of rainwater and affect water balance components in natural vegetation are still lacking at the plot scale. This lack of science‐based data prevents a comprehensive understanding of forest‐related ecosystem services such as soil conservation and water supply under climate change. The present study represents the first “Paired Plot” study of the water balance of afforestation on the Loess Plateau. We investigate the effects of forest structure and environmental factors on the full water cycle in a typical multilayer plantation forest composed of black locust, one of the most popular tree species for plantations worldwide. We measure the ecohydrological components of a black locust versus natural grassland on adjacent sites. The startling finding of this study is that, contrary to the general belief, the understory—instead of the overstory—was the main water consumer in this plantation. Moreover, there is a strict physiological regulation of forest transpiration. In contrast to grassland, annual seepage under the forest was minor in years with an average rainfall. We conclude that global long‐term greening efforts in drylands require careful ecohydrologic evaluation so that green and blue water trade‐offs are properly addressed. This is especially important for reforestation‐based watershed land management, that aims at carbon sequestration in mitigating climate change while maintaining regional water security, to be effective on a large scale.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.14875

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In recent years, forest fires have increased in terms of frequency, extent and intensity, especially in Mediterranean countries. Climate characteristics and anthropogenic disturbances lead forest environments to display high vulnerability to wildfires, with their sustainability being threatened by the loss of vegetation, changes on soil properties, and increased soil loss rates. Moreover, wildfires are a great threat to property and human life, especially in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas. In light of the impacts and trends mentioned above, this study aims to assess the impact of the Mati, Attika wildfire on soil erosion. The event caused 102 fatalities, inducing severe consequences to the local infrastructure network; economy; and natural resources. As such, the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was implemented (pre-; post-fire) at the Rafina, Attika watershed encompassing the Mati WUI. Fire severity was evaluated based on the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR). This index was developed utilizing innovative remotely sensed Earth Observation data (Sentinel-2). The high post-fire values indicate the fire's devastating effects on vegetation loss and soil erosion. A critical “update” was also made to the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) v. 2018, by introducing a new land use class namely “Urban Forest”, in order to distinguish the WUI configuration. Post-fire erosion rates are notably higher throughout the study area (4.53–5.98 t ha−1 y−1), and especially within the WUI zone (3.75–18.58 t ha−1 y−1), while newly developed and highly vulnerable cites now occupy the greater Mati area. Furthermore, archive satellite data (Landsat-5) revealed how the repeated (historical) wildfires have ultimately impacted vegetation recovery and erosional processes. To our knowledge this is the first time that RUSLE is used to simulate soil erosion at a WUI after a fire event, at least at a Mediterranean basin. The realistic results attest that the model can perform well at such diverse conditions, providing a solid basis for soil loss estimation and identification of high-risk erosion areas.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S034181621930462X

This study presents the updated version of the recently published LANDUM model [Land Use Policy 48, 38–50 (2015)]. LANDUM is integrated into the 100 m resolution RUSLE-based pan-European soil erosion risk modelling platform of the European Commission. It estimates the effects of local land use and management practices on the magnitude of soil erosion across each NUTS2 region of the European Union. This is done based on a spatially explicit estimation of the so-called cover-management factor of (R)USLE family models which is also known as C-factor. In this updated version, the data on soil conservation measures (i.e., reduced tillage, cover crops and plant residues) reported in the latest EU Farm Structure Survey (2016) were integrated and elaborated in LANDUM in order to estimate the changes of the C-factor in Europe between 2010 and 2016. For 2016, a C-factor of 0.2316 for the arable land of the 28 Member States of the European Union was estimated. This implies an overall decrease of C-factor of ca. -0.84 % compared to the 2010 survey. The change in C-factor from 2010 to 2016 could be an indication for the effectiveness of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) soil conservation measures in reducing soil erosion in Europe, especially key CAP policies such as Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions and Greening.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026483771931172X

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0477-x

Gully erosion may cause considerable soil losses and produce large volumes of sediment. The aim of this study was to perform a preliminary assessment on the presence of ephemeral gullies in Greece by sampling representative cultivated fields in 100 sites randomly distributed throughout the country. The almost 30-ha sampling surfaces were examined with visual interpretation of multi-temporal imagery from the online Google Earth for the period 2002–2019. In parallel, rill and sheet erosion signs, land uses, and presence of terraces and other anti-erosion features, were recorded within every sample. One hundred fifty-three ephemeral gullies were identified in total, inside 22 examined agricultural surfaces. The mean length of the gullies was 55.6 m, with an average slope degree of 9.7%. Vineyards showed the largest proportion of gullies followed by olive groves and arable land, while pastures exhibited limited presence of gullies. Spatial clusters of high gully severity were observed in the north and east of the country. In 77% of the surfaces with gullies, there were no terraces, although most of these surfaces were situated in slopes higher than 8%. It was the first time to use visual interpretation with Google Earth image time-series on a country scale producing a gully erosion inventory. Soil conservation practices such as contour farming and terraces could mitigate the risk of gully erosion in agricultural areas

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/2/603

Soil erosion is one of the eight threats in the Soil Thematic Strategy, the main policy instrument dedicated to soil protection in the European Union (EU). During the last decade, soil erosion indicators have been included in monitoring the performance of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study comes five years after the assessment of soil loss by water erosion in the EU [Environmental science & policy 54, 438–447 (2015)], where a soil erosion modelling baseline for 2010 was developed. Here, we present an update of the EU assessment of soil loss by water erosion for the year 2016. The estimated long-term average erosion rate decreased by 0.4% between 2010 and 2016. This small decrease of soil loss was due to a limited increase of applied soil conservation practices and land cover change observed at the EU level. The modelling results suggest that, currently, ca. 25% of the EU land has erosion rates higher than the recommended sustainable threshold (2 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) and more than 6% of agricultural lands suffer from severe erosion (11 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹). The results suggest that a more incisive set of measures of soil conservation is needed to mitigate soil erosion across the EU. However, targeted measures are recommendable at regional and national level as soil erosion trends are diverse between countries which show heterogeneous application of conservation practices.

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/9/1365

The sampling method is a key aspect when designing a soil monitoring network. The determination of any physical and chemical property can be subject to uncertainties because of the sampling method. In this study, we compared the efficiency of sampling with a spade and a gouge auger for the physicochemical characterization of topsoil samples from 150 mineral soils under various land cover (LC) classes in Switzerland taken within the LUCAS 2015 Survey. The sampling methods differed in their scheme, accuracy of litter removal and control of sampling depth, which were more rigorous with the gouge auger than the spade method. Values of root mean square error of properties ranged between 1/2 and 1/30 of their mean values. Lin's concordance correlation coefficient showed that the spade and gouge auger methods produced similar results for all properties (LCCC ≥0.73), with a better relation for arable land than other LC classes. A poor relation was observed for potassium (LCCC = 0.35) in coniferous forest because of its shallow distribution in depth. We concluded that the simpler and cheaper spade method is an accurate method for topsoil sampling at the continental scale. From this study, it is clear that some improvements in the control of sampling depth and the accuracy of litter removal are needed, especially when monitoring forest soils and properties that change rapidly with depth. Spade sampling can help to expand the implementation of soil monitoring surveys at the continental scale at relatively low sampling cost.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ejss.12862

Land degradation by water and wind erosion is a serious problem worldwide. Despite the significant amount of research on this topic, quantifying these processes at large- or regional-scale remains difficult. Furthermore, very few studies provide integrated assessments of land susceptibility to both water and wind erosion. Therefore, this study investigated the spatial patterns of water and wind erosion risks, first separately and then combined, in the drought-prone region of East Africa using the best available datasets. As to water erosion, we adopted the spatially distributed version of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation and compared our estimates with plot-scale measurements and watershed sediment yield (SY) data. The order of magnitude of our soil loss estimates by water erosion is within the range of measured plot-scale data. Moreover, despite the fact that SY integrates different soil erosion and sediment deposition processes within watersheds, we observed a strong correlation of SY with our estimated soil loss rates (r2 = 0.4). For wind erosion, we developed a wind erosion index by integrating five relevant factors using fuzzy logic technique. We compared this index with estimates of the frequency of dust storms, derived from long-term Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor Level-3 daily data. This comparison revealed an overall accuracy of 70%. According to our estimates, mean annual gross soil loss by water erosion amounts to 4 billion t, with a mean soil loss rate of 6.3 t ha−1 yr−1, of which ca. 50% was found to originate in Ethiopia. In terms of land cover, ca. 50% of the soil loss by water erosion originates from cropland (with a mean soil loss rate of 18.4 t ha−1 yr−1), which covers ca. 15% of the total area in the study region. Model results showed that nearly 10% of the East Africa region is subject to moderate or elevated water erosion risks (>10 t ha−1 yr−1). With respect to wind erosion, we estimated that around 25% of the study area is experiencing moderate or elevated wind erosion risks (equivalent to a frequency of dust storms >45 days yr−1), of which Sudan and Somalia (which are dominated by bare/sparse vegetation cover) have the largest share (ca. 90%). In total, an estimated 8 million ha is exposed to moderate or elevated risks of soil erosion by both water and wind. The results of this study provide new insights on the spatial patterns of water and wind erosion risks in East Africa and can be used to prioritize areas where further investigations are needed and where remedial actions should be implemented.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969719350089

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935120303947

Global nuclear weapon testing and the Chernobyl accident have released large amounts of radionuclides into the environment. However, to date, the spatial patterns of these fallout sources remain poorly constrained. Fallout radionuclides (137Cs, 239Pu, 240Pu) were measured in soil samples (n = 160) collected at flat, undisturbed grasslands in Western Europe in the framework of a harmonised European soil survey. We show that both fallout sources left a specific radionuclide imprint in European soils. Accordingly, we used plutonium to quantify contributions of global versus Chernobyl fallout to 137Cs found in European soils. Spatial prediction models allowed for a first assessment of the global versus Chernobyl fallout pattern across national boundaries. Understanding the magnitude of these fallout sources is crucial not only to establish a baseline in case of future radionuclide fallout but also to define a baseline for geomorphological reconstructions of soil redistribution due to soil erosion processes.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68736-2

Soil phosphorus (P) loss from agricultural systems will limit food and feed production in the future. Here, we combine spatially distributed global soil erosion estimates (only considering sheet and rill erosion by water) with spatially distributed global P content for cropland soils to assess global soil P loss. The world’s soils are currently being depleted in P in spite of high chemical fertilizer input. Africa (not being able to afford the high costs of chemical fertilizer) as well as South America (due to non-efficient organic P management) and Eastern Europe (for a combination of the two previous reasons) have the highest P depletion rates. In a future world, with an assumed absolute shortage of mineral P fertilizer, agricultural soils worldwide will be depleted by between 4–19 kg ha−1 yr−1, with average losses of P due to erosion by water contributing over 50% of total P losses.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18326-7

Cover crops (CC) promote the accumulation of soil organic carbon (SOC), which provides multiple benefits to agro‐ecosystems. However, additional nitrogen (N) inputs into the soil could offset the CO2 mitigation potential due to increasing N2O emissions. Integrated management approaches use organic and synthetic fertilizers to maximize yields while minimizing impacts by crop sequencing adapted to local conditions. The goal of this work was to test whether integrated management, centered on CC adoption, has the potential to maximize SOC stocks without increasing the soil greenhouse gas (GHG) net flux and other agro‐environmental impacts such as nitrate leaching. To this purpose, we ran the DayCent bio‐geochemistry model on 8,554 soil sampling locations across the European Union. We found that soil N2O emissions could be limited with simple crop sequencing rules, such as switching from leguminous to grass CC when the GHG flux was positive (source). Additional reductions of synthetic fertilizers applications are possible through better accounting for N available in green manures and from mineralization of soil reservoirs while maintaining cash crop yields. Therefore, our results suggest that a CC integrated management approach can maximize the agro‐environmental performance of cropping systems while reducing environmental trade‐offs.

Fifty paired plots under simulated rainfall showed that the use of a cover of straw mulch of 50% (1 mg ha−1) in olive orchards results in a reduction of soil erosion. An economic survey based on interviews shows that the use of straw mulch in olive plantation would cost €174.7 ha−1, from which €54.7 ha−1 is needed for the application work, €52.3 ha−1 for the purchase cost, and €67.7 ha−1 for the transport of 20‐kg bales. The cost of the straw is 22.5% of the total income of the farmers. We found that their perception was negative about the use of straw mulch, as the tradition is to keep the soil clean from any weed or cover, except the crop. However, farmers would use it if they would be subsidized with a minimum of €267 ha−1, which is €92 ha−1 more than the costs estimated on the basis of the surveys. We conclude that soil erosion can be controlled with the use of straw mulch but that to convince farmers to adopt this management strategy, it needs to be subsidized.

Soils harbor a substantial fraction of the world’s biodiversity, contributing to many crucial ecosystem functions. It is thus essential to identify general macroecological patterns related to the distribution and functioning of soil organisms to support their conservation and consideration by governance. These macroecological analyses need to represent the diversity of environmental conditions that can be found worldwide. Here we identify and characterize existing environmental gaps in soil taxa and ecosystem functioning data across soil macroecological studies and 17,186 sampling sites across the globe. These data gaps include important spatial, environmental, taxonomic, and functional gaps, and an almost complete absence of temporally explicit data. We also identify the limitations of soil macroecological studies to explore general patterns in soil biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships, with only 0.3% of all sampling sites having both information about biodiversity and function, although with different taxonomic groups and functions at each site. Based on this information, we provide clear priorities to support and expand soil macroecological research.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17688-2

Soil is a finite resource which is vital for producing food, sequestrating carbon, regulating water and nutrients, filtering contaminants, enhancing biodiversity, storing heritage, and regulating climate (Arshad and Martin 2002). Global soils are continuously degraded because of population growth, economic development, and climate change (Montanarella et al. 2016). Soil erosion is a major form of soil degradation as more than 1 billion hectares globally are affected by some form of erosion (e.g., water, wind, and gully) (Lal 2003). Human activity and the related land use changes (deforestation and cropland increase) are the main reasons for a 2.5% increase of soil erosion by water between 2001 and 2012 (Borrelli et al. 2017).

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11027-019-09892-3

Rainfall erosivity is the driving force of soil erosion and it is characterized by a large variability in space and time. In order to obtain robust estimates of rainfall erosivity, long series of high-frequency rainfall data are needed, which are often not available for large study areas. In this study we reconstructed past rainfall erosivity in Europe for the period 1961–2018, with the aim to investigate temporal changes in rainfall erosivity. As input data, we used the Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale (REDES) and Uncertainties in Ensembles of Regional Reanalyses (UERRA) rainfall data. Using a set of regression models, which we derived with the application of the k-fold cross-validation approach, we computed the annual rainfall erosivity for the 1675 stations forming the REDES database. Based on the reconstructed data, we derived a rainfall erosivity trend map for Europe where the results were qualitatively validated. Among the stations showing a statistically significant trend, we observed a tendency towards more positive (15%) than negative trends (7%). In addition, we also observed an increasing tendency of the frequency of years with maximum erosivity values. Geographically, large parts of regions such as Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Baltic countries, Great Britain and Ireland, part of the Balkan Peninsula, most of Italy, Benelux countries, northern part of Germany, part of France, among others, are characterized by a positive trend in rainfall erosivity. By contrast, negative trends in annual rainfall erosivity could be observed for most of the Iberian Peninsula, part of France, most of the Alpine area, Southern Germany, and part of the Balkan Peninsula, among others. The new dataset of rainfall erosivity trends reported in this study scientifically provides new information to better understand the impacts of the ongoing erosivity trends on soil erosion across Europe, while, from a policy perspective, the gained findings provide new knowledge to support the development of soil erosion indicators aiming at promoting mitigation measures at regional and pan-European level.

Soil is one of the most biodiverse terrestrial habitats. Yet, we lack an integrative conceptual framework for understanding the patterns and mechanisms driving soil biodiversity. One of the underlying reasons for our poor understanding of soil biodiversity patterns relates to whether key biodiversity theories (historically developed for aboveground and aquatic organisms) are applicable to patterns of soil biodiversity. Here, we present a systematic literature review to investigate whether and how key biodiversity theories (species–energy relationship, theory of island biogeography, metacommunity theory, niche theory and neutral theory) can explain observed patterns of soil biodiversity. We then discuss two spatial compartments nested within soil at which biodiversity theories can be applied to acknowledge the scale‐dependent nature of soil biodiversity.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12567

The recent efforts for obtaining vast soil spectral libraries covering a significant part of the spatial and compositional variability of soils have underscored the need for accurate and interpretable models. Herein, the application of an evolutionary Fuzzy Rule-based System (FRBS) named  (Differential Evolution based Cooperative and Competing learning of Compact Rule-based Models) for the prediction of soil properties from visible, near-infrared, and shortwave-infrared (VNIR–SWIR) laboratory spectral data obtained from the LUCAS topsoil database is investigated. FRBSs model the input–output relation with fuzzy logic statements, offering an enhanced interpretability degree for the experts over classical rule-based systems and other black box models. The proposed algorithm was statistically compared with other state of the art approaches and was found to outperform other global models, while being statistically similar with local approaches that offer lower interpretation capabilities.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568494619302741

Human activities are accelerating global biodiversity change and have resulted in severely threatened ecosystem services. A large proportion of terrestrial biodiversity is harbored by soil, but soil biodiversity has been omitted from many global biodiversity assessments and conservation actions, and understanding of global patterns of soil biodiversity remains limited. In particular, the extent to which hotspots and coldspots of aboveground and soil biodiversity overlap is not clear. We examined global patterns of these overlaps by mapping indices of aboveground (mammals, birds, amphibians, vascular plants) and soil (bacteria, fungi, macrofauna) biodiversity that we created using previously published data on species richness. Areas of mismatch between aboveground and soil biodiversity covered 27% of Earth's terrestrial surface. The temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome had the highest proportion of grid cells with high aboveground biodiversity but low soil biodiversity, whereas the boreal and tundra biomes had intermediate soil biodiversity but low aboveground biodiversity. While more data on soil biodiversity are needed, both to cover geographic gaps and to include additional taxa, our results suggest that protecting aboveground biodiversity may not sufficiently reduce threats to soil biodiversity. Given the functional importance of soil biodiversity and the role of soils in human well‐being, soil biodiversity should be considered further in policy agendas and conservation actions by adapting management practices to sustain soil biodiversity and considering soil biodiversity when designing protected areas

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.13311

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) has been highly successful in securing the supply of food from Europe’s agricultural land. However, new expectations have emerged from society on the functions that agricultural land should deliver, including the expectations that land should regulate and purify water, should sequester carbon to contribute to the mitigation of climate change, should provide a home for biodiversity and allow for the sustainable cycling of nutrients in animal and human waste streams. Through a series of reforms of the CAP, these expectations, or ‘societal demands’ have translated into a myriad of EU and national level policies aimed at safeguarding the sustainability and multifunctionality of European agriculture, resulting in a highly complex regulatory environment for land managers. The current reform of the CAP aims to simultaneously simplify and strengthen policy making on environmental protection and climate action, through the development of Strategic Plans at national level, which allow for more targeted and context-specific policy formation. In this paper, we contribute to the knowledge base underpinning the development of these Strategic Plans by mapping the variation in the societal demands for soil functions across EU Member States, based on an extensive review of the existing policy environment relating to sustainable and multifunctional land management. We show that the societal demands for primary production, water regulation and purification, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and nutrient cycling vary greatly between Member States, as determined by population, farming systems and livestock densities, geo-environmental conditions and landscape configuration. Moreover, the total societal demands for multifunctionality differs between Member States, with the lowest demands found in Member States that have designated the higher shares of EU CAP funding towards ‘Pillar 2′ expenditure, aimed at environmental protection and regional development. We review which lessons can be learnt from these observations, in the context of the proposals for the new CAP for the period 2021–2027, which include enhanced conditionality of direct income support for farmers and the instigation of eco-schemes in Pillar 1, in addition to Agri-Environmental and Climate Measures in Pillar 2. We conclude that the devolution of planning to Strategic Plans at national level provides an opportunity for more effective and targeted incentivisation of sustainable land management, provided that these plans take account for variations in the societal demand for soil functions, as well as the capacity of contrasting soils to deliver on this multifunctionality.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718307622

Over the last two decades or so, there has been many research carried out to understand the mechanics and spatial distribution of soil loss by water erosion and to a lesser extent of wind, piping and tillage erosion. The acquired knowledge helped the development of prediction tools useful to support decision-makers in both ex-ante and ex-post policy evaluation. In Europe, recent studies have modelled water, wind and tillage erosion at continental scale and shed new light on their geography. However, to acquire a comprehensive picture of soil erosion threats more processes need to be addressed and made visible to decision-makers. Since 1986, a small number of studies have pointed to an additional significant soil degradation process occurring when harvesting root and tuber crops. Field observations and measurements have shown that considerable amounts of soil can be removed from the field due to soil sticking to the harvested roots and the export of soil clods during the crop harvest. This study aims to scale up the findings of past studies, carried out at plot, regional, and national level, in order to obtain some preliminary insights into the magnitude of soil loss from cropland due to sugar beets and potatoes harvesting in Europe. We address this issue at European Union (EU) scale taking into account long-term (1975–2016) crop statistics of sugar beet and potato aggregated at regional and country levels.

During the period 2000–2016, sugar beets and potatoes covered in average ca. 4.2 million ha (3.81%) of the EU-28 arable land estimated at 110 million ha. The total Soil Loss by Crop Harvesting (SLCH) is estimated at ca. 14.7 million tons yr⁻¹ in the EU-28. We estimate that ca. 65% of the total SLCH is due to harvesting of sugar beets and the rest as a result of potatoes harvesting.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969719304887

The recurrence of storm aggressiveness and the associated erosivity density are detrimental hydrological features for soil conservation and planning. The present work illustrates for the first time downscaled spatial pattern probabilities of erosive density to identify damaging hydrological hazard-prone areas in Italy. The hydrological hazard was estimated from the erosivity density exceeded the threshold of 3 MJ ha−1 h−1 at 219 rain gauges in Italy during the three most erosive months of the year, from August to October. To this end, a lognormal kriging (LNPK) provided a soft description of the erosivity density in terms of exceedance probabilities at a spatial resolution of 10 km, which is a way to mitigate the uncertainties associated with the spatial classification of damaging hydrological hazards. Hazard-prone areas cover 65% of the Italian territory in the month of August, followed by September and October with 50 and 30% of the territory, respectively. The geospatial probability maps elaborated with this method achieved an improved spatial forecast, which may contribute to better land-use planning and civil protection both in Italy and potentially in Europe

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2019.00193/full

Soil and its ecosystem functions play a societal role in securing sustainable food production while safeguarding natural resources. A functional land management framework has been proposed to optimize the agro‐environmental outputs from the land and specifically the supply and demand of soil functions such as (a) primary productivity, (b) carbon sequestration, (c) water purification and regulation, (d) biodiversity and (e) nutrient cycling, for which soil knowledge is essential. From the outset, the LANDMARK multi‐actor research project integrates harvested knowledge from local, national and European stakeholders to develop such guidelines, creating a sense of ownership, trust and reciprocity of the outcomes. About 470 stakeholders from five European countries participated in 32 structured workshops covering multiple land uses in six climatic zones. The harmonized results include stakeholders’ priorities and concerns, perceptions on soil quality and functions, implementation of tools, management techniques, indicators and monitoring, activities and policies, knowledge gaps and ideas. Multi‐criteria decision analysis was used for data analysis. Two qualitative models were developed using Decision EXpert methodology to evaluate “knowledge” and “needs”. Soil quality perceptions differed across workshops, depending on the stakeholder level and regionally established terminologies. Stakeholders had good inherent knowledge about soil functioning, but several gaps were identified. In terms of critical requirements, stakeholders defined high technical, activity and policy needs in (a) financial incentives, (b) credible information on improving more sustainable management practices, (c) locally relevant advice, (d) farmers’ discussion groups, (e) training programmes, (f) funding for applied research and monitoring, and (g) strengthening soil science in education.

New challenges and policy developments after 2015 (among others, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)) are opportunities for soil scientists and soil erosion modellers to respond with more accurate assessments and solutions as to how to reduce soil erosion and furthermore, how to reach Zero Net Land Degradation targets by 2030. This special issue includes papers concerning the use of fallout for estimating soil erosion, new wind erosion modelling techniques, the importance of extreme events (forest fires, intense rainfall) in accelerating soil erosion, management practices to reduce soil erosion in vineyards, the impact of wildfires in erosion, updated methods for estimating soil erodibility, comparisons between sediment distribution models, the application of the WaTEM/SEDEM model in Europe, a review of the G2 model and a proposal for a land degradation modelling approach. New data produced from field surveys such as LUCAS topsoil and the increasing availability of remote sensing data may facilitate the work of erosion modellers. Finally, better integration with other soil related disciplines (soil carbon, biodiversity, compaction and contamination) and Earth Systems modelling is the way forward for a new generation of erosion process models.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935119301264

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.14989

The need to reduce the expected impact of climate change, finding sustainable ways to maintain or increase the carbon (C) sequestration capacity and productivity of agricultural systems, is one of the most important challenges of the twenty-first century. Olive (Olea europaea L.) groves can play a fundamental role due to their potential to sequester C in soil and woody compartments, associated with widespread cultivation in the Mediterranean basin. The implementation of field experiments to assess olive grove responses under different conditions, complemented by simulation models, can be a powerful approach to explore future land-atmosphere C feedbacks. The DayCent biogeochemical model was calibrated and validated against observed net ecosystem exchange, net primary productivity, aboveground biomass, leaf area index, and yield in two Italian olive groves. In addition, potential changes in C-sequestration capacity and productivity were assessed under two types of management (extensive and intensive), 35 climate change scenarios (ΔT-temperature from + 0 °C to + 3 °C; ΔP-precipitation from 0.0 to − 20%), and six areas across the Mediterranean basin (Brindisi, Coimbra, Crete, Cordoba, Florence, and Montpellier). The results indicated that (i) the DayCent model, properly calibrated, can be used to quantify olive grove daily net ecosystem exchange and net primary production dynamics; (ii) a decrease in net ecosystem exchange and net primary production is predicted under both types of management by approaching the most extreme climate conditions (ΔT = + 3 °C; ΔP = − 20%), especially in dry and warm areas; (iii) irrigation can compensate for net ecosystem exchange and net primary production losses in almost all areas, while ecophysiological air temperature thresholds determine the magnitude and sign of C-uptake; (iv) future warming is expected to modify the seasonal net ecosystem exchange and net primary production pattern, with higher photosynthetic activity in winter and a prolonged period of photosynthesis inhibition during summer compared to the baseline; (v) a substantial decrease in mitigation capacity and productivity of extensively managed olive groves is expected to accelerate between + 1.5 and + 2 °C warming compared to the current period, across all Mediterranean areas; (vi) adaptation measures aimed at increasing soil water content or evapotranspiration reduction should be considered the mostly suitable for limiting the decrease of both production and mitigation capacity in the next decades

Soil mapping is an essential method for obtaining a spatial overview of soil resources that are increasingly threatened by environmental change and population pressure. Despite recent advances in digital soil-mapping techniques based on inference, such methods are still immature for large-scale soil mapping. During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, soil scientists constructed a harmonised soil map of Europe (1:1 000 000) based on national soil maps. Despite this extraordinary regional overview of the spatial distribution of European soil types, crude assumptions about soil properties were necessary for translating the maps into thematic information relevant to management. To support modellers with analytical data connected to the soil map, the European Soil Bureau Network (ESBW) commissioned the development of the soil profile analytical database for Europe (SPADE) in the late 1980s. This database contains soil analytical data based on a standardised set of soil analytical methods across the European countries. Here, we review the principles adopted for developing the SPADE database during the past five decades, the work towards fulfilling the milestones of full geographic coverage for dominant soils in all the European countries (SPADE level 1) and the addition of secondary soil types (SPADE level 2). We illustrate the application of the database by showing the distribution of the root zone capacity and by estimating the soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks at a depth of 1 m for Europe to be 60×1015 g. The increased accuracy, potentially obtained by including secondary soil types (level 2), is shown in a case study to estimate SOC stocks in Denmark. Until data from systematic cross-European soil-sampling programmes have sufficient spatial coverage for reliable data interpolation, integrating national soil maps and locally assessed analytical data into a harmonised database remains a powerful resource to support soil resources management at regional and continental scales by providing a platform to guide sustainable soil management and food production.

https://soil.copernicus.org/articles/5/289/2019/

Employing a linkage between a biophysical and an economic model, this study estimates the economic impact of soil erosion by water on the world economy. The global biophysical model estimates soil erosion rates, which are converted into land productivity losses and subsequently inserted into a global market simulation model. The headline result is that soil erosion by water is estimated to incur a global annual cost of eight billion US dollars to global GDP. The concomitant impact on food security is to reduce global agri-food production by 33.7 million tonnes with accompanying rises in agri-food world prices of 0.4%–3.5%, depending on the food product category. Under pressure to use more marginal land, abstracted water volumes are driven upwards by an estimated 48 billion cubic meters. Finally, there is tentative evidence that soil erosion is accelerating the competitive shifts in comparative advantage on world agri-food markets.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718319343

To give soils and soil degradation, which are among the most crucial threats to ecosystem stability, social and political visibility, small and large scale modelling and mapping of soil erosion is inevitable. The most widely used approaches during an 80year history of erosion modelling are Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE)-type based algorithms which have been applied in 109 countries. Addressing soil erosion by water (excluding gully erosion and land sliding), we start this review with a statistical evaluation of nearly 2,000 publications). We discuss model developments which use USLE-type equations as basis or side modules, but we also address recent development of the single USLE parameters (R, K, LS, C, P). Importance, aim and limitations of model validation as well as a comparison of USLE-type models with other erosion assessment tools are discussed. Model comparisons demonstrate that the application of process-based physical models (e.g., WEPP or PESERA) does not necessarily result in lower uncertainties compared to more simple structured empirical models such as USLE-type algorithms. We identified four key areas for future research: (i) overcoming the principally different nature of modelled (gross) versus measured (net) erosion rates, in coupling on-site erosion risk to runoff patterns, and depositional regime, (ii) using the recent increase in spatial resolution of remote sensing data to develop process based models for large scale applications, (iii) strengthen and extend measurement and monitoring programs to build up validation data sets, and (iv) rigorous uncertainty assessment and the application of objective evaluation criteria to soil erosion modelling.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095633919300048

Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by 193 Governments at the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2015 for achievement by 2030. These SDGs present a roadmap to a sustainable future and a challenge to the science community. To guide activities and check progress, targets and indicators have been and are still being defined. The soil science community has published documents that describe the primary importance of soil for SDGs addressing hunger, water quality, climate mitigation and biodiversity preservation, and secondary relevance of soil for addressing several other SDGs. Soil scientists only marginally participated in the SDG discussions and are currently only peripherally engaged in discussions on targets or indicators. Agreement on several soil‐related indicators has still not been achieved. Involvement of soil scientists in SDG‐based studies is desirable for both developing solutions and increasing the visibility of the soil profession. Inputs into policy decisions should be improved as SDG committee members are appointed by Governments. Possible contributions of soil science in defining indicators for the SDGs are explored in this paper. We advocate the pragmatic use of soil–water–atmosphere–plant simulation models and available soil surveys and soil databases where “representative” soil profiles for mapping units (genetically defined genoforms) are functionally expressed in terms of several phenoforms reflecting effects of different types of soil use and management that strongly affect functionality.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/sum.12518

The sampling method is a key aspect when designing a soil monitoring network. The determination of any physical and chemical property can be subject to uncertainties because of the sampling method. In this study, we compared the efficiency of sampling with a spade and a gouge auger for the physicochemical characterization of topsoil samples from 150 mineral soils under various land cover (LC) classes in Switzerland taken within the LUCAS 2015 Survey. The sampling methods differed in their scheme, accuracy of litter removal and control of sampling depth, which were more rigorous with the gouge auger than the spade method. Values of root mean square error of properties ranged between 1/2 and 1/30 of their mean values. Lin's concordance correlation coefficient showed that the spade and gouge auger methods produced similar results for all properties (LCCC ≥0.73), with a better relation for arable land than other LC classes. A poor relation was observed for potassium (LCCC = 0.35) in coniferous forest because of its shallow distribution in depth. We concluded that the simpler and cheaper spade method is an accurate method for topsoil sampling at the continental scale. From this study, it is clear that some improvements in the control of sampling depth and the accuracy of litter removal are needed, especially when monitoring forest soils and properties that change rapidly with depth. Spade sampling can help to expand the implementation of soil monitoring surveys at the continental scale at relatively low sampling cost.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ejss.12862

Understanding of the processes governing soil organic carbon turnover is confounded by the fact that C feedbacks driven by soil erosion have not yet been fully explored at large scale. However, in a changing climate, variation in rainfall erosivity (and hence soil erosion) may change the amount of C displacement, hence inducing feedbacks onto the land C cycle. Using a consistent biogeochemistry-erosion model framework to quantify the impact of future climate on the C cycle, we show that C input increases were offset by higher heterotrophic respiration under climate change. Taking into account all the additional feedbacks and C fluxes due to displacement by erosion, we estimated a net source of 0.92 to 10.1 Tg C year−1 from agricultural soils in the European Union to the atmosphere over the period 2016–2100. These ranges represented a weaker and stronger C source compared to a simulation without erosion (1.8 Tg C year−1), respectively, and were dependent on the erosion-driven C loss parameterization, which is still very uncertain. However, when setting a baseline with current erosion rates, the accelerated erosion scenario resulted in 35% more eroded C, but its feedback on the C cycle was marginal. Our results challenge the idea that higher erosion driven by climate will lead to a C sink in the near future.

Soil Visible–Near-Infrared (Vis-NIR) spectroscopy has become an applicable and interesting technique to evaluate a number of soil properties because it is a fast, cost-effective, and non-invasive measurement technique. The main objective of the study to predict soil erodibility (K-factor), soil organic matter (SOM), and calcium carbonate equivalent (CaCO3) in calcareous soils of semi-arid regions located in south of Iran using spectral reflectance information in the Vis-NIR range. The K-factor was measured in 40 erosion plots under natural rainfall and the spectral reflectance of soil samples were analyzed in the laboratory. Various soil properties including the CaCO3, soil particle size distribution, SOM, permeability, and wet-aggregate stability were measured. Partial least-squares regression (PLSR) and stepwise multiple linear regression (SMLR) were used to obtain effective bands and develop Spectrotransfer Function (STF) using spectral reflectance information and Pedotransfer Function (PTF) to predict the K-factor, respectively. The derived STF was compared with developed PTF using measurable soil properties by Ostovari et al. (2016) and the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) predictions of the K-factor. The results revealed that the USLE over-predicts (0.030 t h MJ− 1 mm− 1) the K-factor when compared to the ground-truth measurements (0.015 t h MJ− 1) in the semi-arid region of Iran. Results showed that developed PTF had the highest performance (R2 = 0.74, RMSE = 0.004 and ME = − 0.003 t h MJ− 1 mm− 1) to predict K-factor. The results also showed that the PLSR method predicted SOM with R2 values of 0.67 and 0.65 and CaCO3 with R2 values of 0.51 and 0.71 for calibration and validation datasets, respectively. We found good predictions for K-factor with R2 = 0.56 and ratio of predicted deviation (RPD) = 1.5 using the PLSR model. The derived STF (R2 = 0.64, RMSE = 0.002 and ME = 0.001 thMJ− 1 mm− 1) performed better than the USLE (R2 = 0.06, RMSE = 0.0171 and ME = 0.0151 thMJ− 1 mm− 1) for estimating the K-factor.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706117314891

This study combines two unprecedentedly high resolution (250 × 250 m) maps of soil erosion (inter‐rill and rill processes) and soil organic carbon to calculate a global estimate of erosion‐induced organic carbon (C) displacement. The results indicate a gross C displacement by soil erosion of  Pg C/year. The greatest share of displaced C (64%) comes from seminatural lands and forests. This suggests that lateral C transfer from erosion in noncroplands may play a more important role than previously assumed. Human civilization has increasingly exploited land and soil for millennia. Today, undisturbed primary vegetation is at its historical minimum with agricultural areas covering about 38% of the Earth's ice‐free land surface (Foley et al., 2011; 12% croplands and 26% pastures). The anthropogenic acceleration of soil erosion and the impacts on soil quality are well‐known (Dotterweich, 2008; García‐Ruiz et al., 2015). Impacts on climate change, however, remain uncertain and contested, due to the extent to which soil erosion increases or decreases CO2 emissions. The extent to which eroded SOC is mineralized or buried in sediment is hotly debated (Lal, 2004; Van Oost et al., 2007). In their recent publication, Wang et al. (2017) introduced new analysis in support of the erosion‐induced C sink theory, suggesting that anthropogenic acceleration of soil erosion over the last 8,000 years would have had the potential to offset 37 ± 10% of previously recognized C emissions resulting from anthropogenic land cover change.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.14125

Soil erodibility, commonly expressed as the K‐factor in USLE‐type erosion models, is a crucial parameter for determining soil loss rates. However, a national soil erodibility map based on measured soil properties did so far not exist for Switzerland. As an EU non‐member state, Switzerland was not included in previous soil mapping programs such as the Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey (LUCAS). However, in 2015 Switzerland joined the LUCAS soil sampling program and extended the topsoil sampling to mountainous regions higher 1500 m asl for the first time in Europe. Based on this soil property dataset we developed a K‐factor map for Switzerland to close the gap in soil erodibility mapping in Central Europe. The K‐factor calculation is based on a nomograph that relates soil erodibility to data of soil texture, organic matter content, soil structure, and permeability. We used 160 Swiss LUCAS topsoil samples below 1500 m asl and added in an additional campaign 39 samples above 1500 m asl. In order to allow for a smooth interpolation in context of the neighboring regions, additional 1638 LUCAS samples of adjacent countries were considered. Point calculations of K‐factors were spatially interpolated by Cubist Regression and Multilevel B‐Splines. Environmental features (vegetation index, reflectance data, terrain, and location features) that explain the spatial distribution of soil erodibility were included as covariates. The Cubist Regression approach performed well with an RMSE of 0.0048 t ha h ha⁻¹ MJ⁻¹ mm⁻¹. Mean soil erodibility for Switzerland was calculated as 0.0327 t ha h ha⁻¹ MJ⁻¹ mm⁻¹ with a standard deviation of 0.0044 t ha h ha⁻¹ MJ⁻¹ mm⁻¹. The incorporation of stone cover reduces soil erodibility by 8.2%. The proposed Swiss erodibility map based on measured soil data including mountain soils was compared to an extrapolated map without measured soil data, the latter overestimating erodibility in mountain regions (by 6.3%) and underestimating in valleys (by 2.5%). The K‐factor map is of high relevance not only for the soil erosion risk of Switzerland with a particular emphasis on the mountainous regions but also has an intrinsic value of its own for specific land use decisions, soil and land suitability and soil protection.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jpln.201800128

Pulsing storms and prolonged rainfall can drive hydrological damaging events in mountain regions with soil erosion and debris flow in river catchments. The paper presents a parsimonious model for estimating climate forcing on sediment loads in an Alpine catchment (Rio Cordon, northeastern Italian Alps). Hydroclimatic forcing was interpreted by the novel CliSMSSL (Climate-Scale Modelling of Suspended Sediment Load) model to estimate annual sediment loads. We used annual data on suspended-solid loads monitored at an experimental station from 1987 to 2001 and on monthly precipitation data. The quality of sediment load data was critically examined, and one outlying year was identified and removed from further analyses. This outlier revealed that our model underestimates exceptionally high sediment loads in years characterized by a severe flood event. For all other years, the CliSMSSL performed well, with a determination coefficient (R2) equal to 0.67 and a mean absolute error (MAE) of 129 Mg y−1. The calibrated model for the period 1986–2010 was used to reconstruct sediment loads in the river catchment for historical times when detailed precipitation records are not available. For the period 1810–2010, the model results indicate that the past centuries have been characterized by large interannual to interdecadal fluctuations in the conditions affecting sediment loads. This paper argues that climate-induced erosion processes in Alpine areas and their impact on environment should be given more attention in discussions about climate-driven strategies. Future work should focus on delineating the extents of these findings (e.g., at other catchments of the European Alpine belt) as well as investigating the dynamics for the formation of sediment loads.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169555X18300849

There has been the recognition that trans-national binding legal agreements related to soils are very difficult to achieve, given the sensitivities related to national sovereignty in relation to land and soils. However, the Soil Thematic Strategy played an important role to raise the awareness of soil importance, integrate soils in different policy areas (agriculture, climate change, SDGs), develop research findings and finally increase our know how on European Soils. The Soil Thematic Strategy continue to be the main policy instrument dedicated to foster soil protection in the European Union (EU). The EU consider the importance of soils and land degradation taking into account global challenges such as the sustainable production intensification, food security, climate change and escalating population growth. During the last decade both the 7th Framework Programme for Research (FP7) and the HORIZON2020 financed research and innovation projects for advancing soil protection and better understanding of soil management in EU.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468584417300533

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

A detailed description of the G2 erosion model is presented, in order to support potential users. G2 is a complete, quantitative algorithm for mapping soil loss and sediment yield rates on month-time intervals. G2 has been designed to run in a GIS environment, taking input from geodatabases available by European or other international institutions. G2 adopts fundamental equations from the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and the Erosion Potential Method (EPM), especially for rainfall erosivity, soil erodibility, and sediment delivery ratio. However, it has developed its own equations and matrices for the vegetation cover and management factor and the effect of landscape alterations on erosion. Provision of month-time step assessments is expected to improve understanding of erosion processes, especially in relation to land uses and climate change. In parallel, G2 has full potential to decision-making support with standardised maps on a regular basis. Geospatial layers of rainfall erosivity, soil erodibility, and terrain influence, recently developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) on a European or global scale, will further facilitate applications of G2

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935117314044

We present an updated version of the European landslide susceptibility map ELSUS 1000 released through the European Soil Data Centre in 2013. The ELSUS V2 map shows the landslide susceptibility zonation for individual climate-physiographic zones across Europe. ELSUS V2 covers a larger area of Europe than ELSUS 1000 at a higher spatial resolution (200 × 200 m). The updated map was prepared using the same semi-quantitative method as for ELSUS 1000, combining landslide frequency ratios information with a spatial multi-criteria evaluation model of three thematic predictors: slope angle, shallow subsurface lithology and land cover. However, the new map was prepared using also: (i) an extended landslide inventory, containing 30% of additional locations for model calibration, map validation and classification and (ii) a new lithological data set derived from the International Hydrogeological Map of Europe (IHME). The new version of the map increases the overall predictive performance of ELSUS by 8%.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17445647.2018.1432511

Soil is a non‐renewable resource that requires constant monitoring to prevent its degradation and promote its sustainable management. The ‘Land Use/Cover Area frame statistical Survey Soil’ (LUCAS Soil) is an extensive and regular topsoil survey that is carried out across the European Union to derive policy‐relevant statistics on the effect of land management on soil characteristics. Approximately 45 000 soil samples have been collected from two time‐periods, 2009–2012 and 2015. A new sampling series will be undertaken in 2018, with new measurements included. The organization for the 2018 sampling campaign represents an opportunity to summarize past LUCAS Soil achievements and present its future objectives. In 2009–2012 and 2015, LUCAS Soil surveys targeted physicochemical properties, including pH, organic carbon, nutrient concentrations and cation exchange capacity. Data from 2009–2012 (ca. 22 000 points) and derived output (more than 20 maps) are available freely from the European Soil Data Centre website. Analyses of samples collected during 2015 are ongoing and data will be available at the end of 2017. In the 2018 LUCAS Soil sampling campaign, additional properties, including bulk density, soil biodiversity, specific measurements for organic‐rich soil and soil erosion will be measured. Here we present the current dataset (LUCAS Soil 2009–2012 and 2015), its potential for reuse and future development plans (LUCAS Soil 2018 and over). LUCAS Soil represents the largest harmonized open‐access dataset of topsoil properties available for the European Union at the global scale. It was developed as an expandable resource, with the possibility to add new properties and sampling locations during successive sampling campaigns. Data are available to the scientific community and decision makers, thus contributing to both research and the development of the land‐focused policy agenda.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ejss.12499

Over the last 2 decades, geospatial technologies such as Geographic Information System and spatial interpolation methods have facilitated the development of increasingly accurate spatially explicit assessments of soil erosion. Despite these advances, current modelling approaches rest on (a) an insufficient definition of the proportion of arable land that is exploited for crop production and (b) a neglect of the intra‐annual variability of soil cover conditions in arable land. To overcome these inaccuracies, this study introduces a novel spatio‐temporal approach to compute an enhanced cover‐management factor (C) for revised universal soil loss equation‐based models. It combines highly accurate agricultural parcel information contained in the Land Parcel Identification System with an object‐oriented Landsat imagery classification technique to assess spatial conditions and interannual variability of soil cover conditions at field scale. With its strong link to Land Parcel Identification System and Earth observation satellite data, the approach documents an unprecedented representation of farming operations. This opens the door for the transition from the currently used potential soil erosion risk assessments towards the assessment of the actual soil erosion risk. Testing this method in a medium‐size catchment located in the Swiss Plateau (Upper Enziwigger River Catchment), this study lays an important foundation for the application of the very same methods for large‐scale or even pan‐European applications. Soil loss rates modelled in this study were compared with the insights gained from emerging techniques to differentiate sediment source contribution through compound‐specific isotope analysis on river sediments. The presented technique is adaptable beyond revised universal soil loss equation‐type soil erosion models.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ldr.2898

Much research has been carried out on modelling soil erosion rates under different climatic and land use conditions. Although some studies have addressed the issue of reduced crop productivity due to soil erosion, few have focused on the economic loss in terms of agricultural production and gross domestic product (GDP). In this study, soil erosion modellers and economists come together to carry out an economic evaluation of soil erosion in the European Union (EU). The study combines biophysical and macroeconomic models to estimate the cost of agricultural productivity loss due to soil erosion by water in the EU. The soil erosion rates, derived from the RUSLE2015 model, are used to estimate the loss in crop productivity (physical change in the production of plants) and to model their impact on the agricultural sector per country. A computable general equilibrium model is then used to estimate the impact of crop productivity change on agricultural production and GDP. The 12 million hectares of agricultural areas in the EU that suffer from severe erosion are estimated to lose around 0.43% of their crop productivity annually. The annual cost of this loss in agricultural productivity is estimated at around €1.25 billion. The computable general equilibrium model estimates the cost in the agricultural sector to be close to €300 million and the loss in GDP to be about €155 million. Italy emerges as the country that suffers the highest economic impact, whereas the agricultural sector in most Northern and Central European countries is only marginally affected by soil erosion losses.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ldr.2879

Approval for glyphosate-based herbicides in the European Union (EU) is under intense debate due to concern about their effects on the environment and human health. The occurrence of glyphosate residues in European water bodies is rather well documented whereas only few, fragmented and outdated information is available for European soils. We provide the first large-scale assessment of distribution (occurrence and concentrations) of glyphosate and its main metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) in EU agricultural topsoils, and estimate their potential spreading by wind and water erosion. Glyphosate and/or AMPA were present in 45% of the topsoils collected, originating from eleven countries and six crop systems, with a maximum concentration of 2 mg kg− 1. Several glyphosate and AMPA hotspots were identified across the EU. Soil loss rates (obtained from recently derived European maps) were used to estimate the potential export of glyphosate and AMPA by wind and water erosion. The estimated exports, result of a conceptually simple model, clearly indicate that particulate transport can contribute to human and environmental exposure to herbicide residues. Residue threshold values in soils are urgently needed to define potential risks for soil health and off site effects related to export by wind and water erosion.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969717327973

Landslides are one of the most important environmental hazards occur naturally or human-induced with large-scale social, economic, and environmental impacts. Landslide susceptibility zoning, which has been widely performed in the last decades, allows identifying spatial prediction of areas of landslides, which could be used for land use planning and land management. The present study was conducted as a review with the aim of investigating the research background of landslide susceptibility in the world during the period of 2005–2016. The results showed that the publication of papers related to landslide susceptibility during the period of investigation has been on the rise, and China has produced a larger number of papers and authors (13% of total). In addition, this article reviews the most popularly used models and the most frequently used input factors. Among different models, the logistic regression has been used as the most common method for assessing landslide susceptibility in 28.4% of the articles, and the slope gradient is considered as the most important conditioning factor in landslide occurrence in 94.2% of the articles. Finally, it is concluded that the recent technological developments in the field of remote sensing, computing technologies and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the increased data availability, and the awareness has arisen among media and recent policy developments are important elements for increasing the research interest in landslide susceptibility.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12517-018-3531-5

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10661-017-6415-3

The most commonly used approach to estimate soil variables from remote-sensing data entails time-consuming and expensive data collection including chemical and physical laboratory analysis. Large spectral libraries could be exploited to decrease the effort of soil variable estimation and obtain more widely applicable models. We investigated the feasibility of a new approach, referred to as bottom-up, to provide soil organic carbon (SOC) maps of bare cropland fields over a large area without recourse to chemical analyses, employing both the pan-European topsoil database from the Land Use/Cover Area frame statistical Survey (LUCAS) and Airborne Prism Experiment (APEX) hyperspectral airborne data. This approach was tested in two areas having different soil characteristics: the loam belt in Belgium, and the Gutland–Oesling region in Luxembourg. Partial least square regression (PLSR) models were used in each study area to estimate SOC content, using both bottom-up and traditional approaches. The PLSR model’s accuracy was tested on an independent validation dataset. Both approaches provide SOC maps having a satisfactory level of accuracy (RMSE = 1.5–4.9 g·kg−1; ratio of performance to deviation (RPD) = 1.4–1.7) and the inter-comparison did not show differences in terms of RMSE and RPD either in the loam belt or in Luxembourg. Thus, the bottom-up approach based on APEX data provided high-resolution SOC maps over two large areas showing the within- and between-field SOC variability

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/10/2/153

Land desertification is recognized as a major threat to soil resources in arid, semi-arid Mediterranean areas. The use of widely applicable methodologies can facilitate the identification of land desertification risk spatio-temporal trends, which allows transnational comparison and support the development of soil management practices and policies, protecting the valuable soil resources. The aim of this study is to improve and use the Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) MEDALUS methodology, in order to provide a qualitative assessment for desertification risk trends in Greece, within the last 45 years. The Management, Vegetation, Soil and Climate quality indices (MQI, VQI, SQI, CQI) and the sub-sequent Environmental Sensitive Areas Index (ESAI) have been modeled for three periods in the entire Greek territory. The four quality indices are divided in two main categories, based on data availability and inherent characteristics, such as the pace of change during the studied period. Particular emphasis is given to the assessment of MQI, by integrating criteria which derived from national policies and the elaboration of national statistical data. The results show about 9% increase of the areas characterized as Critical to land desertification risk, while Fragile, Potentially affected and Non-affected areas decrease by 3.7%, 3.6%, 2.5% respectively. The applied approach for MQI can reveal areas where particular attention to management practices is required and improves the performance of the overall desertification risk index.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0341816218301577

The relationship between erosion and biodiversity is reciprocal. Soil organisms can both reduce soil loss, by improving porosity, and increase it, by diminishing soil stability as a result of their mixing activities. Simultaneously, soil runoff has ecological impacts on belowground communities. Despite clear research into interactions, soil erosion models do not consider biodiversity in their estimates and soil ecology has poorly investigated the effects of erosion. In order to start filling in these research gaps, we present a novel biological factor and introduce it into a well‐known soil erosion model (the revised universal soil loss equation). Furthermore, we propose insights to advance soil erosion ecology. We present three pathways to fill in current knowledge gaps in soil biodiversity and erosion studies: (a) introducing a biological factor into soil erosion models; (b) developing plot‐scale experiments to clarify and quantify the positive/negative effects of soil organisms on erosion; (c) promoting ecological studies to assess both short‐ and long‐term effects of soil erosion on soil biota. We develop a biological factor to be included in soil erosion modelling. Thanks to available data on earthworm diversity (richness and abundance), we generate an “earthworm factor”, incorporate it into a model of soil erosion and produce the first pan‐European maps of it. New estimates of soil loss can be generated by including biological factors in soil erosion models. At the same time, the effects of soil loss on belowground diversity require further investigation. Available data and technologies make both processes possible. We think that it is time to commit to fostering the fundamental, although complex, relationship between soil biodiversity and erosion.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/geb.12782

In the European Union (EU), copper concentration in agricultural soil stems from anthropogenic activities and natural sources (soil and geology). This manuscript reports a statistical comparison of copper concentrations at different levels of administrative units, with a focus on agricultural areas. Anthropogenic sources of diffuse copper contamination include fungicidal treatments, liquid manure (mainly from pigs), sewage sludge, atmospheric deposition, mining activities, local industrial contamination and particles from car brakes. Sales of fungicides in the EU are around 158,000 tonnes annually, a large proportion of which are copper based and used extensively in vineyards and orchards. Around 10 million tonnes of sewage sludge is treated annually in the EU, and 40% of this (which has a high copper content) is used as fertilizer in agriculture. In the EU, 150 million pigs consume more than 6.2 million tonnes of copper through additives in their feed, and most of their liquid manure ends up in agricultural soil. These three sources (sales of fungicides, sewage sludge and copper consumption for pigs feed) depend much on local traditional farming practices. Recent research towards replacing copper spraying in vineyards and policy developments on applying sewage and controlling the feed given to pigs are expected to reduce copper accumulation in agricultural soil.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/7/2380

Soil degradation due to erosion is connected to two serious environmental impacts: (i) on-site soil loss and (ii) off-site effects of sediment transfer through the landscape. The potential impact of soil erosion processes on biogeochemical cycles has received increasing attention in the last two decades. Properly designed modelling assumptions on effective soil loss are a key pre-requisite to improve our understanding of the magnitude of nutrients that are mobilized through soil erosion and the resultant effects. The aim of this study is to quantify the potential spatial displacement and transport of soil sediments due to water erosion at European scale. We computed long-term averages of annual soil loss and deposition rates by means of the extensively tested spatially distributed WaTEM/SEDEM model. Our findings indicate that soil loss from Europe in the riverine systems is about 15% of the estimated gross on-site erosion. The estimated sediment yield totals 0.164 ± 0.013 Pg yr⁻¹ (which corresponds to 4.62 ± 0.37 Mg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ in the erosion area). The greatest amount of gross on-site erosion as well as soil loss to rivers occurs in the agricultural land (93.5%). By contrast, forestland and other semi-natural vegetation areas experience an overall surplus of sediments which is driven by a re-deposition of sediments eroded from agricultural land. Combining the predicted soil loss rates with the European soil organic carbon (SOC) stock, we estimate a SOC displacement by water erosion of 14.5 Tg yr⁻¹. The SOC potentially transferred to the riverine system equals to 2.2 Tg yr⁻¹ (~15%). Integrated sediment delivery-biogeochemical models need to answer the question on how carbon mineralization during detachment and transport might be balanced or even off-set by carbon sequestration due to dynamic replacement and sediment burial.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935117308137

The soils of the Mediterranean Basin are the products of soil processes that have been governed by a unique convergence of highly differentiated natural and anthropogenic drivers. These soils are expected to be dramatically affected by future climate and societal changes. These changes imply that suitable adaptive management strategies for these resources cannot simply be transposed from experiments that are performed in other regions of the world. Following a framework that considers the chain of “drivers-soil process-soil capital-ecosystem services/disservices,” the paper review the research undertaken in the Mediterranean area on three types of Mediterranean soil degradation than can be expected under global change: (i) soil losses due to the increase of drought and torrential rainfall; (ii) soil salinization due the increase of droughts, irrigation, and sea level; and (iii) soil carbon stock depletion with the increase of temperature and droughts. The possible strategies for mitigating each of these degradations have been largely addressed and are still studied in current research projects. They should include changes in agricultural practices, soil water management, and vegetal material. As a pre-requisite for the site-specific adaptations of such mitigation strategies within viable Mediterranean agrosystems, it is highlighted that methodological advances are necessary in integrated assessment of agricultural systems and in finer resolution soil mapping.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0573-8

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

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ldr.2588

The chapter discusses a study that predicts the global organic carbon stocks for agricultural soils using European databases with geostatistical analysis and modeling. The overall statistical model consists of two submodels namely donor and donee modules. The donor module uses statistics to quantify the relationships between soil organic carbon (SOC) and environmental covariates. The covariates were selected based on their availability at global scale and their roles as major drivers that affect the carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems. Multiple linear regression was used in the donor module with the selected covariates and dense SOC measurements coming from LUCAS soil database (Toth et al., 2013a). The LUCAS soil database has more than 22,000 SOC measurements from European countries and a standardized sampling procedure was used routinely to collect samples of around 0.5 kg of topsoil (0–20 cm) each. The donor module reveals and quantifies the relationships between SOC mass concentration in soil and the predictors to be used in the donee model to extend the prediction at global scale using the same set of predictors. We used the WorldClim dataset (Hijmans et al., 2005), which is comprised of global climate data layers representing long-term conditions for the years from 1950 to 2000. The land cover data were extracted from the GlobCover 2009 (ESA and Universite' Catholique de Louvain, 2010) provided by the European Space Agency (ESA), the terrain parameters were derived from CGIAR-CSI SRTM 90 m Database (Jarvis et al., 2008), the soil layers obtained from Harmonized World Soil Database (FAO/IIASA/ISRIC/ISSCAS/JRC, 2012), and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data were obtained from Copernicus Global Land Service Data Portal (Copernicus Global Land Service, 2015). The study yielded promising results which are broadly consistent with similar efforts predicting global agricultural SOC stocks. Our model fits the SOC data well (R2 = 0.35) and preliminary results suggest a global agricultural SOC estimate of 100.34 Pg (Petagrams) in the first 20 cm. The study predicts the global agricultural SOC stocks using a geostatistical approach and the results are consistent with previous studies that used process-based SOC models.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065211316301183

An in-depth analysis of the interannual variability of storms is required to detect changes in soil erosive power of rainfall, which can also result in severe on-site and off-site damages. Evaluating long-term rainfall erosivity is a challenging task, mainly because of the paucity of high-resolution historical precipitation observations that are generally reported at coarser temporal resolutions (e.g., monthly to annual totals). In this paper we suggest overcoming this limitation through an analysis of long-term processes governing rainfall erosivity with an application to datasets available the central Ruhr region (Western Germany) for the period 1701–2011. Based on a parsimonious interpretation of seasonal rainfall-related processes (from spring to autumn), a model was derived using 5-min erosivity data from 10 stations covering the period 1937–2002, and then used to reconstruct a long series of annual rainfall erosivity values. Change-points in the evolution of rainfall erosivity are revealed over the 1760s and the 1920s that mark three sub-periods characterized by increasing mean values. The results indicate that the erosive hazard tends to increase as a consequence of an increased frequency of extreme precipitation events occurred during the last decades, characterized by short-rain events regrouped into prolonged wet spells.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169416307296

The exposure of the Earth’s surface to the energetic input of rainfall is one of the key factors controlling water erosion. While water erosion is identified as the most serious cause of soil degradation globally, global patterns of rainfall erosivity remain poorly quantified and estimates have large uncertainties. This hampers the implementation of effective soil degradation mitigation and restoration strategies. Quantifying rainfall erosivity is challenging as it requires high temporal resolution(<30 min) and high fidelity rainfall recordings. We present the results of an extensive global data collection effort whereby we estimated rainfall erosivity for 3,625 stations covering 63 countries. This first ever Global Rainfall Erosivity Database was used to develop a global erosivity map at 30 arc-seconds(~1 km) based on a Gaussian Process Regression(GPR). Globally, the mean rainfall erosivity was estimated to be 2,190 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 yr−1, with the highest values in South America and the Caribbean countries, Central east Africa and South east Asia. The lowest values are mainly found in Canada, the Russian Federation, Northern Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East. The tropical climate zone has the highest mean rainfall erosivity followed by the temperate whereas the lowest mean was estimated in the cold climate zone.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-04282-8

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.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065211316301249

The policy requests to develop trends in soil erosion changes can be responded developing modelling scenarios of the two most dynamic factors in soil erosion, i.e. rainfall erosivity and land cover change. The recently developed Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale (REDES) and a statistical approach used to spatially interpolate rainfall erosivity data have the potential to become useful knowledge to predict future rainfall erosivity based on climate scenarios. The use of a thorough statistical modelling approach (Gaussian Process Regression), with the selection of the most appropriate covariates (monthly precipitation, temperature datasets and bioclimatic layers), allowed to predict the rainfall erosivity based on climate change scenarios. The mean rainfall erosivity for the European Union and Switzerland is projected to be 857 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 yr−1 till 2050 showing a relative increase of 18% compared to baseline data (2010). The changes are heterogeneous in the European continent depending on the future projections of most erosive months (hot period: April–September). The output results report a pan-European projection of future rainfall erosivity taking into account the uncertainties of the climatic models.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169417301439

Soils underpin our existence through food production and represent the largest terrestrial carbon store. Understanding soil state-and-change in response to climate and land use change is a major challenge. Our aim is to bridge the science-policy interface by developing a natural capital accounting structure for soil, for example, attempting a mass balance between soil erosion and production, which indicates that barren land, and woody crop areas are most vulnerable to potential soil loss. We test out our approach using earth observation, modelling and ground based sample data from the European Union’s Land Use/Cover Area frame statistical Survey (LUCAS) soil monitoring program. Using land cover change data for 2000–2012 we are able to identify land covers susceptible to change, and the soil resources most at risk. Tree covered soils are associated with the highest carbon stocks, and are on the increase, while areas of arable crops are declining, but artificial surfaces are increasing. The framework developed offers a substantial step forward, demonstrating the development of biophysical soil accounts that can be used in wider socio-economic and policy assessment; initiating the development of an integrated soil monitoring approach called for by the United Nations Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06819-3

Legacy soil data have been produced over 70 years in nearly all countries of the world. Unfortunately, data, information and knowledge are still currently fragmented and at risk of getting lost if they remain in a paper format. To process this legacy data into consistent, spatially explicit and continuous global soil information, data are being rescued and compiled into databases. Thousands of soil survey reports and maps have been scanned and made available online. The soil profile data reported by these data sources have been captured and compiled into databases. The total number of soil profiles rescued in the selected countries is about 800,000. Currently, data for 117, 000 profiles are compiled and harmonized according to GlobalSoilMap specifications in a world level database (WoSIS). The results presented at the country level are likely to be an underestimate. The majority of soil data is still not rescued and this effort should be pursued. The data have been used to produce soil property maps. We discuss the pro and cons of top-down and bottom-up approaches to produce such maps and we stress their complementarity. We give examples of success stories. The first global soil property maps using rescued data were produced by a top-down approach and were released at a limited resolution of 1 km in 2014, followed by an update at a resolution of 250 m in 2017. By the end of 2020, we aim to deliver the first worldwide product that fully meets the GlobalSoilMap specifications.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214242816300699

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

Agricultural ecosystems provide a range of benefits that are vital to human well-being. These benefits are dependent on several soil functions that are affected in different ways by legislation from the European Union, national, and regional levels. We evaluated current European Union soil-related legislation and examples of regional legislation with regard to direct and indirect impacts on five soil functions: the production of food, fiber, and fuel; water purification and regulation; carbon sequestration and climate regulation; habitat for biodiversity provisioning; and the recycling of nutrients/agro-chemicals. Our results illustrate the diversity of existing policies and the complex interactions present between different spatial and temporal scales. The impact of most policies, positive or negative, on a soil function is usually not established, but depends on how the policy is implemented by local authorities and the farmers. This makes it difficult to estimate the overall state and trends of the different soil functions in agricultural ecosystems. To implement functional management and sustainable use of the different soil functions in agricultural ecosystems, more knowledge is needed on the policy interactions as well as on the impact of management options on the different soil functions

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2017.00097/full

Two objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy post-2013 (CAP, 2014–2020) in the European Union (EU) are the sustainable management of natural resources and climate smart agriculture. To understand the CAP impact on these priorities, the Land Use/Cover statistical Area frame Survey (LUCAS) employs direct field observations and soil sub-sampling across the EU. While a huge amount of information can be retrieved from LUCAS points for monitoring the environmental status of agroecosystems and assessing soil carbon sequestration, a fundamental aspect relating to climate change action is missing, namely nitrous oxide (N2O) soil emissions. To fill this gap, we ran the DayCent biogeochemistry model for more than 11’000 LUCAS sampling points under agricultural use, assessing also the model uncertainty. The results showed that current annual N2O emissions followed a skewed distribution with a mean and median values of 2.27 and 1.71 kg N ha-1 yr-1, respectively. Using a Random Forest regression for upscaling the modelled results to the EU level, we estimated direct soil emissions of N2O in the range of 171–195 Tg yr-1 of CO2eq. Moreover, the direct regional upscaling using modelled N2O emissions in LUCAS points was on average 0.95 Mg yr-1 of CO2eq. per hectare, which was within the range of the meta-model upscaling (0.92–1.05 Mg ha-1 yr-1 of CO2eq). We concluded that, if information on management practices would be made available and model bias further reduced by N2O flux measurement at representative LUCAS points, the combination of the land use/soil survey with a well calibrated biogeochemistry model may become a reference tool to support agricultural, environmental and climate policies.

ttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176111

Biochar can largely contribute to enhance organic carbon (OC) stocks in soil and improve soil quality in forest and agricultural lands. Its contribution depends on its recalcitrance, but also on its interactions with minerals and other organic compounds in soil. Thus, it is important to study the link between minerals, natural organic matter and biochar in soil. In this study, we investigated the incorporation of biochar-derived carbon (biochar-C) into various particle-size fractions with contrasting mineralogy and the effect of biochar on the storage of total OC in the particle-size fractions in an acid loamy soil under Pinus radiata (C3 type) in the Spanish Atlantic area. We compared plots amended with biochar produced from Miscanthus sp. (C4 type) with control plots (not amended). We separated sand-, silt-, and clay-size fractions in samples collected from 0 to 20-cm depth. In each fraction, we analyzed clay minerals, metallic oxides and oxy-hydroxides, total OC and biochar-C. The results showed that 51% of the biochar-C was in fractions < 20 μm one year after the application of biochar. Biochar-C stored in clay-size fractions (0.2–2 μm, 0.05–0.2 μm, < 0.05 μm) was only 14%. Even so, we observed that biochar-C increased with decreasing particle-size in clay-size fractions, as it occurred with the vermiculitic phases and metallic oxides and oxy-hydroxides. Biochar also affected to the distribution of total OC among particle-size fractions. Total OC concentration was greater in fractions 2–20 μm, 0.2–2 μm, 0.05–0.2 μm in biochar-amended plots than in control plots. This may be explained by the adsorption of dissolved OC from fraction < 0.05 μm onto biochar particles. The results suggested that interactions between biochar, minerals and pre-existing organic matter already occurred in the first year.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969717303698

There is an increasing demand for information on organic carbon (OC) in subsurface horizons, because subsurface horizons down to the bedrock can contribute to more than half of soil carbon stocks. In this study, we developed pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for predicting OC content in subsurface horizons of European soils. We used a dataset with a wide geographical coverage in Europe. The dataset was stratified sequentially into land‐cover and soil categories. For each category, PTFs were developed by multiple linear regression with the main soil and climatic factors of soil OC storage as predictor variables: OC in topsoil (0–20 cm), depth of subsurface horizons, texture and bulk density (BD) in subsurface horizons, and mean annual temperature and precipitation. Three land‐cover categories were separated: woodland, a combined category of grassland and non‐permanent arable land, and permanent arable land. For the combined land‐cover category, two soil categories were identified: (i) soils with clay‐rich subsoil and soils with little horizon development and (ii) organic‐rich soils and soils rich in Fe and Al compounds. The adjusted R2 of all PTFs was above 0.62. When PTFs were applied to independent data, the adjusted R2 was above 0.51 for all of them. The PTFs showed good prediction ability, with root mean square error (RMSE) values between 2.43 and 13.82 g C kg−1 soil. The adjusted R2 and RMSE of PTFs were better when BD was used as a predictor variable. The PTFs could be implemented easily for applications at the continental scale in Europe.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ejss.12464

Human activity and related land use change are the primary cause of accelerated soil erosion, which has substantial implications for nutrient and carbon cycling, land productivity and in turn, worldwide socio-economic conditions. Here we present an unprecedentedly high resolution (250 × 250 m) global potential soil erosion model, using a combination of remote sensing, GIS modelling and census data. We challenge the previous annual soil erosion reference values as our estimate, of 35.9 Pg yr−1 of soil eroded in 2012, is at least two times lower. Moreover, we estimate the spatial and temporal effects of land use change between 2001 and 2012 and the potential offset of the global application of conservation practices. Our findings indicate a potential overall increase in global soil erosion driven by cropland expansion. The greatest increases are predicted to occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. The least developed economies have been found to experience the highest estimates of soil erosion rates.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02142-7

Recent developments in applied mathematics are bringing new tools that are capable to synthesize knowledge in various disciplines, and help in finding hidden relationships between variables. One such technique is topological data analysis (TDA), a fusion of classical exploration techniques such as principal component analysis (PCA), and a topological point of view applied to clustering of results. Various phenomena have already received new interpretations thanks to TDA, from the proper choice of sport teams to cancer treatments. For the first time, this technique has been applied in soil science, to show the interaction between physical and chemical soil attributes and main soil-forming factors, such as climate and land use. The topsoil data set of the Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame survey (LUCAS) was used as a comprehensive database that consists of approximately 20,000 samples, each described by 12 physical and chemical parameters. After the application of TDA, results obtained were cross-checked against known grouping parameters including five types of land cover, nine types of climate and the organic carbon content of soil. Some of the grouping characteristics observed using standard approaches were confirmed by TDA (e.g., organic carbon content) but novel subtle relationships (e.g., magnitude of anthropogenic effect in soil formation), were discovered as well. The importance of this finding is that TDA is a unique mathematical technique capable of extracting complex relations hidden in soil science data sets, giving the opportunity to see the influence of physicochemical, biotic and abiotic factors on topsoil formation through fresh eyes.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969717303431

Because of the increasing pressures exerted on soil, below-ground life is under threat. Knowledge-based rankings of potential threats to different components of soil biodiversity were developed in order to assess the spatial distribution of threats on a European scale. A list of 13 potential threats to soil biodiversity was proposed to experts with different backgrounds in order to assess the potential for three major components of soil biodiversity: soil microorganisms, fauna, and biological functions. This approach allowed us to obtain knowledge-based rankings of threats. These classifications formed the basis for the development of indices through an additive aggregation model that, along with ad-hoc proxies for each pressure, allowed us to preliminarily assess the spatial patterns of potential threats. Intensive exploitation was identified as the highest pressure. In contrast, the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture was considered as the threat with least potential. The potential impact of climate change showed the highest uncertainty. Fourteen out of the 27 considered countries have more than 40% of their soils with moderate-high to high potential risk for all three components of soil biodiversity. Arable soils are the most exposed to pressures. Soils within the boreal biogeographic region showed the lowest risk potential. The majority of soils at risk are outside the boundaries of protected areas. First maps of risks to three components of soil biodiversity based on the current scientific knowledge were developed. Despite the intrinsic limits of knowledge-based assessments, a remarkable potential risk to soil biodiversity was observed. Guidelines to preliminarily identify and circumscribe soils potentially at risk are provided. This approach may be used in future research to assess threat at both local and global scale and identify areas of possible risk and, subsequently, design appropriate strategies for monitoring and protection of soil biota.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971531247X

As a follow up and an advancement of the recently published Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale (REDES) and the respective mean annual R-factor map, the monthly aspect of rainfall erosivity has been added to REDES. Rainfall erosivity is crucial to be considered at a monthly resolution, for the optimization of land management (seasonal variation of vegetation cover and agricultural support practices) as well as natural hazard protection (landslides and flood prediction). We expanded REDES by 140 rainfall stations, thus covering areas where monthly R-factor values were missing (Slovakia, Poland) or former data density was not satisfactory (Austria, France, and Spain). The different time resolutions (from 5 to 60 min) of high temporal data require a conversion of monthly R-factor based on a pool of stations with available data at all time resolutions. Because the conversion factors show smaller monthly variability in winter (January: 1.54) than in summer (August: 2.13), applying conversion factors on a monthly basis is suggested. The estimated monthly conversion factors allow transferring the R-factor to the desired time resolution at a European scale. The June to September period contributes to 53% of the annual rainfall erosivity in Europe, with different spatial and temporal patterns depending on the region. The study also investigated the heterogeneous seasonal patterns in different regions of Europe: on average, the Northern and Central European countries exhibit the largest R-factor values in summer, while the Southern European countries do so from October to January. In almost all countries (excluding Ireland, United Kingdom and North France), the seasonal variability of rainfall erosivity is high. Very few areas (mainly located in Spain and France) show the largest from February to April. The average monthly erosivity density is very large in August (1.67) and July (1.63), while very small in January and February (0.37). This study addresses the need to develop monthly calibration factors for seasonal estimation of rainfall erosivity and presents the spatial patterns of monthly rainfall erosivity in European Union and Switzerland. Moreover, the study presents the regions and seasons under threat of rainfall erosivity.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/8/4/119

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901115001884

The idea of offsetting anthropogenic CO2 emissions by increasing global soil organic carbon (SOC), as recently proposed by French authorities ahead of COP21 in the ‘four per mil’ initiative, is notable. However, a high uncertainty still exits on land C balance components. In particular, the role of erosion in the global C cycle is not totally disentangled, leading to disagreement whether this process induces lands to be a source or sink of CO2. To investigate this issue, we coupled soil erosion into a biogeochemistry model, running at 1 km2 resolution across the agricultural soils of the European Union (EU). Based on data‐driven assumptions, the simulation took into account also soil deposition within grid cells and the potential C export to riverine systems, in a way to be conservative in a mass balance. We estimated that 143 of 187 Mha have C erosion rates <0.05 Mg C ha−1 yr−1, although some hot‐spot areas showed eroded SOC >0.45 Mg C ha−1 yr−1. In comparison with a baseline without erosion, the model suggested an erosion‐induced sink of atmospheric C consistent with previous empirical‐based studies. Integrating all C fluxes for the EU agricultural soils, we estimated a net C loss or gain of −2.28 and +0.79 Tg yr−1 of CO2eq, respectively, depending on the value for the short‐term enhancement of soil C mineralization due to soil disruption and displacement/transport with erosion. We concluded that erosion fluxes were in the same order of current carbon gains from improved management. Even if erosion could potentially induce a sink for atmospheric CO2, strong agricultural policies are needed to prevent or reduce soil erosion, in order to maintain soil health and productivity.

Soil organic carbon plays an important role in the carbon cycling of terrestrial ecosystems, variations in soil organic carbon stocks are very important for the ecosystem. In this study, a geostatistical model was used for predicting current and future soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in Europe. The first phase of the study predicts current soil organic carbon content by using stepwise multiple linear regression and ordinary kriging and the second phase of the study projects the soil organic carbon to the near future (2050) by using a set of environmental predictors. We demonstrate here an approach to predict present and future soil organic carbon stocks by using climate, land cover, terrain and soil data and their projections. The covariates were selected for their role in the carbon cycle and their availability for the future model. The regression-kriging as a base model is predicting current SOC stocks in Europe by using a set of covariates and dense SOC measurements coming from LUCAS Soil Database. The base model delivers coefficients for each of the covariates to the future model. The overall model produced soil organic carbon maps which reflect the present and the future predictions (2050) based on climate and land cover projections. The data of the present climate conditions (long-term average (1950–2000)) and the future projections for 2050 were obtained from WorldClim data portal. The future climate projections are the recent climate projections mentioned in the Fifth Assessment IPCC report. These projections were extracted from the global climate models (GCMs) for four representative concentration pathways (RCPs). The results suggest an overall increase in SOC stocks by 2050 in Europe (EU26) under all climate and land cover scenarios, but the extent of the increase varies between the climate model and emissions scenarios.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969716305095

The Member States of the European Union have committed to the maintenance and protection of forest lands. More precisely, the Member States aim to ensure the sustainable development and management of the EU's forests. For 2013, Eurostat's statistics about primary and secondary wood products in the European forest land (65% thereof privately owned) estimate a roundwood production of 435 million m3 in total. Harmonised information, i.e., spatially and temporarily differentiated, on forestry and wood harvesting activities in the European forests are missing however. This lack of information impedes the scientific assessment of the impacts that forest management practices have on the soil-related forest ecosystems (e.g., accelerated water soil erosion, delivery of inert sediments and pollutants within the drainage network, pauperization of aquatic ecosystems). It also prevents national and European institutions from taking measures aimed at an effective mitigation of the rapidly advancing land degradation. This study provides a first pan-European analysis that delineates the spatial patterns of forest cover changes in 36 countries. The first dynamic assessment of the soil loss potential in the EU-28 forests is reported. The recently published High-resolution Global Forest Cover Loss map (2000–2012) was reprocessed and validated. Results show that the map is a powerful tool to spatiotemporally indicate the forest sectors that are exposed to cover change risks. The accuracy assessment performed by using a confusion matrix based on 2300 reference forest disturbances distributed across Europe shows values of 55.1% (producer accuracy) for the algorithm-derived forest cover change areas with a Kappa Index of Agreement (KIA) of 0.672. New insights into the distribution of the forest disturbance in Europe and the resulting soil loss potential were obtained. The presented maps provide spatially explicit indicators to assess the human-induced impacts of land cover changes and soil losses on the European soil-related forest ecosystems. These insights are relevant (i) to support policy making and land management decisions to ensure a sustainable forest management strategy and (ii) to provide a solid basis for further spatiotemporal investigations of the forestry practices’ impacts on the European forest ecosystems.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X1500494X

Over recent decades, Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC) trends in many regions of Europe have reconfigured the landscape structures around many urban areas. In these areas, the proximity to landscape elements with high forest fuels has increased the fire risk to people and property. These Wildland–Urban Interface areas (WUI) can be defined as landscapes where anthropogenic urban land use and forest fuel mass come into contact. Mapping their extent is needed to prioritize fire risk control and inform local forest fire risk management strategies. This study proposes a method to map the extent and spatial patterns of the European WUI areas at continental scale. Using the European map of WUI areas, the hypothesis is tested that the distance from the nearest WUI area is related to the forest fire probability. Statistical relationships between the distance from the nearest WUI area, and large forest fire incidents from satellite remote sensing were subsequently modelled by logistic regression analysis. The first European scale map of the WUI extent and locations is presented. Country-specific positive and negative relationships of large fires and the proximity to the nearest WUI area are found. A regional-scale analysis shows a strong influence of the WUI zones on large fires in parts of the Mediterranean regions. Results indicate that the probability of large burned surfaces increases with diminishing WUI distance in touristic regions like Sardinia, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, or in regions with a strong peri-urban component as Catalunya, Comunidad de Madrid, Comunidad Valenciana. For the above regions, probability curves of large burned surfaces show statistical relationships (ROC value > 0.5) inside a 5000 m buffer of the nearest WUI. Wise land management can provide a valuable ecosystem service of fire risk reduction that is currently not explicitly included in ecosystem service valuations. The results re-emphasise the importance of including this ecosystem service in landscape valuations to account for the significant landscape function of reducing the risk of catastrophic large fires.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479716300548

Existing data sets on earthworm communities in Europe were collected, harmonized, collated, modelled and depicted on a soil biodiversity map. Digital Soil Mapping was applied using multiple regressions relating relatively low density earthworm community data to soil characteristics, land use, vegetation and climate factors (covariables) with a greater spatial resolution. Statistically significant relationships were used to build habitat–response models for maps depicting earthworm abundance and species diversity. While a good number of environmental predictors were significant in multiple regressions, geographical factors alone seem to be less relevant than climatic factors. Despite differing sampling protocols across the investigated European countries, land use and geological history were the most relevant factors determining the demography and diversity of the earthworms. Case studies from country-specific data sets (France, Germany, Ireland and The Netherlands) demonstrated the importance and efficiency of large databases for the detection of large spatial patterns that could be subsequently applied at smaller (local) scales.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0929139315300688

The aim of this study was to map soil erosion on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The G2 model, an empirical model for month-time step erosion assessments, was used. Soil losses in Cyprus were mapped at a 100 m cell size, while sediment yields at a sub-basin scale of 0.62 km2 mean size. The results indicated a mean annual erosion rate of 11.75 t ha−1 y−1, with October and November being the most erosive months. The 34% of the island's surface was found to exceed non-sustainable erosion rates (>10 t ha−1 y−1), with sclerophyllous vegetation, coniferous forests, and non-irrigated arable land being the most extensive non-sustainable erosive land covers. The mean sediment delivery ratio (SDR) was found to be 0.26, while the mean annual specific sediment yield (SSY) value for Cyprus was found to be 3.32 t ha−1 y−1. The annual sediment yield of the entire island was found to be 2.746 Mt y−1. This study was the first to provide complete and detailed erosion figures for Cyprus at a country scale. The geodatabase and all information records of the study are available at the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC) of the Joint Research Centre (JRC).

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17538947.2016.1156776

Some recent land use changes in Albania, such as deforestation, cropland abandonment, and urban sprawl, have caused serious increase of erosion risk. The main objective of this study was to map erosion risk in Korçe region and assess the degree at which every land use is concerned. The G2 erosion model was applied, which can provide erosion maps and statistical figures at month-time intervals using input from free European and global geodatabases. The mapping results in Korçe region were derived at a 30-m cell size, which is an innovation for G2. Autumn-winter months were found to be the most erosive, with average erosion rates reaching the maximum in November and December, i.e. 2.62 and 2.36 t/ha, respectively, while the annual rate was estimated at 10.25 t/ha/yr. Natural grasslands, shurblands, mixed forests, and vineyards showed to exhibit the highest mean erosion rates, while shrublands, broad-leaved forests and natural grasslands were found to be the most extended land covers risky for non-sustainable erosion rates (i.e. >10 t/ha/yr). A detailed examination of the detected hot spots is now necessary by the competent authorities, in order to apply appropriate, site-specific conservation measures. Notably, use of SPOT VGT data did not prevent the maps from having extended gaps due to cloudiness. Sentinel-2 time series, freely available by the European Space Agency (ESA), have the potential to improve spatiotemporal coverage of V-factor, thus further empowering the G2 model, in the near future.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12145-016-0269-z

Soil organic carbon plays an important role in the carbon cycling of terrestrial ecosystems, variations in soil organic carbon stocks are very important for the ecosystem. In this study, a geostatistical model was used for predicting current and future soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in Europe. The first phase of the study predicts current soil organic carbon content by using stepwise multiple linear regression and ordinary kriging and the second phase of the study projects the soil organic carbon to the near future (2050) by using a set of environmental predictors. We demonstrate here an approach to predict present and future soil organic carbon stocks by using climate, land cover, terrain and soil data and their projections. The covariates were selected for their role in the carbon cycle and their availability for the future model. The regression-kriging as a base model is predicting current SOC stocks in Europe by using a set of covariates and dense SOC measurements coming from LUCAS Soil Database. The base model delivers coefficients for each of the covariates to the future model. The overall model produced soil organic carbon maps which reflect the present and the future predictions (2050) based on climate and land cover projections. The data of the present climate conditions (long-term average (1950–2000)) and the future projections for 2050 were obtained from WorldClim data portal. The future climate projections are the recent climate projections mentioned in the Fifth Assessment IPCC report. These projections were extracted from the global climate models (GCMs) for four representative concentration pathways (RCPs). The results suggest an overall increase in SOC stocks by 2050 in Europe (EU26) under all climate and land cover scenarios, but the extent of the increase varies between the climate model and emissions scenarios.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969716305095

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).

The new assessment of soil loss by water erosion in Europe (Panagos et al., 2015a) was commented by Evans and Boardman (2016), who raised not only concerns related to the spatial differences outlined by our work compared to their visual semi-qualitative assessment conducted in Britain during the late eighties, but also generally to the suitability, validity and scientific robustness of the applied modelling approach. The objective of the pan-European assessment using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was not to outcompete any regional- or national-scale modelling, but to harmonize and improve our knowledge and our understanding of current soil erosion rates by water across the European Union. The focus of such a modelling project is on the differences and similarities between regions and countries beyond national borders and nationally adapted models. In order to do so, a state-of-the-art large-scale spatially distributed modelling exercise using harmonized datasets and a unified methodology to suit the pan-European scale was carried out. We reply that the semi-qualitative approach proposed by Evans and Boardman (2016) is not suitable for application at the European scale because of work force and time requirements, input data accessibility issues, accuracy of field-based estimates, subjectivity of soil loss estimates during the aerial and terrestrial photo interpretation, impossibility of upscaling or downscaling, inadequate representation of sheet erosion processes, lack of spatial and temporal representativeness, and lack of detailed description expressing the risk level. As such, their methodology has limited applicability, with today’s financial resources it is not feasible at European or at national scale and, most important, cannot respond to policy requests regarding scenarios of climate and land cover/use change. In contrast to Evans and Boardman (2016), we do know that RUSLE, like probably any other approach, is not able to reproduce “reality”. The latter is actually a misjudgment which has been extensively discussed 20 years ago. Modelling in general and large-scale modelling specifically can per se not aim at an accurate prediction of point measurements, but tests our hypothesis on process understanding, relative spatial and temporal variations, scenario development and controlling factors (Oreskes et al., 1994). As such, our approach can be offered as a helpful tool to policy makers at pan-European scale. We are confident that the simple transparent structure of RUSLE as well as the discussion of the uncertainties of each modelling factor will help to supply objective guidance to policy makers.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S146290111630034X

The selection of biological indicators for monitoring progress towards policy goals for soil quality should be without bias and in line with individual scenarios of need. Here we describe the prescription of a suite of appropriate indicators for potential application in such monitoring schemes across Europe. We applied a structured framework of assessment and ranking (viz. a ‘logical sieve’), building upon published data and a new survey taken from a wide section of the global soil biodiversity research and policy community.

The top ten indicators included four indicators of biodiversity (three microbial and one meso-faunal) by various methods of measurement, and three indicators of ecological function (Multiple enzyme assay, Multiple substrate-induced respiration profiling, and ‘Functional genes by molecular biological means’). Within the techniques assessed, seven out of the top ten indicators made use of molecular methods.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0929139315300585

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

Understanding spatial and temporal patterns in land susceptibility to wind erosion is essential to design effective management strategies to control land degradation. The knowledge about the land surface susceptible to wind erosion in European contexts shows significant gaps. The lack of researches, particularly at the landscape to regional scales, prevents national and European institutions from taking actions aimed at an effective mitigating of land degradation. This study provides a preliminary pan‐European assessment that delineates the spatial patterns of land susceptibility to wind erosion and lays the groundwork for future modelling activities. An Index of Land Susceptibility to Wind Erosion (ILSWE) was created by combining spatiotemporal variations of the most influential wind erosion factors (i.e. climatic erosivity, soil erodibility, vegetation cover and landscape roughness). The sensitivity of each input factor was ranked according to fuzzy logic techniques. State‐of‐the‐art findings within the literature on soil erodibility and land susceptibility were used to evaluate the outcomes of the proposed modelling activity. Results show that the approach is suitable for integrating wind erosion information and environmental factors. Within the 34 European countries under investigation, moderate and high levels of land susceptibility to wind erosion were predicted, ranging from 25·8 to 13·0 M ha, respectively (corresponding to 5·3 and 2·9% of total area). New insights into the geography of wind erosion susceptibility in Europe were obtained and provide a solid basis for further investigations into the spatial variability and susceptibility of land to wind erosion across Europe. 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ldr.2318

Soil erosion by water is a serious threat for the Mediterranean region. Raindrop impacts and consequent runoff generation are the main driving forces of this geomorphic process of soil degradation. The potential ability for rainfall to cause soil loss is expressed as rainfall erosivity, a key parameter required by most soil loss prediction models. In Italy, rainfall erosivity measurements are limited to few locations, preventing researchers from effectively assessing the geography and magnitude of soil loss across the country. The objectives of this study were to investigate the spatio-temporal distribution of rainfall erosivity in Italy and to develop a national-scale grid-based map of rainfall erosivity. Thus, annual rainfall erosivity values were measured and subsequently interpolated using a geostatistical approach. Time series of pluviographic records (10-years) with high temporal resolution (mostly 30-min) for 386 meteorological stations were analysed. Regression-kriging was used to interpolate rainfall erosivity values of the meteorological stations to an Italian rainfall erosivity map (500-m). A set of 23 environmental covariates was tested, of which seven covariates were selected based on a stepwise approach (mostly significant at the 0.01 level). The interpolation method showed a good performance for both the cross-validation data set ( = 0.777) and the fitting data set (R2 = 0.779)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2016.1148203

The establishment of the range of soil biodiversity found within European soils is needed to guide EU policy development regarding the protection of soil. Such a base-line should be collated from a wide-ranging sampling campaign to ensure that soil biodiversity from the majority of soil types, land-use or management systems, and European climatic (bio-geographical zones) were included. This paper reports the design and testing of a method to achieve the large scale sampling associated with the establishment of such a baseline, carried out within the remit of the EcoFINDERS project, and outlines points to consider when such a task is undertaken.

Applying a GIS spatial selection process, a sampling campaign was undertaken by 13 EcoFINDERS partners across 11 countries providing data on the range of indicators of biodiversity and ecosystem functions including; micro and meso fauna biodiversity, extracellular enzyme activity, PLFA and community level physiological profiling (MicroResp™ and Biolog™). Physical, chemical and bio-geographical parameters of the 81 sites sampled were used to determine whether the model predicted a wide enough range of sites to allow assessment of the biodiversity indicators tested.

Discrimination between the major bio-geographical zones of Atlantic and Continental was possible for all land-use types. Boreal and Alpine zones only allowed discrimination in the most common land-use type for that area e.g. forestry and grassland sites, respectively, while the Mediterranean zone did not have enough sites sampled to draw conclusions across all land-use types. The method used allowed the inclusion of a range of land-uses in both the model prediction stage and the final sites sampled. The establishment of the range of soil biodiversity across Europe is possible, though a larger targeted campaign is recommended. The techniques applied within the EcoFINDERS sampling would be applicable to a larger campaign

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0929139315300342

http://www.eemj.icpm.tuiasi.ro/pdfs/vol15/no12/10_91_Toth_14.pdf

One major controlling factor of water erosion is rainfall erosivity, which is quantified as the product of total storm energy and a maximum 30 min intensity (I30). Rainfall erosivity is often expressed as R-factor in soil erosion risk models like the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its revised version (RUSLE). As rainfall erosivity is closely correlated with rainfall amount and intensity, the rainfall erosivity of Switzerland can be expected to have a regional characteristic and seasonal dynamic throughout the year. This intra-annual variability was mapped by a monthly modeling approach to assess simultaneously spatial and monthly patterns of rainfall erosivity. So far only national seasonal means and regional annual means exist for Switzerland. We used a network of 87 precipitation gauging stations with a 10 min temporal resolution to calculate long-term monthly mean R-factors. Stepwise generalized linear regression (GLM) and leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) were used to select spatial covariates which explain the spatial and temporal patterns of the R-factor for each month across Switzerland. The monthly R-factor is mapped by summarizing the predicted R-factor of the regression equation and the corresponding residues of the regression, which are interpolated by ordinary kriging (regression–kriging). As spatial covariates, a variety of precipitation indicator data has been included such as snow depths, a combination product of hourly precipitation measurements and radar observations (CombiPrecip), daily Alpine precipitation (EURO4M-APGD), and monthly precipitation sums (RhiresM). Topographic parameters (elevation, slope) were also significant explanatory variables for single months. The comparison of the 12 monthly rainfall erosivity maps showed a distinct seasonality with the highest rainfall erosivity in summer (June, July, and August) influenced by intense rainfall events. Winter months have the lowest rainfall erosivity. A proportion of 62 % of the total annual rainfall erosivity is identified within four months only (June–September). The highest erosion risk can be expected in July, where not only rainfall erosivity but also erosivity density is high. In addition to the intra-annual temporal regime, a spatial variability of this seasonality was detectable between different regions of Switzerland. The assessment of the dynamic behavior of the R-factor is valuable for the identification of susceptible seasons and regions.

https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/20/4359/2016/

Soil contamination is one of the greatest concerns among the threats to soil resources in Europe and globally. Despite of its importance there was only very course scale (1/5000 km2) data available on soil heavy metal concentrations prior to the LUCAS topsoil survey, which had a sampling density of 200 km2. Based on the results of the LUCAS sampling and auxiliary information detailed and up-to-date maps of heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, Zn, Sb, Co and Ni) in the topsoil of the European Union were produced. Using the maps of heavy metal concentration in topsoil we made a spatial prediction of areas where local assessment is suggested to monitor and eventually control the potential threat from heavy metals. Most of the examined elements remain under the corresponding threshold values in the majority of the land of the EU. However, one or more of the elements exceed the applied threshold concentration on 1.2 M km2, which is 28.3% of the total surface area of the EU. While natural backgrounds might be the reason for high concentrations on large proportion of the affected soils, historical and recent industrial and mining areas show elevated concentrations (predominantly of As, Cd, Pb and Hg) too, indicating the magnitude of anthropogenic effect on soil quality in Europe.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969716310452

Rainfall erosivity considers the effects of rainfall amount and intensity on soil detachment. Rainfall erosivity is most commonly expressed as the R-factor in the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its revised version, RUSLE. Several studies focus on spatial analysis of rainfall erosivity ignoring the intra-annual variability of this factor. This study assesses rainfall erosivity in Greece on a monthly basis in the form of the RUSLE R-factor, based on a 30-min data from 80 precipitation stations covering an average period of almost 30 years. The spatial interpolation was done through a Generalised Additive Model (GAM). The observed intra-annual variability of rainfall erosivity proved to be high. The warm season is 3 times less erosive than the cold one. November, December and October are the most erosive months contrary to July, August and May which are the least erosive. The proportion between rainfall erosivity and precipitation, expressed as erosivity density, varies throughout the year. Erosivity density is low in the first 5 months (January–May) and is relatively high in the remaining 7 months (June–December) of the year. The R-factor maps reveal also a high spatial variability with elevated values in the western Greece and Peloponnesus and very low values in Western Macedonia, Thessaly, Attica and Cyclades. The East–West gradient of rainfall erosivity differs per month with a smoother distribution in summer and a more pronounced gradient during the winter months. The aggregated data for the 12 months result in an average R-factor of 807 MJ mm ha− 1 h− 1 year− 1 with a range from 84 to 2825 MJ mm ha− 1 h− 1 year− 1. The combination of monthly R-factor maps with vegetation coverage and tillage maps contributes to better monitor soil erosion risk at national level and monthly basis.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0341816215301156

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706115300173

Nearly all of Europe is affected by soil erosion. A major policy response is required to reverse the impacts of erosion in degraded areas, particularly in light of the current climate change and water crisis. Soil loss occurs not because of any lack of knowledge on how to protect soils, but a lack in policy governance. The average rate of soil loss by sheet and rill erosion in Europe is 2·46 Mg ha−1 yr−1. To mitigate the impacts of soil erosion, the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy has introduced conservation measures which reduce soil loss by water erosion by 20% in arable lands. Further economic and political action should rebrand the value of soil as part of ecosystem services, increase the income of rural land owners, involve young farmers and organize regional services for licensing land use changes. In a changing World of 9 billion people with the challenge of climate change, water scarcity and depletion of soil fertility, the agriculture economy should evolve taking into account environmental and ecological aspects.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ldr.2538

Soil plays a central role in food safety as it determines the possible composition of food and feed at the root of the food chain. However, the quality of soil resources as defined by their potential impact on human health by propagation of harmful elements through the food chain has been poorly studied in Europe due to the lack of data of adequate detail and reliability. The European Union's first harmonized topsoil sampling and coherent analytical procedure produced trace element measurements from approximately 22,000 locations. This unique collection of information enables a reliable overview of the concentration of heavy metals, also referred to as metal(loid)s including As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, Zn, Sb. Co, and Ni. In this article we propose that in some cases (e.g. Hg and Cd) the high concentrations of soil heavy metal attributed to human activity can be detected at a regional level. While the immense majority of European agricultural land can be considered adequately safe for food production, an estimated 6.24% or 137,000 km2 needs local assessment and eventual remediation action.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412015301203

Since, the Common Agricultural Policies (CAP) reform in 2003, many efforts have been made at the European level to promote a more environmentally friendly agriculture. In order to oblige farmers to manage their land sustainably, the GAEC (Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions) were introduced as part of the Cross Compliance mechanism. Among the standards indicated, the protection of soils against erosion and the maintenance of soil organic matter and soil structure were two pillars to protect and enhance the soil quality and functions. While Member States should specifically define the most appropriate management practices and verify their application, there is a substantial lack of knowledge about the effects of this policy on erosion prevention and soil organic carbon (SOC) change. In order to fill this gap, we coupled a high resolution erosion model based on Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) with the CENTURY biogeochemical model, with the aim to incorporate the lateral carbon fluxes occurring with the sediment transportation. Three scenarios were simulated on the whole extent of arable land in Italy: (i) a baseline without the GAEC implementation; (ii) a current scenario considering a set of management related to GAEC and the corresponding area of application derived from land use and agricultural management statistics and (iii) a technical potential where GAEC standards are applied to the entire surface. The results show a 10.8% decrease, from 8.33 Mg ha−1 year−1 to 7.43 Mg ha−1 year−1, in soil loss potential due to the adoption of the GAEC conservation practices. The technical potential scenario shows a 50.1% decrease in the soil loss potential (soil loss 4.1 Mg ha−1 year−1). The GAEC application resulted in overall SOC gains, with different rates depending on the hectares covered and the agroecosystem conditions. About 17% of the SOC change was attributable to avoided SOC transport by sediment erosion in the current scenario, while a potential gain up to 23.3 Mt of C by 2020 is predicted under the full GAEC application. These estimates provide a useful starting point to help the decision-makers in both ex-ante and ex-post policy evaluation while, scientifically, the way forward relies on linking biogeochemical and geomorphological processes occurring at landscape level and scaling those up to continental and global scales.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837715003257

Soils of the European Union This report is based on the information contained in the European Soil Database, the result of more than ten years of fruitful effort and collaboration between the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, and Europe’s leading soil science institutions. The current report overviews soils of the European Union classified in a new standard which is the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB; FAO 1998). This system originates from the approach of the FAO to correlate soil resources globally. The advantage of using the system of the FAO is that the soil resources of the European Union are integrated into the world-wide context. Gergely Tóth, Luca Montanarella, Vladimir Stolbovoy, Ferenc Máté, Katalin Bódis, Arwyn Jones, Panos Panagos and Marc Van Liedekerke (eds.). EUR 23439 EN, ISBN 978-92-79-09530-6, ISSN 1018-5593, DOI 10.2788/87029 . Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities , 2008. Download report: (Size: 4MB) Preview FrontPage :

Land Quality and Land Use Information - in the European Union This monograph contains a selection of scientific papers presented on the conference on Land Quality and Land Use Information in the European Union, hold in Keszthely, Hungary. It covers topics related to various aspects of land quality including: concepts of assessment; evaluation of biomass productivity; bioindicators of land quality; quality assessment of degraded land; land use related data processing; INSPIRE; and the economic aspects of land quality. The aim of the conference was to facilitate the exchange of information and views among stakeholders involved in land management, land resources research and land use policy planning. This exchange of information contributes to an enhanced understanding on the role of land quality in rural systems and to progress the development of land information, land registries, land use planning and related services based on land quality on different levels; from farm to continental scales in Europe. Editors: Gergely Tóth and Tamás Németh, 2011 – 399 pp. – EUR 24590 EN– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1831-9424, ISBN 978-92-79-17601-2, Doi 10.2788/40725 Download report: (Size: 8 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 06/09/2011

Soil erosion by water is one of the most widespread forms of soil degradation. The loss of soil as a result of erosion can lead to decline in organic matter and nutrient contents, breakdown of soil structure and reduction of the water-holding capacity. Measuring soil loss across the whole landscape is impractical and thus research is needed to improve methods of estimating soil erosion with computational modelling, upon which integrated assessment and mitigation strategies may be based. Despite the efforts, the prediction value of existing models is still limited, especially at regional and continental scale, because a systematic knowledge of local climatological and soil parameters is often unavailable. A new approach for modelling soil erosion at regional scale is here proposed. It is based on the joint use of low-data-demanding models and innovative techniques for better estimating model inputs. The proposed modelling architecture has at its basis the semantic array programming paradigm and a strong effort towards computational reproducibility. An extended version of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) has been implemented merging different empirical rainfall-erosivity equations within a climatic ensemble model and adding a new factor for a better consideration of soil stoniness within the model. Pan-European soil erosion rates by water have been estimated through the use of publicly available data sets and locally reliable empirical relationships. The accuracy of the results is corroborated by a visual plausibility check (63% of a random sample of grid cells are accurate, 83% at least moderately accurate, bootstrap p ≤ 0.05). A comparison with country-level statistics of pre-existing European soil erosion maps is also provided.

https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/15/225/2015/

Research needs in support of the European thematic strategy for soil protection (Trends in Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 23, No. 10–11, 2004) Winfried E.H. Blum, Jurgen Busing, Luca Montanarella. © 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd. The conclusion that soil research should be integrated into comprehensive research areas (e.g., including water and sediments) in order to manage natural resources in Europe. Look for the research paper: Elsevier Publisher

Biochar application to soils Biochar application to soils is being considered as a means to sequester carbon (C) while concurrently improving soil functions. The main focus of this report is providing a critical scientific review of the current state of knowledge regarding the effects of biochar application to soils on soil properties, processes and functions. Wider issues, including atmospheric emissions and occupational health and safety associated to biochar production and handling, are put into context. The aim of this review is to provide a sound scientific basis for policy development, to identify gaps in current knowledge, and to recommend further research relating to biochar application to soils. Verheijen, F.G.A., Jeffery, S., Bastos, A.C., van der Velde, M., and Diafas, I. (2009). Biochar Application to Soils - A Critical Scientific Review of Effects on Soil Properties, Processes and Functions. EUR 24099 EN, Office for the Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 149pp. Keywords: Biochar, sequester carbon, charcoal Download report: (Size: 1.2 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 02/02/2010

Towards an European Soil Data Center in support of the EU thematic strategy for Soil Protection. B. Houskova, L. Montanarella, 2007. Published by Romanian Soil Science 2007, NR.1 pp. 3-17. The establishment of an European Soil Data Centre by the European Commission in support of the new EU thematic strategy for soil protection can certainly contribute to raising awareness in the general public of the importance of soil protection. Keywords: soil protection, EU thematic strategy, European soil data center. Access the paper

Case Study - Italy, Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation (SoCo Project) Ten case studies were carried out in Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom between spring and summer 2008. The selection of case study areas was designed to capture differences in soil degradation processes, soil types, climatic conditions, farm structures and farming practices, institutional settings and policy priorities. A harmonised methodological approach was pursued in order to gather insights from a range of contrasting conditions over a geographically diverse area. The case studies were carried out by local experts to reflect the specificities of the selected case studies. Authors: Rusco E, Maréchal B, Tiberi M, Bernacconi C, Ciabocco G, Ricci P, Spurio E. Editors: Gay S, Sammeth F, Schmidt M, . Case Study – Italy, Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation (SoCo Project). Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities 2009, EUR 24131 – Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593 , ISBN 978-92-79-14958-0, DOI 10.2791/39333. Keywords: SoCo, Soil conservation, Agriculture, Marche Region Download report: (Size: 7.9 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 26/04/2010

DRIS, MDRIS and CND Bivariate and multivariate analyses tools for monitoring the soil and plant nutrient imbalances Senthil-Kumar Selvaradjou, Luca Montanarella and Aruna-Geetha (2005). EUR 21505 EN Navigate the Contents: Download document: (Size: 0.8 MB) Preview FrontPage:

Prediction of spatial patterns of collapsed pipes in loess-derived soils in a temperate humid climate using logistic regression . Verachtert E., Den Eeckhaut M.V., Poesen J., Govers G., Deckers J. Prediction of spatial patterns of collapsed pipes in loess-derived soils in a temperate humid climate using logistic regression (2011) Geomorphology, 130 (3-4), pp. 185-196. Soil piping (tunnel erosion) has been recognised as an important erosion process in collapsible loess-derived soils of temperate humid climates, which can cause collapse of the topsoil and formation of discontinuous gullies. Information about the spatial patterns of collapsed pipes and regional models describing these patterns is still limited. Therefore, this study aims at better understanding the factors controlling the spatial distribution and predicting pipe collapse. A dataset with parcels suffering from collapsed pipes (n= 560) and parcels without collapsed pipes was obtained through a regional survey in a 236. km2 study area in the Flemish Ardennes (Belgium). Logistic regression was applied to find the best model describing the relationship between the presence/absence of a collapsed pipe and a set of independent explanatory variables (i.e. slope gradient, drainage area, distance-to-thalweg, curvature, aspect, soil type and lithology). Special attention was paid to the selection procedure of the grid cells without collapsed pipes. Apart from the first piping susceptibility map created by logistic regression modelling, a second map was made based on topographical thresholds of slope gradient and upslope drainage area. The logistic regression model allowed identification of the most important factors controlling pipe collapse. Pipes are much more likely to occur when a topographical threshold depending on both slope gradient and upslope area is exceeded in zones with a sufficient water supply (due to topographical convergence and/or the presence of a clay-rich lithology). Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2011.03.015 Last Update: 05/07/2012

Soil Quality and Sustainability Evaluation - An integrated approach to support soil-related policies of the European Union. This report presents an integrated approach of soil quality and sustainability evaluation. Interactions of the soil and land use systems are summarized from the perspective of the implication of soil related policies in the European Union. EUR 22721 EN. 40 pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. (2007), ISBN 978-92-79-05250-7 Tóth, G., Stolbovoy, V. and Montanarella, L. Download report: (Size: 1 MB) Preview FrontPage :

VAN DER KNIJFF, J.M., JONES, R.J.A. and MONTANARELLA, L. (1999). EUR 19022 EN, 52pp.

Soil Databases to support sustainable development. Soil Information in the European Union: Belgium, Denmark, England-wales, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Nothern Ireland, Portugal, Scotland, Spain. C. Le Bas and M. Jamagne (eds). EUR 16371 EN 149pp. (1996). Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download report: (Size: 35 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 10/10/2011

Guidelines for the use of native mosses, transplanted mosses and soils in assessing organic and inorganic contaminant fallout These guidelines on the use of mosses are of strategic importance in that they make it possible to harmonize the indications obtained from differing environments in terms of extent and, thereby, to compare them with results obtained using other methods. Cenci, R. (2008). European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, EUR 23292-EN, 33 pp. ISBN: 978-92-79-08719-6, ISSN: 1018-5593 Key words: mosses, soils, dioxins, heavy metals, radioisotopes. Download report: (Size: 2.2 MB) Preview FrontPage : Linee guida per l' utilizzo di muschi indigeni, muschi trapiantati e suoli per valutare le ricadute di contaminanti organici e inorganici. Scaricare il documento: (Taglia: 2.2 MB)

A range of continental‐scale soil datasets exists in Europe with different spatial representation and based on different principles. We developed comprehensive pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for applications principally on spatial datasets with continental coverage. The PTF development included the prediction of soil water retention at various matric potentials and prediction of parameters to characterize soil moisture retention and the hydraulic conductivity curve (MRC and HCC) of European soils. We developed PTFs with a hierarchical approach, determined by the input requirements. The PTFs were derived by using three statistical methods: (i) linear regression where there were quantitative input variables, (ii) a regression tree for qualitative, quantitative and mixed types of information and (iii) mean statistics of developer‐defined soil groups (class PTF) when only qualitative input parameters were available. Data of the recently established European Hydropedological Data Inventory (EU‐HYDI), which holds the most comprehensive geographical and thematic coverage of hydro‐pedological data in Europe, were used to train and test the PTFs. The applied modelling techniques and the EU‐HYDI allowed the development of hydraulic PTFs that are more reliable and applicable for a greater variety of input parameters than those previously available for Europe. Therefore the new set of PTFs offers tailored advanced tools for a wide range of applications in the continent.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ejss.12192

Soils contain the largest stock of organic carbon (C) in terrestrial ecosystems and changes in soil C stocks may significantly affect atmospheric CO2. A significant part of soil C is present in cultivated soils that occupy about 35 % of the global land surface. Agricultural intensification has led to practices that may decrease soil organic carbon (SOC), and agricultural management has the potential to be a powerful tool for climate change mitigation and increased soil fertility through SOC sequestration. Here, we systematically map evidence relating to the impacts of agricultural management on SOC in arable systems of the warm temperate and snow climate zones (subset of temperate and continental climates:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13750-015-0049-0

Soil Resources of Europe. P. Bullock, R.J.A. Jones and L. Montanarella (eds). EUR 18991 EN 202pp. (1999). Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Navigate the Contents: Preview FrontPage: The second edition is avalable (Report 9)

Calendar 2007 - Be down to earth: protect the soil of Europe The Land Management and Natural Hazards Unit presents the Calendar for 2007 introducing the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg (2006). A. Jones, E. Micheli, L. Montanarella, M. Van Liedekerke, P. Panagos Download report: (Size: 13 MB) Preview FrontPage :

The current state of the art in erosion research does not provide answers about the “where” and “when” of wind erosion in European agricultural lands. Questions about the implications for the agricultural productivity remain unanswered. Tackling this research gap, the study provides a more comprehensive understanding of the spatial patterns of land susceptibility to wind erosion in European agricultural lands. The Index of Land Susceptibility to Wind Erosion (ILSWE) was applied in a GIS environment. A harmonized input dataset ranked following a fuzzy logic technique was employed. Within the 36 European countries under investigation, moderate (17.3 million ha) and high levels (8.8 million ha) of land susceptibility to wind erosion were predicted. This corresponds to 8.0% and 4.1% of total agricultural land, respectively.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/7/8823

Validation of soil erosion risk assessements in Italy. A.J.J. Van Rompaey, P. Bazzoffi, R.J.A. Jones, L. Montanarella & G. Govers. (2003). EUR 20676 EN. 25pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download document: (Size: 1.4 MB) Preview FrontPage:

Soil Quality and Sustainability Evaluation - An integrated approach to support soil-related policies of the European Union. This report presents an integrated approach of soil quality and sustainability evaluation. Interactions of the soil and land use systems are summarized from the perspective of the implication of soil related policies in the European Union. EUR 22721 EN. 40 pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. (2007), ISBN 978-92-79-05250-7 Tóth, G., Stolbovoy, V. and Montanarella, L. Download report: (Size: 1 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Monitoring, Reporting and Verification systems for Carbon in Soils and Vegetation in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries Improved terrestrial carbon management offers tremendous potential for climate change mitigation and, in many cases, there are associated co-benefits such as increased productivity, resilience, and biodiversity. In January 2011, the Institute for Environment and Sustainability of the Joint Research Centre organized an inter-service meeting on “Monitoring, Reporting and Verification systems for carbon in soils and vegetation in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries” with the objective of refining its long-term research agenda in that domain. This was achieved in the light of the needs of the Directorates-General involved in the development and environment policies namely DEVCO, ENV, CLIMA, ENTR, RTD and AGRI as well as of the recent evolution of the UNFCCC negotiations. This report encompasses the proceedings of the meeting together with the conclusions and recommendations to JRC work program stated by the invited experts and policy-makers from the different relevant DGs. Editors: Delphine de Brogniez, Philippe Mayaux, Luca Montanarella, 2011 – 99 pp. – EUR 24932 EN– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1831-9424, ISBN 978-92-79-21137-9, Doi 10.2788/63356 Download report: (Size: 3 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 10/10/2011

Soil Protection Activities and Soil Quality Monitoring in South Eastern Europe Conference papers, June 18th and 19th, 2009, Sarajevo - Bosnia and Herzegovina. The conference Soil Protection Activities and Soil Quality Monitoring in South Eastern Europe was organized in Sarajevo as a joint action by the Soil Science Society of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Soil Science Society of Slovenia. The main objectives of conference were to review the soil protection and soil quality monitoring activities in SEE including research activities, project reports, good practice guides and various methodologies and monitoring strategies. The special emphasis was laid on the ecological and technical soil functions, remediation and re-cultivation measures, data collection and processing, soil protection policy, soil quality and soil resources management issues on the regional level. The conference was an opportunity to key regional soil science research institutions to present activities and achievements with further prospects of cross - border scientific collaboration. This publication presents a selection of 20 conference papers prepared by the authors from SEE countries (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) and guest contributions from Austria, Slovenia and Syria. Editors:Panos Panagos, Vernik Tomaž, Hamid Custovic, Borut Vršcaj, 2011 – 208 pp. – EUR 24889 EN– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1831-9424, ISBN 978-92-79-20728-0, Doi 10.2788/36675 Download report: (Size: 10.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 27/07/2011

Equilibrium versus disequilibrium of barchan dunes Hicham El belrhiti, Stéphane Douady . Equilibrium versus disequilibrium of barchan dunes (2011),GEOMORPHOLOGY , Vol 125, Mo 4 , pp. 558-568 Barchans are crescent dunes which take place in mainly mono-directional winds. Shape, aspect ratios and velocities of these dunes had been studied as if they were in equilibrium, in a stable state. However, following the shape and migrations of 11 barchans of different sizes for 18 months in the field on Moroccan Atlantic Sahara show that they are appear to be in a stationary state only if studied over a long period (at the scale of the year or several years), but are never at equilibrium at the scale of the week or the month. They are rather always trying to reach a possible equilibrium state but never have enough time to reach it. This could be the main reason for the large dispersion observed in previous measurements, and should lead to a caution on what can be deduced from them. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169555X10004630 Last Update: 05/09/2012

A logistic regression method for mapping the As hazard risk in shallow, reducing groundwaters in Cambodia. L. Rodríguez Lado, D. A. Polya and A. Hegan. Mineralogical Magazine; February 2008; v. 72; no. 1; p. 437-440; DOI: 10.1180/minmag.2008.072.1.437 We combined statistical analyses and GIS capabilities within the statistical environment R to create a semi-automated method for the assessment of As hazard risk in shallow groundwater in Cambodia. Arsenic concentration data for groundwaters of between 16 and 100 m depth were obtained from 1437 geo-referenced wells. We created a binary logistic regression model with these As measurements as the dependent variable and a number of raster maps (DEM-parameters, remote sensing images and geomorphology) as explanatory variables, and considering an As threshold of 10 ppb. This allowed us to make an As hazard map for groundwaters between 16–100 m depth: this can be used to help to identify populations vulnerable to exposure. Keywords: groundwater modelling, logistic regression, risk assessment, DOI: 10.1180/minmag.2008.072.1.437 Access the paper or contact the Author

Michael J. Kirkby et al.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837715001611

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

Editado por el Comité Científico del Buró Europeo de Suelos, edición en Castellano. (1999). EUR 18092 ES, 206pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg.

https://www.nature.com/news/agricultural-policy-govern-our-soils-1.18854

Wind Erosion in Europe. Funk,R. Reuter,H.I. (2006) Wind Erosion in Europe. In Soil Erosion in Europe edited by J.Boardman und J. Poesen, Publisher J.Wiley Provides a unique and comprehensive assessment of soil erosion throughout Europe, an important aspect to control and manage if landscapes are to be sustained for the future. Soil Erosion in Europe primarily focuses on current issues, area specific soil erosion rates, on and off-site impacts, government responses, soil conservation measures, and soil erosion risk maps. More information about the Book

MEUSIS: Multi-Scale European Soil Information System. Panagos, P., Van Liedekerke, M., Lado Rodriguez, L. and Montanarella, L. (2008). GEOconnexion International Magazine, Interoperable Geodata , Feb 2008 Volume 7· Issue 2: pp. 39-41. There are many methods for upscaling and the optimal method would be the one that ensures that the new value for the whole area is the most adequate according to the goals of the study. Soil information can be represented either as quantitative variables (numeric) or as qualitative (classes). Keywords: Information System, Database, Grid, Cell, INSPIRE. Access the paper

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

REPORTS OF THE TECHNICAL WORKING GROUPS ESTABLISHED UNDER THE THEMATIC STRATEGY FOR SOIL PROTECTION Lieve Van-Camp, Benilde Bujarrabal, Anna Rita Gentile, Robert J A Jones, Luca Montanarella, Claudia Olazabal, Senthil-Kumar Selvaradjou (2004) EUR 21319 EN

Long-term human interactions with the natural landscape have produced a plethora of trends and patterns of environmental disturbances across time and space. Nitrogen deposition, closely tracking energy and land use, is known to be among the main drivers of pollution, affecting both freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. We present a statistical approach for investigating the historical and geographical distribution of nitrogen deposition and the impacts of accumulation on recent soil carbon-to-nitrogen ratios in Europe. After the second Industrial Revolution, large swaths of land emerged characterized by different atmospheric deposition patterns caused by industrial activities or intensive agriculture. Nitrogen deposition affects soil C : N ratios in a still recognizable way despite the abatement of oxidized and reduced nitrogen emissions during the last 2 decades. Given a seemingly disparate land-use history, we focused on ~ 10 000 unmanaged ecosystems, providing statistical evidence for a rapid response of nature to the chronic nitrogen supply through atmospheric deposition.

https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/12/4113/2015/

Heavy metals in European soils: A geostatistical analysis of the FOREGS Geochemical database. Luis Rodríguez Lado, Tomislav Hengl and Hannes I. Reuter 2008. Geoderma, Article in Press This paper presents the results of modeling the distribution of eight critical heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, nickel, lead and zinc) in topsoils using 1588 georeferenced samples from the Forum of European Geological Surveys Geochemical database (26 European countries). The concentrations were mapped using regression-kriging (RK) and accuracy of predictions evaluated using the leave-one-out cross validation method. A large number of auxiliary raster maps (topographic indexes, land cover, geology, vegetation indexes, night lights images and earth quake magnitudes) were used to improve the predictions. Keywords: Soil mapping; Regression-kriging; MODIS; Night lights image; Geochemical database; Pan-European monitoring , DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2008.09.020 Access the paper or contact the Author

Spatial and temporal variability of rainfall erosivity factor for Switzerland Meusburger, K., Steel, A., Panagos, P., Montanarella, L., Alewell, C. (2012) Spatial and temporal variability of rainfall erosivity factor for Switzerland. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 16, 167–177, 2012 Rainfall erosivity, considering rainfall amount and intensity, is an important parameter for soil erosion risk assessment under future land use and climate change. Despite its importance, rainfall erosivity is usually implemented in models with a low spatial and temporal resolution. The purpose of this study is to assess the temporal- and spatial distribution of rainfall erosivity in form of the (Revised) Universal Soil Loss Equation R-factor for Switzerland. Time series of 22 yr for rainfall (10 min resolution) and temperature (1 h resolution) data were analysed for 71 automatic gauging stations distributed throughout Switzerland. Regression-kriging was used to interpolate the rainfall erosivity values of single stations and to generate a map for Switzerland. Latitude, longitude, average annual precipitation, biogeographic units (Jura, Midland, etc.), aspect and elevation were used as covariates, of which average annual precipitation, elevation and the biographic unit (Western Central Alps) were significant predictors. The mean value of long-term rainfall erosivity is 1330 MJmmha-1 h-1 yr-1 with a range of lowest values of 124 MJmmha-1 h-1 yr-1 at an elevated station in Grisons to highest values of 5611 MJmmha-1 h-1 yr-1 in Ticino. All stations have highest erosivity values from July to August and lowest values in the winter months. Swisswide the month May to October show significantly increasing trends of rainfall erosivity for the observed period . Only in February a significantly decreasing trend of rainfall erosivity is found. The increasing trends of rainfall erosivity in May, September and October when vegetation cover is scarce are likely to enhance soil erosion risk for certain agricultural crops and alpine grasslands in Switzerland. Access the paper: http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/167/2012/hess-16-167-2012.html Last Update: 02/09/2013

Evaluating the Effect of Nutrient Levels of Major Soil Types on the Productivity of Wheatlands in Hungary Tamás Hermann & Gergely Tóth. Evaluating the Effect of Nutrient Levels of Major Soil Types on the Productivity of Wheatlands in Hungary. Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis, Volume 42, Issue 13, 2011 Soil nutrient status is one of the most important constituents of land productivity. The research presented in this paper is aimed at describing the influence of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium availability on crop yield across the major soil types of Hungary, under different climatic conditions. For this purpose, historical times series data from a five year period (1985-1989) regarding soil, land management and crop yield of more than eighty thousand fields, representing approximately four million hectares of arable land, were statistically analyzed. The database was recently recovered from statistical archives stored in the format of digital records of the early 1980s and were used to study the productivity of major soil types for winter wheat cropping under balanced fertilizer input. Calculations were made to quantify the effects of soil nutrient levels. The evaluation was also performed for optimal and suboptimal climate conditions. Results show that the effect of nitrogen availability (as obtained from organic matter content) had the largest influence on winter wheat yields. Up to a 26% difference in yields was observed, both on those soils with balanced material regimes and on those with leaching material regimes, under optimal climatic conditions. Access the paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00103624.2011.581728 Last Update: 05/09/2012

Status and prospect of soil information in south-eastern Europe: soil databases, projects and applications Hengl, T., Panagos, P., Jones, A. and Toth, G. (eds) 2007. Status and prospect of soil information in south-eastern Europe: soil databases, projects and applications. EUR 22646 EN Scientific and Technical Research series, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxemburg, 187 pp. Download document: (Size: 15 MB) Preview FrontPage:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901115000611

Soil Biodiversity Monitoring in Europe: Ongoing Activities and Challenges. Gardi C, Montanarella L. Soil Biodiversity Monitoring in Europe: Ongoing Activities and Challenges. European Journal of Soil Science, Volume 60 Issue 5, Pages 807 - 819, 2009, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2389.2009.01177.x The increasing interest in soil biodiversity and its protection, has twofold aspects: the per se biodiversity conservation issues and the mostly unknown economical values of the services provided by soil biodiversity. Inventory and monitoring are the necessary tools for the achievement of an adequate level of knowledge on soil biodiversity status and for the detection of hot spot as well as areas subject to decline. In this paper the main tools and methodological approaches for soil biodiversity measurement are presented, as well as the technical aspects related to the inventory and monitoring activities at large spatial scale. Technical aspects related to the inventory and monitoring activities at a large spatial scale are discussed. A short review of some current experiences of soil biodiversity monitoring at the European level is also presented. Access the paper Last Update: 26/04/2010

A plant ecology approach to digital soil mapping, improving the prediction of soil organic carbon content in alpine grasslands Ballabio C., Fava F., Rosenmund A. A plant ecology approach to digital soil mapping, improving the prediction of soil organic carbon content in alpine grasslands (2012) Geoderma, 187-188 , pp. 102-116. The influence of organisms on pedogenesis is acknowledged in the scorpan model; however organisms, plants in particular, might be seen in a different light within the scorpan model. In fact, in minimally managed terrestrial ecosystems, biota coexists with soil as part of a feedback system, in which the biota not only influences soil development, but is also in turn influenced by it. This means that in natural environments a particular soil is usually associated with a typical combination of plant species which thrive in the biotope defined by the soil physical and chemical properties. Changes in soil features will favor certain species over others, thus modifying the structure of the resident plant communities. This makes plant communities very effective proxies of soil properties, effectively acting as widespread biological sensors. In this paper we will show how plant communities can be utilized to improve the quality of digital soil maps, effectively reducing the amount of field work needed by soil surveys, through a combination of relatively swifter and cheaper vegetation surveys and remote sensing data. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706112001656 Last Update: 02/09/2013

MICHÉLI, E., DOBOS, E., HOUŠKOVA, B., FILIPPI, N., MONTANARELLA, L. and JONES, R.J.A.. (2004), EUR 21196 EN, 254pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Presentations of the 1st European Summer School on Soil Survey [European Soil Bureau, Institute of Envrionement and Sustainability (July 2003)]

Distribuzione spaziale delle concentrazioni di metalli pesanti e radio-elementi nei suoli del Sito di Ispra Spatial distribution of heavy metals concentrations and radio active elemnents in Ispra site. EUR 19799 IT, 17pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg (2001). R.M. Cenci, F. Leva, F. D’Alberti, M. Dapiaggi, A. Geronimi e N. Plooy. Download report: (Size: 2.5 MB) Preview FrontPage :

The need for harmonizing methodologies for assessing soil threats in Europe van Beek C.L., Toth T., Hagyo A., Toth G., Recatala Boix L., Ano Vidal C., Malet J.P., (...), Oenema O. The need for harmonizing methodologies for assessing soil threats in Europe (2010) Soil Use and Management, 26 (3), pp. 299-309. Central to the EU thematic strategy for soil protection is that areas affected by soil degradation through erosion, soil organic matter (SOM) decline, compaction, salinization and landslides should be identified in a clear and consistent way. However, the current methodologies to achieve this often differ and this can result in different perceptions of risks amongst EU Member States. The aims of this paper are to: (i) assess the current status of assessment methodologies in Europe (EU27) associated with erosion, SOM decline, compaction, salinization and landslides and (ii) discuss the issues associated with harmonization of these methodologies throughout the EU27. The need for harmonization is assessed using the relative share of common elements between different methodologies. The results demonstrate that the need for harmonization in methodology is greatest for erosion and compaction and least for SOM decline and landslides. However, many of the methodologies which were investigated are still incomplete and there are significant differences in terms of: (i) understanding the threats, (ii) methods of data collection, (iii) processing and interpretation and (iv) risk perception. Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-2743.2010.00280.x Last Update: 05/07/2011

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

Risk Mapping of Landslides in New Member States Every year landslide activity causes significant economic loss as well as loss of human life. In the view of PECO country experts , landslides represent a high risk in Romania, a medium risk in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia, and a low risk in Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland. Author(s): Róbert Jelínek, Javier Hervás and Maureen Wood, 2007. Risk Mapping of Landslides in New Member States. EUR 22950 EN, European Commission, Ispra, Italy, 38pp. ISSN 1018-5593 Download report: (Size: 2.2 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Levels of PCDD/Fs and trace elements in superficial soils of Pavia Province (Italy). Ingrid Vives, Anne Müller, Gunther Umlauf , Eugen H. Christoph, Giulio Mariani, Helle Skejo, Roberto Michele Cenci, Fabrizio Sena, Gian Maria Beone (2008). Environment International, Elsevier LTD, DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2008.03.003. Trace elements and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) were analyzed in soils from rural and light-industrialized sites (n=168) of Province of Pavia (Northern Italy). Most of the trace element values fit in typical ranges of concentrations in soils and are similar to the ones reported for rural sites in Italy or sites with no direct anthropogenic impact. Total concentrations of 2,3,7,8 chlorine substituted PCDD/Fs in superficial soils ranged between 24.4 and 1287 pg g-1 dw . Keywords: Dioxin, Furan, Metal, Deposition, Emission, Pavia. Access the paper

Soils encompass a huge diversity of organisms which mostly remains to be characterized due to a number of methodological and logistical issues. Nonetheless, remarkable progress has been made in recent years toward developing strategies to characterize and describe soil biodiversity, especially thanks to the development of molecular approaches relying on direct DNA extraction from the soil matrix.

Metabarcoding can be applied to DNA from any environment or organism, and is gaining increasing prominence in biodiversity studies. This approach is already commonly used to characterize soil microbial communities and its application is now being extended to other soil organisms, i.e. meso- and macro-fauna.

These developments offer unprecedented scientific and operational opportunities in order to better understand soil biodiversity distribution and dynamics, and to propose tools and strategies for biodiversity diagnosis. However, these opportunities also come with challenges that the scientific community must face. Such challenges are related to i) clarification of terminology, (ii) standardisation of methods and further methodological development for additional taxonomic groups, (iii) development of a common database, and (iv) ways to avoid waste of information and data derived from metabarcoding. In order to facilitate common application of metabarcoding in soil biodiversity assessment, we discuss these opportunities and challenges and propose solutions towards a more homogeneous framework.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038071714003617

Digital Soil Mapping as a support to production of functional maps Digital Soil Mapping as a support to production of functional maps. EUR 22123 EN, 68 pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxemburg. Dobos, E., Carré, F., Hengl, T., Reuter, H.I., Tóth, G. (2006) Download report: (Size: 5.5 MB) Preview FrontPage :

The soil science community is facing a growing demand of regional, continental, and worldwide databases in order to monitor the status of the soil. However, the availability of such data is very scarce. Cost-effective tools to measure soil properties for large areas (e.g., Europe) are required. Soil spectroscopy has shown to be a fast, cost-effective, environmental-friendly, nondestructive, reproducible, and repeatable analytical technique. The main aim of this paper is to describe the state of the art of soil spectroscopy as well as its potential to facilitating soil monitoring. The factors constraining the application of soil spectroscopy as an alternative to traditional laboratory analyses, together with the limits of the technique, are addressed. The paper also highlights that the widespread use of spectroscopy to monitor the status of the soil should be encouraged by (1) the creation of a standard for the collection of laboratory soil spectra, to promote the sharing of spectral libraries, and (2) the scanning of existing soil archives, reducing the need for costly sampling campaigns. Finally, routine soil analysis using soil spectroscopy would be beneficial for the end users by a reduction in analytical costs, and an increased comparability of results between laboratories. This ambitious project will materialize only through (1) the establishment of local and regional partnerships among existent institutions able to generate the necessary technical competence, and (2) the support of international organizations. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of United Nations and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission are well placed to promote the use of laboratory and field spectrometers for monitoring the state of soils.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065211315000425

Estimation and potential improvement of the quality of legacy soil samples for digital soil mapping Carré, F., McBratney, A.B., Minasny, B., 2006. Published by Geoderma, 141, 1-14. The paper presents some methodologies for assessing the quality of legacy soil samples using Hypercube Sampling strategy. Each sampling unit is then estimated as being over or under-sampled. Legacy soil data form an important resource for digital soil mapping and are essential for calibration of models for predicting soil properties from environmental variables. Such data arise from traditional soil survey. Access the paper or contact the Author F. Carre for more information

Geostatistical analysis of surface soil texture from Zala county in western Hungary K. Adhikari, A. Guadagnini, G. Toth and T. Hermann. Pages 219 - 224 Proceedings of the International Symposium on Environment, Energy and Water in Nepal: Recent Researches and Direction for Future. 31 March - 01 April 2009, Hotel Himalaya, Kathmandu, Nepal. Soil texture is one of the most important soil properties governing most of the physical, chemical and hydrological properties of soils. Variability in soil texture may contribute to the variation in nutrient storage and availability, water retention and transport and binding and stability of soil aggregates. It can directly or indirectly influence many other soil functions and soil threats such as soil erosion. Geostatistics has been extensively used for quantifying the spatial pattern of soil properties and Kriging techniques are proving sufficiently robust for estimating values at unsampled locations in most of the cases. Download the Article: Geostatistical analysis of surface soil texture from Zala county in western Hungary Last Update: 16/11/2009

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

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

Holistic approach to biodiversity and bioindication in soil To study and investigate soil biodiversity is a difficult task because of the complex interactions that exist in soil and the need for considerable expertise to undertake the necessary investigations. The factors that influence biodiversity are diverse: some are natural, for example soil acidity, water retention, temperature and organic matter content, others are anthropogenic, for example human population pressure. This report summarises the results of the multidisciplinary BIO-BIO study of biodiversity and bioindication, conducted within the Pavia Project, which had as its principal objective the evaluation of the quality and health of soil in Pavia Province, Lombardy, in northern Italy. The area under investigation covered 3000 km2 and the project took into account of the different uses of soil. Author(s): R. M. Cenci and R. J. A. Jones (eds), Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities 2009 – 43 pp, EUR23940EN – Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-12793-9, DOI 10.2788/2351 Download report: (Size: 1 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 09/07/2009

The unofficial guide for authors The unofficial guide for authors(or how to produce research articles worth citing) Tomislav Hengl and Mike Gould, EUR 22191 EN, 66pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download report: (Size: 1.6 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Distribution of Organic Carbon in Soil Profile Data. Soil organic carbon (SOC) content has been estimated at pan-European scale for the soil layer from 0 to a depth of 30 cm. The methodology used to generate the data layer relied on a combination of a pedo-transfer rule (PTR) and pedo-transfer functions (PTF). The PTR has been developed based on PTR No. 21 of the PTR database of the Soil Geographic Database of Eurasia (SGDBE). The original conditions of the rule system have been revised and amended to accommodate organic soils and peat. The revised PTR for topsoil SOC content comprises 120 ordered conditions of combinations of 5 soil and environmental parameters with an output to one of 6 classes of SOC content. Author(s): R. Hiederer, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2009 – 126 pp. EUR 23980 EN, ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-13352-7, DOI 10.2788/33102 Download report: (Size: 3 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 18/09/2009

SCAPE: The way ahead SCAPE project (Soil Conservation and Protection for Europe) has given scientists the opportunity to discuss soil conservation and protection strategies in an informal way with people who are either responsible for finding solutions, or being affected by them. Several hundreds of people have contributed to this book, either collectively or individually. They include the scientists, soil conservation and protection practitioners and stakeholders who participated in the SCAPE platforms, as well as many EU officers who are responsible for future research and environment policy. They also include people who met at the Vital Soil Conference at the Hague in November 2004 and as well the group of International experts in soil and environmental law who met at the September 2005 Conference in Iceland. Anton Imeson, Arnold Arnoldussen, Diego de la Rosa, Luca Montanaralla, Luuk Dorren, Michiel Curfs, Olafur Arnalds, Sanneke van Asselen et (2005) SCAPE: The way ahead. 139pp. Keywords: Soil Conservation, Soil Protection, Soil Data, European Sustainable Land Management Download report: (Size: 10.8 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 22/03/2010

SPADE-2: The Soil Profile Analytical Database for Europe (version 1.0) John M. Hollis, Robert J.A. Jones, Charles J. Marshall, Ann Holden, Jan Renger van de Veen and Luca Montanarella (2006). EUR 22127 EN Download document: (Size: 2.7 MB) Preview FrontPage:

European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) - Soil Maps of Latin America and Caribbean islands European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) - Soil Maps of Latin America and Caribbean islands : DVD-ROM version. EUR 21822. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Selvaradjou, S-K., Montanarella, L., Spaargaren. O. and Dent. D. (2005) Navigate the Contents:

Landslide susceptibility mapping at 1:1M scale over France. Malet, J.-P., Thiery, Y., Puissant, A., Hervás, J., Guenther, A., Grandjean, G., 2009.. Geophysical Research Abstracts, 11, EGU2009-3274. Download the abstract: Landslide susceptibility mapping at 1:1M scale over France

Soils are considered across the Rio Conventions and while some advances have been made in the past two decades, implementation remains lacking and soil-related issues persist. This calls for a more integrated approach for the implementation of the Conventions. Similarly, soils will play a key role to achieve the post-2015 development agenda and can be found across the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This cross-cutting role is not being sufficiently acknowledged in the negotiations. Putting soils on the policy agenda will depend on a major shift in the discussion to recognize that soils underpin a wide range of services and should, therefore, be protected for future generations. Concerted efforts for advocacy within the post-2015 development agenda need to focus on keeping soils on the agenda and on making proposals for the effective implementation and monitoring of the SDGs.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187734351500072X

Soil Geographical Database for Eurasia & The Mediterranean: Instructions Guide for Elaboration at scale 1:1,000,000. Version 4.0. J.J. Lambert, J. Daroussin, M. Eimberck, C. Le Bas, M. Jamagne, D. King & L. Montanarella. (2003). EUR 20422 EN, 64pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download document: (Size: 0.8 MB) Preview FrontPage:

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.

Data Update and Model Revision for Soil Profile Analytical Database of Europe of Measured Parameters (SPADE/M2) The Soil Profile Analytical Database of Europe of Measured parameters (SPADE/M) is part of the distribution package of the Soil Geographic Database of Eurasia (SGDBE). Typical combinations of profile parameters and morphological characteristics of the sample site were intended to support the definition of generalized rules for estimating pedological and hydrological properties of the pedo-transfer rule (PTR) database of the SGDBE. In 2005 the data of the SGDBE were transferred to a common data storage structure. In 2008 original hard-copies on profile measurements were re-discovered at the National Soil Resources Institute, Cranfield University (NSRI). To make the original data more generally available the profiles were added to the existing database. This step required changes to the structure of the database and a validation of the all entries for accurate and reliable data storage and retrieval. Author(s): R. Hiederer. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities , 2010 – 55 pp. – EUR 24333 – Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-15646-5, DOI 10.2788/85262 Keywords: Soil Profiles, SPADE, pedo-transfer rule, European Soil Database Download report: (Size: 1.0 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 26/04/2010

Mapping Services in the European Soil Portal Panagos, P., 2006. Mapping Services in the European Soil Portal Geo: International , Sept 2006 Volume 5 · Issue 8: 42-45 Online information systems are providing the valuable link between Europeans and the ground. Learn more about the soil. Look for the article: GeoConnexion: Defence and Geo-Intelligence

Ground Based SAR and Terrestrial Laser Scanner data for the analysis of the Formigal landslide; the GALAHAD project test site in the Spanish Pyrenees. Herrera, G., Ponce de León, D., Mulas, J., Llorente, M., Hervás, J., Noferini, L., Mecatti, D., Macaluso, G., Tamburini, A., Federici, P., 2007. 7th Geomatics Week, Barcelona, Spain, 20-23 February 2007, CD-ROM, 2 pp. Download the Article: Ground Based SAR and Terrestrial Laser Scanner data for the analysis of the Formigal landslide; the GALAHAD project test site in the Spanish Pyrenees.

VAN DER KNIJFF, J.M., JONES, R.J.A. and MONTANARELLA, L. (1999). Traduit de l’Anglais par S. Christophe. EUR 19022 FR, 45pp.

Tolerable Versus Actual Soil Erosion Rates in Europe. Verheijen F, Jones R, Rickson J, Smith C. Tolerable Versus Actual Soil Erosion Rates in Europe. Earth-Science Reviews, Volume 94, Issues 1-4, May 2009, Pages 23-38 , doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2009.02.003 Erosion is a major threat to soil resources in Europe, and may impair their ability to deliver a range of ecosystem goods and services. This is reflected by the European Commission's Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection, which recommends an indicator-based approach for monitoring soil erosion. Defined baseline and threshold values are essential for the evaluation of soil monitoring data. Therefore, accurate spatial data on both soil loss and soil genesis are required, especially in the light of predicted changes in climate patterns, notably frequency, seasonal distribution and intensity of precipitation. Rates of soil loss have been measured, modelled or inferred for most types of soil erosion in a variety of landscapes, by studies across the spectrum of the Earth sciences. This paper reviews the concept of tolerable soil erosion and summarises current knowledge on rates of soil formation, which are then compared to rates of soil erosion by known erosion types, for assessment of soil erosion monitoring at the European scale. Access the paper Last Update: 26/04/2010

An SRTM-based procedure to delineate Soter terrain units on 1: 1 and 1:5 Million scales. Technical report (2005) EUR 21571 EN. Endre Dobos, Joel Daroussin and Luca Montanarella

Characterization of Ferricyanide-Humate Complexes by a Voltammetric Approach The industrial sites that deal with the production and/or use of cyanide in their processes often have contamination problems in soils and water. R.M Cenci et Al. Soil and Sediment Contamination, 2001 10(5), pages 483 - 496 Look for the article: Soil and Sediment Contamination, 2001 10(5), pages 483 - 496

Critical Zone Science extends the definition of soils beyond the traditional pedogenetic processes. The critical zone, as the interface linking the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere and the biosphere matches well the concepts that have recently emerged, especially in Europe, in relation to the development of a new soil protection policy for the European Union. The European Union (EU) Soil Thematic Strategy, as presented by the European Commission in 2006, intends to address the protection of soil functions that go far beyond the limited definition of soils as the first 2-m of the surface structured in pedogenetic horizons. The seven functions that the EU wants to protect (biomass production, buffering and filtering of water, biodiversity pool, source of raw materials, support for housing and infrastructure, carbon sink and archive of cultural heritage) require considering soils in a much broader context. The full unconsolidated material from the surface to bedrock has to be included if we want to fully understand and manage the seven soil functions considered of policy relevance by the EU. Soil science needs to go beyond traditional pedological studies and enlarge its scope by including a full understanding of the critical zone. In this sense Critical Zone Science can be considered the perfect match with the emerging concepts of the EU Soil Thematic Strategy. Indeed this reflects the recent evolution from the historical relevance of soils science in the framework of a single soil function, namely agricultural production, toward a shift of the attention of the importance of soils also in other policy areas beyond agriculture, including the water policy, the climate change policy, the biodiversity policy, the energy resources policy, the cultural policy, etc. At global level, Critical Zone Science community can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals recent debates. A new scientific paradigm for soil science is needed if we want to respond to these emerging needs from new soil related policy areas. This new paradigm is Critical Zone Science and is adequately responding to these new needs going far beyond the traditional agricultural view on soils.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837715002288

Extreme Temperatures and Precipitation in Europe: Analysis of a High-Resolution Climate Change Scenario Future climate change is generally believed to lead to an increase in climate variability and in the frequency and intensity of extreme events. In this report we analyse the changes in variability and extremes in temperature and precipitation in Europe by the end of this century, based on high-resolution (12 km) simulations of the regional climate model HIRHAM Danker, R. And R. Hiederer (2008) Extreme Temperatures and Precipitation in Europe: Analysis of a High-Resolution Climate Change Scenario. EUR 23291 EN. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities Luxembourg. 66 pp. ISSN 1018-5593 Download report: (Size: 8.3 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Analysis of Mosses and Soils for Quantifying Heavy Metal Concentrations in Sicily: A Multivariate and Spatial Analytical Approach GRAMATICA, Paola, BATTAINI, Francesca, GIANI, Elisa, PAPA. Ester, JONES, Robert J.A., PREATONI, Damiano and CENCI, Roberto M. (2006). Analysis of Mosses and Soils for Quantifying Heavy Metal Concentrations in Sicily: A Multivariate and Spatial Analytical Approach. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 13(1), 28-36. Keywords: GIS; heavy metals; mosses; multivariate analysis; principal component analysis; soil Access the research paper: Environmental Science and Pollution Research

VAN DER KNIJFF, J.M., JONES, R.J.A. and MONTANARELLA, L. (2000). EUR 19044 EN, 34pp.

The extent and causes of chemical, physical and biological degradation of soil, and of soil loss, vary greatly in different countries in Western Europe. The objective of this review paper is to examine these issues and also strategies for soil protection and future perspectives for soil quality evaluation, in light of present legislation aimed at soil protection. Agriculture and forestry are the main causes of many of the above problems, especially physical degradation, erosion and organic matter loss. Land take and soil sealing have increased in recent decades, further enhancing the problems. In agricultural land, conservation farming, organic farming and other soil-friendly practices have been seen to have site-specific effects, depending on the soil characteristics and the particular types of land use and land users. No single soil management strategy is suitable for all regions, soil types and soil uses. Except for soil contamination, specific legislation for soil protection is lacking in Western Europe. The Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection in the European Union has produced valuable information and has encouraged the development of networks and databases. However, soil degradation is addressed only indirectly in environmental policies and through the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, which promotes farming practices that support soil conservation. Despite these efforts, there remains a need for soil monitoring networks and decision-support systems aimed at optimization of soil quality in the region. The pressure on European soils will continue in the future, and a clearly defined regulatory framework is needed. 

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/1/313

A Practical Guide to Geostatistical Mapping of Environmental Variables Geostatistical mapping can be defined as analytical production of maps by using field observations, auxiliary information and a computer program that calculates values at locations of interest. A Practical Guide to Geostatistical Mapping of Environmental Variables. EUR 22904 EN, Scientific and Technical Research series, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 143 pp. Hengl, T., 2007. Download report: (Size: 8.9 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Environmental Monitoring in contaminated area in Pavia Province, Italy. (Monitoraggio ambientale di un' area contaminate nella Provincia di Pavia) This study has as a scope to identify the extension of the area interested from the heavy metals and diossine and to estimate the level of concentration and their dangerousness. EUR 22762IT. 58 pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. (2007), ISBN 978-92-79-05652-9. Editors: R.M. Cenci and F. Sena Download report: (Size: 2 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Bio Bio Project Biodiversity - Bioindication to evaluate Soil Health. EUR 22245 EN, 134pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. R.M Cenci and F. Sena Download report: (Size: 7.7 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Multi-scale European Soil Information System (MEUSIS): A multi-scale method to derive soil indicators Panagos P., van Liedekerke M., Montanarella L. Multi-scale European Soil Information System (MEUSIS): A multi-scale method to derive soil indicators (2011) Computational Geosciences, 15 (3), pp. 463-475. The Multi-scale Soil Information System (MEUSIS) can be a suitable framework for building a nested system of soil data that could facilitate interoperability through a common coordinate reference system, a unique grid coding database, a set of detailed and standardized metadata, and an open exchangeable format. In the context of INSPIRE Directive, MEUSIS may be implemented as a system facilitating the update of existing soil information and accelerating the harmonization of various soil information systems. In environmental data like the soil one, it is common to generalize accurate data obtained at the field to coarser scales using either the pedotransfer rules or knowledge of experts or even some statistical solutions which combine single values of spatially distributed data. The most common statistical process for generalization is averaging the values within the study area. The upscaling process is accompanied with significant statistical analysis in order to demonstrate the method suitability. The coarser resolution nested grids cells (10 × 10 km) represent broad regions where the calculated soil property (e. g., organic carbon) can be accurately upscaled. Multi-scaled approaches are urgently required to integrate different disciplines (such as Statistics) and provide a meta-model platform to improve current mechanistic modeling frameworks, request new collected data, and identify critical research questions. Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10596-010-9216-0 Last Update: 05/07/2012

Landslide ground based remote sensing monitoring: Formigal case study (Huesca, Spain). Herrera, G., Ponce de León, D., Mulas, J., Llorente, M., Hervás, J., Luzi, G., Mecatti, D., Noferini, L., Macaluso, G., Pieraccini, M., Tamburini, A., Federici, P., 2007. Geophysical Research Abstracts, 9, EGU2007-A-07945. Download the Abstract: Landslide ground based remote sensing monitoring: Formigal case study (Huesca, Spain).

Estimating organic carbon in the soils of Europe for policy support. Jones, R. J. A.; Hiederer, R.; Rusco, E.; Montanarella, L. (2005). Estimating organic carbon in the soils of Europe for policy support. European Journal of Soil Science 56, 655-671 . Access the research paper: European Journal of Soil Science

Soil erosion risk in Italy: a revised USLE approach. M. Grimm, R.J.A. Jones, E. Rusco & L. Montanarella. (2003). EUR 20677 EN, 23pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download document: (Size: 5 MB) Preview FrontPage:

Pan-European Soil Erosion Risk Assessment: The PESERA Map, Version 1 October 2003. Explanation of Special Publication Ispra 2004 No.73 (S.P.I.04.73). Kirkby, M.J., Jones, R.J.A., Irvine, B., Gobin, A, Govers, G., Cerdan, O., Van Rompaey, A.J.J., Le Bissonnais, Y., Daroussin, J., King, D., Montanarella, L., Grimm, M., Vieillefont, V., Puigdefabregas, J., Boer, M., Kosmas, C., Yassoglou, N., Tsara, M., Mantel, S., Van Lynden, G.J. and Huting, J.(2004). European Soil Bureau Research Report No.16, EUR 21176, 18pp. and 1 map in ISO B1 format. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download report : (Size: 1.2 MB) Preview FrontPage: Download Map : (Size: 10 MB)

Data Management for Monitoring Forest Soils in Europe for the Biosoil Project. Lacarce E, Le Bas C, Cousin J, Pesty B, Toutain B, Durrant T, Montanarella L. Data Management for Monitoring Forest Soils in Europe for the Biosoil Project. Soil Use and Management, Volume 25 Issue 1, Pages 57 - 65, 2009, DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-2743.2009.00194.x Growing environmental awareness and advances in modelling have generated interest in soil monitoring networks. Data management tools have to be developed in order to store data, check for errors and retrieve data for sharing and for analysis. As a result, we have designed a web application and a database for the Biosoil project that focuses on European forest soils. Integral to the system are authentication of users and access rights to the modules and data. It also logs all activities of each user. During data submission, the system automatically manages data transfer from the flat file (ASCII file) to the database after compliance checks. Then error tracking is followed by automated expert checks. These checks identify potential mistakes that can be corrected or commented on by data providers. Since the quality of the results obtained from analysing the data can only be as good as the data, proper management practices should be considered at all stages of the monitoring activity, if the value of the information is to be properly exploited. Access the paper Last Update: 26/04/2010

Legislation and Policy of European Union concerning Protection of the Environment Beata Housková - Luca Montanarella. Contaminated Sites, Bratislava 15-17 June 2009 Protection of the environment belongs to the priorities of European Union's policy. Tools of such policy realisation are Thematic Strategies. Concept of Thematic Strategies has been introduced in the 6th Environment Action Programme of the European Community. This programme is planned to be realised in time period 2002-2012. Strategies are thematic - they cover interested parts of environment and respective threats to human health and environment as a whole or specifically related. Download the Article: Legislation and Policy of European Union concerning Protection of the Environment Last Update: 17/11/2009

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

Organic Matter in the Soils of Southern Europe. Pandi Zdruli, Robert J.A. Jones and Luca Montanarella (2004). EUR 21083 EN, 16pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download document: (Size: 1.4 MB) Preview FrontPage:

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

Bob Ahrens, Luca Montanarella, Otto Spaargaren, Erika Michéli Classification, an applied area of soil science but lacks a common set of terminology. In this paper, harmonization of the basic terminology of modern classification systems is suggested.

Towards a common approach for mapping areas susceptible to landslides in Europe. Hervás, J., Günther, A., Reichenbach, P., Guzzetti, F., Chacón, J., Pasuto, A., Trigila, A., Malet, J.-P., Tagliavini, F., 2008. Geophysical Research Abstracts, 10, EGU2008-A-12200. Download the Abstract: Towards a common approach for mapping areas susceptible to landslides in Europe

Effects of soil-surface microbial community phenotype upon physical and hydrological properties of an arable soil: A microcosm study Jeffery S., Harris J.A., Rickson R.J., Ritz K. Effects of soil-surface microbial community phenotype upon physical and hydrological properties of an arable soil: A microcosm study (2010) European Journal of Soil Science, 61 (4), pp. 493-503. The nature of the first few millimetres of the soil surface strongly affects water infiltration rates, generation of run-off, soil detachment and sediment transport. We hypothesized that the phenotypic community structure of the soil-surface microbiota affects the physical and hydrological properties of an arable soil. A range of contrasting microbial community phenotypes were established in microcosms by manipulating the wavelength of light reaching the soil surface, with the microcosms being incubated in the field for approximately 6 months. Phenotypes were characterized by phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA), ergosterol and chlorophyll analysis. The microcosms were then subjected to simulated rainfall at an intensity of 60 mm hour-1 for 20 minutes at a slope gradient of 9°. Water infiltration rates, run-off generation, soil loss (including a particle-size analysis of the sediment) and soil-surface shear strength were quantified.Distinct microbial phenotypes developed on the soil surfaces with UV-A and restricted-UV treatments when compared with subsurface layers. There was significantly greater fungal biomass in the no-light treatment when compared with all other treatments, with approximately 4.5 times more ergosterol being extracted from the subsurface layer of the no-light treatment when compared with other treatments. The no-light treatment produced the greatest amount of run-off, which was approximately 15% greater than the restricted photosynthetically-active radiation (PAR) treatment. Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2389.2010.01249.x Last Update: 05/07/2011

THE MAP OF ORGANIC CARBON IN TOPSOILS IN EUROPE: VERSION 1.2 - SEPTEMBER 2003 Explanation of: Special Publication Ispra 2004 No.72 S.P.I.04.72 Robert J.A. Jones, Roland Hiederer, Ezio Rusco, Peter J. Loveland and Luca Montanarella. EUR 21209 EN Download report : (Size: 0.2 MB) Preview FrontPage :

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

Geomorphometry: Concepts, Software, Applications. Developments in Soil Science. Hengl, T., Reuter, H.I. (eds) 2008. Geomorphometry: Concepts, Software, Applications. Developments in Soil Science, vol. 33, Elsevier, 772 pp. Geomorphometry is the science of quantitative land-surface analysis. It draws upon mathematical, statistical, and image-processing techniques to quantify the shape of earth's topography at various spatial scales. The focus of geomorphometry is the calculation of surface-form measures (land-surface parameters) and features (objects), which may be used to improve the mapping and modelling of landforms to assist in the evaluation of soils, vegetation, land use, natural hazards, and other information. This book provides a practical guide to preparing Digital Elevation Models (DEM) for analysis and extracting land-surface parameters and objects from DEMs through a variety of software. More information about the Book

Finding the right pixel size Hengl T., 2006. Finding the right pixel size. Computers and Geosciences, in press. Keywords: Grid resolution; Scale; Inspection density; Point pattern analysis; Variogram; Terrain complexity Access the research paper: Elsevier Publisher

Applying quality assurance procedures to environmental monitoring data: a case study Durrant T, Hiederer R., Applying quality assurance procedures to environmental monitoring data: a case study, Journal of Environmental Monitoring, 2009, 11, 774 - 781, DOI: 10.1039/b818274b Managing data in the context of environmental monitoring is associated with a number of particular difficulties. These can be broadly split into issues originating from the inherent heterogeneity of the parameters sampled, problems related to the long time scale of most monitoring programmes and situations that arise when attempting to maximise cost-effectiveness. The complexity of environmental systems is reflected in the considerable effort and cost required to collect good quality data describing the influencing factors that can improve our understanding of the interrelationships and allow us to draw conclusions about how changes will affect the systems. The resulting information is also frequently elaborate, costly and irreplaceable. Since the quality of the results obtained from analysing the data can only be as good as the data, proper management practices should be considered at all stages of the monitoring activity, if the value of the information is to be properly exploited. Access the paper Last Update: 26/04/2010

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

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

Landslide Mapping: Inventories, Susceptibility, Hazard and Risk. Hervás, J. and Bobrowsky, P., 2009. In: Sassa, K. and Canuti, P. (Eds.), Landslides - Disaster Risk Reduction. Springer, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-540-69966-8, pp. 321-349. This book chapter introduces the interrelated concepts of mapping landslide inventories, susceptibility, hazard and risk. It further presents main landslide inventory methods, contents and tools. Then it discusses the differences between landslide susceptibility and hazard mapping and provides an overview of some of the most commonly used methods of susceptibility and hazard analysis, from qualitative (heuristic) approaches to quantitative (statistical and physically based) models. It also introduces the concept of landslide risk and discusses some qualitative and quantitative approaches to risk assessment and mapping. Finally, it provides case study examples of landslide mapping approaches and programmes. More information about the Book or contact the Author

European Soil Portal The Official Guide for the European Soil Portal. References to Data, Documents, Applications, Projects, Themes and Utilities. Also, the features of the Soil portal are presented against the INSPIRE principles. EUR 22186 EN, 69pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Panos Panagos, Marc Van Liedekerke and Luca Montanarella Download report: (Size: 11.2 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Addressing soil degradation in EU agriculture: relevant processes, practices and policies. Agriculture occupies a substantial proportion of the European land, and consequently plays an important role in maintaining natural resources and cultural landscapes, a precondition for other human activities in rural areas. Unsustainable farming practices and land use, including mismanaged intensification as well as land abandonment, have an adverse impact on natural resources. Having recognised the environmental challenges of agricultural land use, the European Parliament requested the European Commission in 2007 to carry out a pilot project on 'Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation through simplified cultivation techniques' (SoCo). The project originated from a close cooperation between the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC). It was implemented by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) and the Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES). Report on the project 'Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation (SoCo)'.Authors: SoCo Project Team, Editors: Geertrui Louwagie, Stephan Hubertus Gay, Alison Burrell. EUR 23767 EN, ISSN 1018-5593, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2009. Download report: (Size: 4 MB) , Download the Annex (14 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Estimate of Peatland Distributuion in Estonia Using an Integrated GIS/RS Approach. Gardi C, Sommer S, Seep K, Montanarella L. Estimate of Peatland Distributuion in Estonia Using an Integrated GIS/RS Approach. In Conference Proceedings: Proceedings of the 33rd International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment,ISBN 978-0-932913-13-5. Madison WI (United States of America): Omni-Press; 2009. Determination of the spatial extent of peatland is important for the evaluation of soil carbon stocks. At European Level there is a need to provide accurate and updated estimate of the distribution of peatland. Comparison of national data with EU wide land cover mapping shows that there is limited compatibility between the different data sets. The aim of the present study is to test a methodology of standardized mapping and monitoring of peatlands at regional level (national to supra-national bio-climatic regions) based on the enhanced integration of existing thematic maps through GIS analysis in combination with remote sensing, using Estonia as study case. Download the Article: Estimate of Peatland Distributuion in Estonia Using an Integrated GIS/RS Approach. Last Update: 26/04/2010

Development of a Spatial European Soil Property Data Set For many applications of modelling environmental conditions or developing scenarios for environmental change analysis soil property data in form of spatial layers are needed. Raster data formats are widely used for the modelling of movements through space and the storage of parameters, which change constantly and without a pattern that could be described by a plain mathematical function. This study into providing spatial soil property layers uses a soil database where the soil properties are stored in tables of generalized combinations of attributes and linked to a spatial layer of delineated mapping units. Roland Hiederer & Robert J.A. Jones, 2009. Development of a Spatial European Soil Property Data Set. JRC Scientific and Technical Report EUR 23839 EN, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 30 pp.ISBN 978-92-79-12535-5, ISSN 1018-5593 , DOI 10.2788/19220. Download report: (Size: 1 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 19/06/2009

There is an increasing demand for up‐to‐date soil organic carbon (OC) data for global environmental and climatic modelling. The aim of this study was to create a map of topsoil OC content at the European scale by applying digital soil mapping techniques to the first European harmonized geo‐referenced topsoil (0–20 cm) database, which arises from the Land use/Cover Area frame statistical Survey (LUCAS). A map of the associated uncertainty was also produced to support careful use of the predicted OC contents. A generalized additive model (GAM) was fitted on 85% of the dataset (R2 = 0.29), using OC content as dependent variable; a backward stepwise approach selected slope, land cover, temperature, net primary productivity, latitude and longitude as suitable covariates. The validation of the model (performed on 15% of the data‐set) gave an overall R2 of 0.27 and an R2 of 0.21 for mineral soils and 0.06 for organic soils. Organic C content in most organic soils was under‐predicted, probably because of the imposed unimodal distribution of our model, whose mean is tilted towards the prevalent mineral soils. This was also confirmed by the poor prediction in Scandinavia (where organic soils are more frequent), which gave an R2 of 0.09, whilst the prediction performance (R2) in non‐Scandinavian countries was 0.28. The map of predicted OC content had the smallest values in Mediterranean countries and in croplands across Europe, whereas largest OC contents were predicted in wetlands, woodlands and mountainous areas. The map of the predictions' standard error had large uncertainty in northern latitudes, wetlands, moors and heathlands, whereas small uncertainty was mostly found in croplands. The map produced gives the most updated general picture of topsoil OC content at the European Union scale

Biofuels: a New Methodology to Estimate GHG Emissions from Global Land Use Change - A methodology involving spatial allocation of agricultural land demand and estimation of CO2 and N2O emissions This study provides a new methodology developed by the JRC IES and IE for estimating changes in soil carbon stocks and GHG emissions resulting from global land use changes caused by the production of biofuels. The methodology follows a two-step approach: a) Creation of database (e.g. land use/crop cover/soil types etc.), combining different data sources into a single harmonised database; b) Simulation based on cropland demands from the general equilibrium model MIRAGE (run by IFPRI) and on cropland demand from the partial equilibrium model AGLINK-COSIMO Author(s): Roland Hiederer, Fabien Ramos, Claudia Capitani, Renate Koeble, Viorel Blujdea, Oscar Gomez, Declan Mulligan and Luisa Marelli, 2010 – 150 pp. – EUR 24483 EN– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-16389-0, DOI 10.2788/48910 Download report: (Size: 2 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 12/11/2010

Final report on the project ‘Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation (SoCo)’ This report synthesises the findings of the SoCo project and translates them into conclusions and recommendations. Following the introduction (Chapter 1), Chapter 2 reviews soil degradation processes, soil conservation practices and policy measures at European level. Soil degradation risk was assessed through parametric and empirical models, whereas the review of soil conservation farming practices is based on the available literature. The literature review of policy measures is supplemented by a survey of policy implementation at national or regional level. Chapter 3 takes the analysis to the local scale by means of ten case studies distributed over three macro-regions. Aggregated environmental benefits of adopting particular soil conservation practices are explored with model calculations in Chapter 4. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the effectiveness and efficiency of instruments for soil protection, maintenance and improvement in Europe, exploring opportunities and critical issues linked to the adoption of conservation practices. The report closes with policy-relevant conclusions as a basis for policy recommendations. Authors: SoCo Project Team, Editors: Geertrui Louwagie, Stephan Hubertus Gay, Alison Burrell.Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. EUR 23820 EN, ISBN 978-92-79-12400-6, ISSN 1018-5593, DOI 10.2791/10052 Download report: (Size: 8 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 24/09/2009

Characterisation of productivity limitation of salt-affected lands in different climatic regions of Europe using remote sensing derived productivity indicators E. Ivits, M. Cherlet, T. Tóth, K. E. Lewinska, G. Tóth. Characterisation of productivity limitation of salt-affected lands in different climatic regions of Europe using remote sensing derived productivity indicators (2011), LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT , pp. 1-15. Soil salinity is a global issue and one of the major causes of land degradation. The large scale monitoring of salt affected areas is therefore very important to shed light of rehabilitation measures and to avoid further land degradation. We address the productivity limitation of salt affected soils across the European continent by the usage of soil maps and high temporal resolution time series of satellite images derived from the SPOT VEGETATION sensor. Using the yearly dynamism of the vegetation signal derived from the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) we decomposed the spectral curve into its Base Fraction and Seasonal Dynamism fractions next to an index approximating Gross Primary Productivity (GPP). We observe GPP, Base Fraction and Seasonal Dynamism productivity differences of saline, sodic and not salt affected soils under croplands and grasslands in four major climatic zones of the European continent. ANOVA models and post-hoc tests of mean productivity values indicate significant productivity differences between the observed salt affected and salt free areas, between management levels of soils as well as between the saline and sodic character of the land. The analysis gives insight into the limiting effect of climate in relation to the productivity of soil affected soils. Access the paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ldr.1140/abstract/ Last Update: 05/09/2012

An Analysis of the Land Use Sustainability Index (LUSI) at Territorial Scale Based on Corine Land Cover. Gardi C, Bosco C, Rusco E, Montanarella L. An Analysis of the Land Use Sustainability Index (LUSI) at Territorial Scale Based on Corine Land Cover . Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal 21 (5); 2010. p. 680-694. The aim of this paper is to propose a methodology based on the use of a simple and accessible database, such as Corine Land Cover (CLC), for providing an in depth evaluation of environmental sustainability. This evaluation has been carried out through the analysis of factors such as landscape and habitat composition, the level of biodiversity, the degree of anthropisation and soil sealing and the arable land availability. Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14777831011067953 Last Update: 05/07/2011

European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) - Metadata of the Soil Maps of Latin America and Caribbean islands European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) - Metadata of the Soil Maps of Latin America and Caribbean islands. EUR 21821 EN 219pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Selvaradjou, S-K., Montanarella, L., Spaargaren, O., Dent, D., Filippi, N. and Reuter, H.I. (2005). Download report: (Size: 1.8 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Addressing soil degradation in EU agriculture: relevant processes, practices and policies. Report on the project 'Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation (SoCo)' Agriculture occupies a substantial proportion of the European land, and consequently plays an important role in maintaining natural resources and cultural landscapes, a precondition for other human activities in rural areas. Unsustainable farming practices and land use, including mismanaged intensification as well as land abandonment, have an adverse impact on natural resources. Having recognised the environmental challenges of agricultural land use, the European Parliament requested the European Commission in 2007 to carry out a pilot project on 'Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation through simplified cultivation techniques' (SoCo). The project originated from a close cooperation between the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC). It was implemented by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) and the Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES). Authors: SoCo Project Team, Editors: Geertrui Louwagie, Stephan Hubertus Gay, Alison Burrell.Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.– 332 pp., EUR – Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-13358-1, DOI 10.2791/69723 Download report: (Size: 18 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 13/08/2009

Soil loss rates due to piping erosion E. Verachtert, W. Maetens, M. Van Den Eeckhaut, J. Poesen, J. Deckers. Soil loss rates due to piping erosions (2011), EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS Vol 36, No 13, pp 1715-1725 Compared with surface soil erosion by water, subsurface erosion (piping) is generally less studied and harder to quantify. However, wherever piping occurs, it is often a significant or even the main sediment source. In this study, the significance of soil loss due to piping is demonstrated through an estimation of soil volume lost from pipes and pipe collapses (n=560) in 137 parcels under pasture on loess-derived soils in a temperate humid climate (Belgium). Assuming a period of 5 to 10years for pipe collapse to occur, mean soil loss rates of 2.3 and 4.6t ha-1 yr-1 are obtained, which are at least one order of magnitude higher than surface erosion rates (0.01-0.29t ha-1 yr-1) by sheet and rill erosion under a similar land use. The results obtained for the study area in the Flemish Ardennes correspond well to other measurements in temperate environments; they are, however, considerably smaller than soil loss rates due to subsurface erosion in semi-arid environments. Although local slope gradient and drainage area largely control the location of collapsed pipes in the study area, these topographic parameters do not explain differences in eroded volumes by piping. Hence, incorporation of subsurface erosion in erosion models is not straightforward. Access the paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.2186/abstract Last Update: 05/09/2012

Methods to interpolate soil categorical variables from profile observations: Lessons from Iran Hengl T., Toomanian N., Reuter H.I., Malakouti M.J. (2007). Published by Elsevier B.V. Abstract The paper compares semi-automated interpolation methods to produce soil-class maps from profile observations and by using multiple auxiliary predictors such as terrain parameters, remote sensing indices and similar. Access the paper or contact the Author T. Hengl for more information

Integration of the Soil Database of Turkey into European Soil Database 1:1.000.000 In order to extend the Soil Geographical Database (SGDBE) to the countries of Mediterranean Basin, the preparation of soil geographical database of Turkey at 1:1 million scales was initiated at the end of 2008. In the current report, the reader will be informed about the preparation of soil geographical database of Turkey compatible with European database and how the Turkish soil data have been integrated the European Soil Database. The implementation of this work has been achieved since we have built a common understanding and nomenclature of soils in Europe and Mediterranean region. A number of attributes have been transformed from local/regional/national soil datasets while some other attributes have been obtained from auxiliary datasets using remote sensing and GIS Techniques. Authors: Ece Aksoy, Panos Panagos, Luca Montanarella, Arwyn Jones (2010). Integration of the Soil Database of Turkey into European Soil Database 1:1.000.000. EUR 24295 EN. ISSN 1018-5593. ISBN 978-92-79-15306-8. DOI 10.2788/77892. 45 pp. Keywords: European Soil Database 1:1.000.000, Turkish Soil Data, GIS Techniques, Remote Sensing Download report: (Size: 5.6 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 30/03/2010

Guidelines for Mapping Areas at Risk of Landslides in Europe This volume presents the results of a meeting of European experts held at the JRC, Ispra, Italy on 23-24 October 2007. The publication includes examples of landslide inventories and susceptibility, hazard and risk mapping in France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy and Spain, and discusses some harmonisation issues and criteria for mapping landslide susceptibility across Europe. It concludes with recommendations on a common methodology for landslide susceptibility mapping in Europe based on geographically-nested “Tier” approaches at various scales, from Europe-wide scale to regional and local scales. Hervás, J. (Ed.), 2007. Guidelines for Mapping Areas at Risk of Landslides in Europe. Proc. Experts Meeting, JRC, Ispra, Italy, 23-24 October 2007. JRC Report EUR 23093 EN, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 53 pp. Download report: (Size: 28.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 11/10/2010

Report on the activities realized within the Service Level Agreement between JRC and EFSA The activities realized in 2010 by JRC as support to the FATE and the ECOREGION EFSA PPR Working Groups are shortly described. For the FATE WG, the vast majority of data has been provided in 2009 during the first year of the Service Level Agreement (SLA), and in 2010 the daily weather data, for the six selected sites, were produced. All the data used for the scenario selection procedures, with additional data on land use-land cover, crop distribution, soil and climate parameters, will be made available for external user in first half of 2011. For the ECOREGION WG the analysis has been carried out for three Member States covering a North-South gradient from Finland, Germany to Portugal. Soil and weather data have been used for the characterisation of bio-geographic sampling sites, and for the implementation of the ecoregion model. Ecoregion maps were produced for earthworms and enchytraeids for Finland and Germany and revealed marked differences between the countries. The same approach has been applied also to Collembola and Isopoda, but for these two taxa led to a rather poor discrimination both between and within countries. Author(s):Ciro Ga