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

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

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

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

The data are described in:

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

Acknowledgments

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

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Risk Assessment Methodologies of Soil Threats in Europe This report which presents the results of the RAMSOIL project is published. The general objective of the RAMSOIL project was to provide scientific guidelines on possibilities for EU wide parameter harmonization based on detailed information on current risk assessment methodologies of soil threats encountered within EU Member States. In RAMSOIL current risk assessments methodologies used in the EU are collected and evaluated. The results are summarized in this book. Currently, there are various risk assessment methodologies (RAMs) and the question has risen to what extent these RAMs yield similar outcome and, if not, whether the outcome can be harmonized, i.e. whether the results of the various RAMs can be made compatible or comparable. In this study i) the current status of RAMs for erosion, soil organic matter decline, compaction, and salinization in the European Union (EU27) is reviewed, and ii) the need and the options for harmonization are assessed. The need for harmonization was defined as the likelihood of achieving different outcomes when using different RAMs, whereas the options for harmonization refer to the efforts that are required to harmonize soil RAMs. Author(s):Christy van Beek and Gergely Tóth 2012 – 84pp. – EUR 24097 EN – EUR – Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593 (print), ISSN 1831-9424 (online) , ISBN 978-92-79-14291-8, doi: 10.2788/47096 Download report: (Size: 1.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 10/05/2012

Statistical Modelling of Europe-wide Landslide Susceptibility Using Limited Landslide Inventory Data Van Den Eeckhaut M., Hervas J., Jaedicke C., Malet J.-P., Montanarella L., Nadim F. Statistical modelling of Europe-wide landslide susceptibility using limited landslide inventory data (2012) Landslides, 9 (3) , pp. 357-369. In many regions, the absence of a landslide inventory hampers the production of susceptibility or hazard maps. Therefore, a method combining a procedure for sampling of landslide-affected and landslide-free grid cells from a limited landslide inventory and logistic regression modelling was tested for susceptibility mapping of slide- and flow-type landslides on a European scale. Landslide inventories were available for Norway, Campania (Italy) and the Barcelonnette Basin (France) and from each inventory a random subsample was extracted. In addition, a landslide dataset was produced from the analysis of Google Earth images in combination with extraction of landslide locations reported in scientific publications. Attention was paid to have a representative distribution of landslides over Europe. In total, the landslide-affected sample contained 1340 landslides. Then, a procedure to select landslide-free grid cells was designed taking account of the incompleteness of the landslide inventory and the high proportion of flat areas in Europe. Using stepwise logistic regression, a model including slope gradient, standard deviation of slope gradient, lithology, soil and land cover types was calibrated. The classified susceptibility map produced from the model was then validated by visual comparison with national landslide inventory or susceptibility maps available from literature. The first results are promising and suggest that in case of landslide disasters the method can be used for urgently required landslide susceptibility mapping in regions where currently only sparse landslide inventory data are available. Access the paper: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10346-011-0299-z Last Update: 02/09/2013

Global Soil Organic Carbon Estimates and the Harmonized World Soil Database Global estimates of soil organic carbon stocks have been produced in the past to support the calculation of potential emissions of CO2 from the soil under scenarios of change land use/cover and climatic conditions (IPCC, 2006), but very few global estimates are presented as spatial data. For global spatial layers on soil parameters, the most recent and complete dataset is available as the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). The amended HWSD was compared to data from 4 other global data sets on SOC stocks. The comparative evaluation has demonstrated that bulk density is the most important factor for estimating SOC stocks and mainly responsible for the differences between estimates. Most affected from the variability in bulk density are SOC stocks in areas with soils which are high in organic carbon. Author(s): R. Hiederer, M. Köchy 2012 – 79 pp. – EUR 25225 EN – EUR Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1831-9424 (online), ISSN 1018-5593 (print), ISBN 978-92-79-23108-7, doi:10.2788/13267 Download report: (Size: 1.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 20/03/2012

Impact of land-take on the land resource base for crop production in the European Union Toth G. Impact of land-take on the land resource base for crop production in the European Union (2012) Science of the Total Environment, 435-436 , pp. 202-214. Spatial analyses of land productivity and land use data from 2000 and 2006 were performed to assess the deterioration of land resources for biomass production of the European Union. Data show that while all member states of the EU experiences constant decrease of its production capacity, there are also considerable differences among countries and regions. Based on the analysis of 25 member states, the EU lost 0.2% of its agricultural land and 0.23% of its productive potential in the period between 2000 and 2006 due to land take and conversion to artificial surfaces. The loss of agricultural land during the study period was the highest in the Netherlands, which lost with the land conversions 1.44% of its biomass production potential within six years. The figures are quite alarming for Cyprus (0.84%) and Spain (0.43%) as well. In metropolitan areas of Amsterdam, Berlin, Bratislava, Bucharest, Copenhagen, Madrid, Milan and Vienna infrastructural investment occurred on the better agricultural land while Budapest, Paris and Warsaw spread their urban growth to directions where less productive land of their regions situates. The Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland had to face the largest loss of their food production capacity accounted for each citizen, exceeding the equivalent of 1500 kg*ha-1 *year-1 wheat in all three countries. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969712009369 Last Update: 02/09/2013

The State of Soil in Europe - A contribution of the JRC to the European Environment Agency's Environment State and Outlook Report - SOER 2010 This report published by the JRC and the European Environment Agency provides a comprehensive overview of soil resources and degradation processes. The core of this report was prepared for the Assessment on Soil, which forms part of the 'The European Environment - state and outlook 2010 Report' (SOER) 20102, coordinated by the European Environment Agency (EEA). This Reference Report uses data from the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), managed on behalf of EU institutions by the JRC. The information also helps European citizens to better understand, care for and improve Europe's environment. The soil assessment was one of a set of 13 Europe-wide thematic assessments of key environmental themes and the only one coordinated by the JRC. Author(s): Arwyn Jones, Panos Panagos, Sara Barcelo, Faycal Bouraoui, Claudio Bosco, Olivier Dewitte, Ciro Gardi, Markus Erhard, Javier Hervás, Roland Hiederer, Simon Jeffery, Anke Lükewille, Luca Marmo, Luca Montanarella, Claudia Olazábal, Jan-Erik Petersen, Vit Penizek, Thomas Strassburger, Gergely Tóth, Miet Van Den Eeckhaut, Marc Van Liedekerke, Frank Verheijen, Eva Viestova, Yusuf Yigini 2012 – 76 pp. – EUR 25186 EN– Scientific and Technical Research series. Download report: (Size: 4 MB) Last Update: 13/02/2012

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

Satellite remote sensing for soil mapping in Africa: An overview Dewitte O., Jones A., Elbelrhiti H., Horion S., Montanarella L. Satellite remote sensing for soil mapping in Africa: An overview (2012) Progress in Physical Geography, 36 (4) , pp. 514-538. The protection and the sustainable management of soil resources in Africa are of paramount importance, particularly in the context of the uncertain impact of climate change and the increase pressure of the human activities. This situation requires a demand for up-to-date and relevant soil information at regional and continental scales. To provide timely and reliable information on soils at these scales, low-resolution spaceborne remote sensing offers an ideal support. Through a review of multispectral, thermal infrared, passive and active microwave imaging we show that sensors help in the delineation of soils themselves, as well as in the assessment of some of their key properties and threats such as water and wind erosion, landsliding and salinisation. However remote sensing imagery for mapping soil can be problematic if applied alone and often requires the use of ancillary data and field observations. Remote sensing is shown as being complementary to digital soil mapping. Access the paper: http://ppg.sagepub.com/content/36/4/514.abstract Last Update: 02/09/2013

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

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

Chemical elements in Ascomycetes and Basidiomycetes (The reference mushrooms as instruments for investigating bioindication and biodiversity) Fungi in the wild are among the principal agents in biogeochemical cycles; those cycles of matter and energy which enable ecosystems to work. By investigating the biodiversity of Italian fungal species and concentration levels of chemical elements in them, it may be possible to employ these fungi as biological indicators for the quality of forest, woodland and semi-natural environments. The data archives of EUR Reports record the dry-material concentrations, of 35 chemical elements, including heavy metals, in over 9000 samples of higher mushrooms. These samples represent around 200 genera and a thousand species. As the archive has attained statistical stability it has been possible to define the concept of a "reference mushroom". The use of a "reference mushroom" may bring benefits – perhaps only as a methodological approach – in various fields of mycological and environmental research; from biodiversity and bioindication, through taxonomy right up to health and sanitation issues. The sheer volume of the collected data may prove to be useful as a comparison for data collected in the future; such results would also allow a better and more-exhaustive interpretation of the effects of environmental-protection laws which have been enacted over the years in order to reduce or remedy current climate-change phenomena and the environmental damage caused by human activity. Editors:R. M. Cenci and F. Sena, 2011 – 232 pp. – EUR 24415 EN– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-20395-4, Doi 10.2788/22228 Download report: (Size: 28.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 06/09/2011

State of the art of national landslide databases in Europe and their potential for assessing landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk Van Den Eeckhaut M., Hervas J.State of the art of national landslide databases in Europe and their potential for assessing landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk (2012) Geomorphology, 139-140 , pp. 545-558. A landslide inventory is the most important information source for quantitative zoning of landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk. It should give insight into the location, date, type, size, activity and causal factors of landslides as well as resultant damage. In Europe, many countries have created or are creating national and/or regional landslide databases (LDBs). Yet little is known on their contents, completeness, format, structure, language use and accessibility, and hence on their ability to perform national or transnational landslide zoning. Therefore, this study presents a detailed analysis of existing national LDBs in the EU member states, EU official candidate and potential candidate countries, and EFTA countries, and their possible use for landslide zoning. These national LDBs were compared with a subset of 22 regional databases. Twenty-two out of 37 contacted European countries currently have national LDBs, and six other countries have only regional LDBs. In total, the national LDBs contain 633,696 landslides, of which 485,004 are located in Italy, while Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, and the UK also have >10,000 landslides in their LDBs. National LDBs are generally created in the official language of each country and 58% of them contain other natural hazards (e.g. floods and sinkholes). Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169555X11006192 Last Update: 02/09/2013

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

Soil erodibility estimation using LUCAS point survey data of Europe Panagos, P., Meusburger, K., Alewell, C., Montanarella, L. (2012) Soil erodibility estimation using LUCAS point survey data of Europe, Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 30, April 2012, Pages 143-145, doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2011.11.002 Modelling soil erosion is mostly hampered by low data availability, particularly of soil parameters. One key parameter for soil erosion modelling is the soil erodibility, expressed as the K- factor in the commonly used soil erosion model USLE (Universal Soil Loss Equation). The K-factor is related to crucial soil factors triggering erosion (organic matter content, soil texture, soil structure, permeability). We calculated soil erodibility using measured soil data, collected during the 2009 LUCAS (Land Use and Cover Area frame Survey) soil survey campaign across the member states of the European Union. The proposed dataset overcomes the problems of limited data availability for K-factor assessment and proposes a high quality dataset to modellers who aim at soil erosion estimation on local/regional, national or European scale Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364815211002465 Last Update: 02/09/2013

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 Gardi, Panos Panagos, Roland Hiederer, Luca Montanarella, Fabio Micale, 2011 – 38 pp. – EUR 24744 EN– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-19521-1, Doi 10.2788/61018 Download report: (Size: 4.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 29/03/2011

Evaluation of BioSoil Demonstration Project - Soil Data Analysis The BioSoil demonstration Project was initiated under the Forest Focus-Scheme (Regulation (EC) Nr. 2152/2003) concerning the monitoring of forests and environmental interactions in the Community, and aimed to broaden the scope of previous forest monitoring activities (on atmospheric pollution and forest fires) to the fields of soil characteristics and biodiversity indicators. The evaluation of the project concentrated on analysing a selected number of parameters submitted by NFCs for estimating the distribution and changes in soil organic carbon and the performance of the WRB classification. Author(s): R. Hiederer, E. Michéli, T. Durrant, 2011 – 155 pp. – EUR 24729 EN– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-19320-0, Doi 110.2788/56105 Download report: (Size: 3.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 11/02/2011

Background Guide for the Calculation of Land Carbon Stocks in the Biofuels Sustainability Scheme: Drawing on the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories This Guide covers the calculation of carbon-stock changes in soil and above- and below-ground vegetation due to land use conversion in support of Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, particularly for assessing carbon-stock changes due to land conversion for biofuel production. The methodology put forward is based on the Tier 1 approach as developed under the IPCC Guidelines 2006. It is based on specifying default values for carbon stocks and using coefficients of divergence from the default values according to land use/cover. The methodological approach of the IPCC was adapted for use with spatial layers instead of data tables. The spatial layers of the factors influencing carbon-stock changes were generated with global coverage and thematically aligned to comply with stipulations made in the Directive. According to the types of land use/cover conversion, a review is made of the methodology of the IPCC (2006). Particular problems regarding peatlands are presented. Drained peatlands cannot be assessed in terms of carbon-stock changes because drainage occurs on the overall peat soil profile (not only on the first 30 cm). This has direct consequences not only on CO2 emissions but also on CH4 and N2O. Tables of coefficients of conversions are then proposed according to climate zone and continental boundaries for soil carbon-stock changes and for above- and below-ground carbon stock changes in biomass in a Technical Annex. Author(s): Florence Carré, Roland Hiederer, Viorel Blujdea, Renate Koeble, 2010 – 109 pp. – EUR 24573 EN– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-17455-1, Doi 10.2788/34463 Download report: (Size: 2.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 12/11/2010

Carbon in European soils Rainer Baritz, Dietmar Zirlewagen, Robert Jones, Dominique Arrouays, Roland Hiederer, Marion Schrumpf and Winfried Riek. Carbon in European soils (2011) pp. 49-84 in Book: "Soil Carbon in Sensitive European Ecosystems: From Science to Land Management" (Edited by R. Jandl, M. Rodeghiero, M. Olsson) Soil Carbon in Sensitive European Ecosystems is a comprehensive overview of the latest research in this field drawn together by a network of scientists, currently working for the European research programme, COST Action 639 BurnOut(www.cost639.net; 2006-2010). COST Action 639 emerged from a demand from policy makers in Europe for more detailed information on soil carbon dynamics. The cooperation between experts for reporting and experts for soil dynamics is the focus of the book. This book seeks to provide an up-to-date account on the state-of-the-art research within this topical field. This book focuses primarily on ecosystems and their soil carbon stocks. The book identifies three key sensitive ecosystems within Europe: Mediterranean Forest and Agricultural Systems; Mountains; and Peatland. Access the paper: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1119970016.html Last Update: 05/09/2012

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

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

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

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

European digital archive on soil maps (EuDASM): preserving important soil data for public free access Panos Panagos, Arwyn Jones, Claudio Bosco & P.S. Senthil Kumar. European digital archive on soil maps (EuDASM): preserving important soil data for public free access (2011), INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIGITAL EARTH , Vol 4, No 5, pp. 434-443. Historical soil survey paper maps are valuable resources that underpin strategies to support soil protection and promote sustainable land use practices, especially in developing countries where digital soil information is often missing. However, many of the soil maps, in particular those for developing countries, are held in traditional archives that are not easily accessible to potential users. Additionally, many of these documents are over 50 years old and are beginning to deteriorate. Realising the need to conserve this information, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the ISRIC-World Soil Information foundation have created the European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM), through which all archived paper maps of ISRIC has been made accessible to the public through the Internet. The immediate objective is to transfer paper-based soil maps into a digital format with the maximum possible resolution and to ensure their preservation and easy disclosure. More than 6,000 maps from 135 countries have been captured and are freely available to users through a user-friendly web-based interface. Initial feedback has been very positive, especially from users in Africa, South America and Asia to whom archived soil maps were made available to local users, often for the first time. Access the paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17538947.2011.596580 Last Update: 05/09/2012

Implementazione a livello regionale della proposta di Direttiva quadro sui suoli in Europa This report provides an example of the implementation of the proposal of the Soil Framework Directive at regional scale. The authors analysed the complex process as defined in the proposal for the Soil Framework Directive (COM (2006) 232) from the European Commission to the Council and European Parliament. Furthermore the implementation scheme of the proposed Directive has been followed from the definition of the soil erosion risk assessment to the reporting activity to the European Commission. In addition, an overview of the actual policy framework for the soil protection measures is given. The authors underline some crucial steps in the implementation of the Directive with particular attention to the common criteria and the need for soil monitoring data for the reporting activity to European Commission. Author(s): Ezio Rusco, Luca Montanarella, Mauro Tiberi, Leonardo Rossini, Paolo Ricci, Giovanni Ciabocco, Alessandra Budini, Cristina Bernacconi, EUR 22953 IT – Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities 2007 – 61 pp. Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593. Download report: (Size: 6.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 11/10/2010

Regional mapping and characterisation of old landslides in hilly regions using LiDAR-based imagery in Southern Flanders M. Van Den Eeckhaut, Jean Poesen, Frans Gullentops, Liesbeth Vandekerckhove, Javier Hervás. Regional mapping and characterisation of old landslides in hilly regions using LiDAR-based imagery in Southern Flanders (2011), QUATERNARY RESEARCH , Vol 75, No 3, pp. 721-733 . Analysis of LiDAR-derived imagery led to the discovery of more than 330 pre-Holocene to recent landslides in Southern Flanders (4850 km²). The morphology of three landslides, including the 266.5 ha deep-seated gravitational slope deformation in Alden Biesen, was investigated in more detail. The analysis of the morphological and topographical characteristics (width-length relation, frequency-area distribution and topographical threshold) of the landslides revealed important differences compared to the characteristics reported in other landslide studies, and helped understanding possible landslide triggering mechanisms. Especially the possibility of a seismic origin of the landslides was investigated. Finally, a heuristic model for region-wide landslide susceptibility mapping was successfully tested. The susceptibility model and map allow prediction of future landslide locations and contribute to better understanding the role of individual causal factors on landslide location and spatial density. The results suggest that landslides on low-gradient, soil-mantled hills are a more important contributor to landscape evolution of hilly areas than was hitherto thought. The morphology of all hilly regions of Flanders is clearly marked by landslide processes and higher landslide densities often coincide with the presence of quaternary active faults. Access the paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589411000263 Last Update: 05/09/2012

Elementi chimici nei funghi superiori (Chemical elements in fungi) Funghi di riferimento come strumento di lavoro per la bioindicazione e la biodiversita (Fungi as study means for biodiversity and bio-indication I funghi in natura sono tra i principali agenti dei cicli biogeochimici, i cicli di materia ed energia alla base del funzionamento degli ecosistemi Il presente volume comprende: Indicazione delle localita di campionamento dei funghi e dei suoli, I dati analitici (ca 300.000) riguardanti la totalità dei campioni (ca 10.000) di funghi e di suoli analizzati, La statistica descrittiva per tutti i generi e le specie analizzati, Le mappe che illustrano la distribuzione delle concentrazioni degli elementi inorganici nei funghi. Author(s): R. M. Cenci, L. Cocchi, O. Petrini, F. Sena, C. Siniscalco, L. Vescovi, 22010 – 232 pp– EUR 24415 IT– EUR – Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593 - ISBN 978-92-79-16023-3 Download report: (Size: 29.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 22/07/2010

Site Specific Land Management; General Concepts and Applications To meet the growing need of people for increasing farm income and to minimize the negative environmental impact of today’s farm practices, a new farming concept has been evolved where inputs are fine tuned and optimized according to the local field variability such that yield increment is achieved with a minimum harm to the local environment. This farming concept is different than the traditional farming system and can be highlighted as a precision agriculture system or more specifically termed as site specific land management (SSLM) which takes the advantage of recent technological developments and their uses in agriculture. It operates by matching resource application and agronomic practices with soil attributes and crop requirements as they vary across a field leading to the overall economic and environmental benefits. This report explains in brief a general concept and principle of this eco-friendly farming approach with some common procedures to be followed while planning of SSLM in any area. It also provides an example of applying this farming concept in a small area in Belgium and recommends some land and crop management practices. Author(s): Adhikari K, Carre F, Toth G, Montanarella L. OPOCE , 2009 – 60 pp. – EUR 23978– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-13350-3, DOI 10.2788/32619 Keywords: land management , Farm practices, farming technology, SSLM Download report: (Size: 1.5 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 21/05/2010

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

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

Are grasslands important habitats for soil microarthropod conservation? Cristina Menta, Alan Leoni, Ciro Gardi and Federica Delia Conti. Are grasslands important habitats for soil microarthropod conservation? (2011), Biodiversity and Conservation, 2011, Volume 20, Number 5, Pages 1073-1087. Biodiversity has been a focal aim of environmental protection since the Rio conference, but only with the beginning of the new millennium did soil biodiversity become an important aspect of international policy. Edaphic fauna play a key role in many soil functions, such as organic matter decomposition, humus formation and nutrient element cycling; moreover, affect the porosity, aeration, infiltration and distribution of organic matter in soil horizons, modifying soil structure and improving its fertility. The ecosystem services provided by soil animals are becoming progressively lost due to agricultural practice intensification, which causes a reduction in both abundance and taxonomic diversity of soil communities. In the present study, a permanent grassland habitat was studied in order to evaluate its potential as a soil biodiversity reservoir in agroecosystems. Grassland samples were compared with samples from a semi-natural woodland area and an arable land site. Microarthropod abundances, Acari/Collembola ratio (A/C), Shannon diversity index (H0) and evenness index (E) were calculated. QBS-ar index was used in order to evaluate soil biological quality. Microarthropod communities of the three land use typologies differed in both the observed groups and their abundance. Steady soil taxa characterized both woodland and grassland soils, whereas their abundances were significantly higher in woodland soil. Access the paper: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k2g233x3p66u6g33/ Last Update: 05/09/2012

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

Assessing Soil Processes and Function across an International Network of Critical Zone Observatories: Research Hypotheses and Experimental Design Banwart Steven, Bernasconi Stefano,......., Panagos Panos, ..........Zhang Bin. Assessing Soil Processes and Function across an International Network of Critical Zone Observatories: Research Hypotheses and Experimental Design (2011), VADOSE ZONE JOURNAL , Vol 10, No 3, pp. 974–987. European Union policy on soil threats and soil protection has prioritised new research to address global soil threats. This research draws on the methodology of Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs) to focus a critical mass of international, multi-disciplinary expertise at specific field sites. These CZOs are selected as part of an experimental design to study soil processes and ecosystem function along a hypothesised soil life cycle; from incipient soil formation where new parent material is being deposited, to highly degraded soils that have experienced millennia of intensive land use. Further CZOs have been selected to broaden the range of soil environments and data sets to test soil process models that represent the stages of the soil life cycle. The scientific methodology for this research focuses on the central role of soil structure and soil aggregate formation and stability in soil processes. Research methods include detailed analysis and mathematical modelling of soil properties related to aggregate formation and their relation to key processes of reactive transport, nutrient transformation and carbon and food web dynamics in soil ecosystems. Within this programme of research, quantification of soil processes across an international network of CZOs is focussed on understanding soil ecosystem services including their quantitative monetary valuation within the soil life cycle. Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.2136/vzj2010.0136 Last Update: 05/09/2012

An Evaluation of the Short-Term Progress of Restoration Combining Ecological Assessment and Public Perception Thorunn Petursdottir, Asa L. Aradottir, Karl Benediktsson. An Evaluation of the Short-Term Progress of Restoration Combining Ecological Assessment and Public Perception (2011), RESTORATION ECOLOGY, pp. 1-12. Most of today's restoration programs have multiple objectives: aiming for socio-economic as well as environmental benefits. Their monitoring and evaluation should therefore be based on measuring multidisciplinary indicators. In this study we examined the short term impacts of different restoration methods using ecological as well as visual/social measures. The study included five year old sites re-vegetated with grasses (native/non-native) and Nootka lupine (an introduced species) compared with control sites. Parameters measured included plant cover, species composition and soil C, N and pH. Furthermore, color photos were used to evaluate people¿s perception on the different treatments where participants were asked five questions on the visual appearance of the sites. Vegetation cover was significantly higher for all restoration treatments (36-92%) than the cover on control plots (6%). Biological soil crust and mosses were mostly absent, and only minor differences were found in measured soil parameters. Visual appearance of fertilized sites was in all cases ranked higher than the control sites except the lupine sites. Photos that participants regarded as resembling natural vegetation forms ranked higher in all cases than the ones they perceived as artificial. We conclude that ecological indicators are essential in evaluating the success of ecological restoration because restoration of ecosystem functions and structure are fundamental for the achievement of other benefits. Social factors, such as perception of the restored sites are, however, also very important since restoration programs always need the support and acknowledgment of society and should generally be designed with societies¿ needs and preferences in mind. Access the paper: 10.1111/j.1526-100X.2011.00855.x Last Update: 05/09/2012

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

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

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

Evaluation of BioSoil Demonstration Project - Preliminary Data Analysis. The BioSoil demonstration Project was initiated under the Forest Focus-Scheme (Regulation (EC) Nr. 2152/2003) concerning the monitoring of forests and environmental interactions in the Community, and aimed to broaden the scope of previous forest monitoring activities (on atmospheric pollution and forest fires) to the fields of soil characteristics and biodiversity indicators. The preliminary data analysis concentrated on the evaluation of a selected number of parameters of the data submitted by NFCs and sampling procedures. For soil the parameters needed to establish soil organic carbon densities were analysed. Hiederer, R.and T. Durrant (2010) Evaluation of BioSoil Demonstration Project - Preliminary Data Analysis. EUR 24258 EN. Luxembourg: Office for Official. Publications of the European Communities. 126pp. Keywords: BioSoil, Forest Focus, Soil, Organic Carbon, biodiversity indicators Download report: (Size: 4.8 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 24/02/2010

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

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

Euro soils: Identification, collection, Treatment and Characterization. Methodological Aspects of Reference Soil Sampling. Field Work on euro-soils profile anaysis and sampling procedures. Pedological Characterization composition analysis. Determination of organochlorine compounds. Evaluation of Laboratory Ringtest . Kuhnt and Muntau. (1994). Euro soils: Identification, collection, Treatment and Characterization. EUR 19460 EN, 152pp. Keywords: Euro soils, Collection, Soil Sampling Download report: (Size: 1.6 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 11/02/2010

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

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

Using existing soil data to derive hydraulic parameters for simulation models in environmental studies and in land use planning.

One way of addressing the paucity of soil hydraulic data for simulation modeling is through the use of pedotransfer functions. In this case soil data routinely collected during systematic soil surveys are used to predict hydraulic characteristics.

To derive pedotransfer functions for European soils, 18 Institutes in 10 EU countries participated in the establishment of HYPRES Database.

The first task was to develop a flexible database structure. Next, the database was filled with measured hydraulic characteristics. Finally, the stored data were used for the derivation of classes and continuous pedotransfer functions.

Authors: J.H.M. Wosten, A. Lilly, A. Nemes, C. Le Bas .

Final Report of the European Union Funded project, 1998. 106pp, 15 Figures; 11 Tables;

References Keywords: Pedotransfer function, Texture Class, Soil Physics

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Combining spatial data in landslide reactivation susceptibility mapping: A likelihood ratio-based approach in W Belgium Dewitte O., Chung C.-J., Cornet Y., Daoudi M., Demoulin A. Combining spatial data in landslide reactivation susceptibility mapping: A likelihood ratio-based approach in W Belgium (2010) Geomorphology, 122 (1-2), pp. 153-166. A key issue in landslide susceptibility mapping concerns the relevance of the spatial data combination used in the prediction. Various combinations of high-resolution predictor variables and possibilities of selecting them from a larger dataset are analysed. The scarp reactivation of several landslides in a hilly region of W Belgium is investigated at the pixel scale. The susceptibility modelling uses the reactivated scarp segments as the dependent variable and 13 factors at a 2. m-resolution related to topography, hydrology, land use and lithology as potential independent variables. The modelling uses a likelihood ratio approach based on the comparison, for each independent variable, between two empirical distribution functions (EDFs), respectively for the reactivated and non-reactivated areas. It uses these EDFs as favourability values to build membership values and combine them with a fuzzy Gamma operator. Five different data combinations are tested and compared by analysing the prediction-rate curves obtained by cross-validation. The geomorphological value of the resulting susceptibility maps is also discussed. This research shows relevant results for predicting the susceptibility to scarp reactivation. Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2010.06.010 Last Update: 05/07/2011

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

Carbon concentrations and stocks in forest soils of Europe. Baritz R., Seufert G., Montanarella L., Van Ranst E. Carbon concentrations and stocks in forest soils of Europe (2010) Forest Ecology and Management, 260 (3), pp. 262-277. This study presents the results of a series of evaluations of a continent-wide soil database (EU/UN-ECE Level I) with the aim to estimate baseline soil carbon concentrations and stocks. The methodology included the biogeographic stratification of soil carbon measurements throughout Europe using climatic zones derived from the Soil Regions Map of Europe. The presented stock estimates range from 1.3 to 70.8. t. C/ha for the O-layer, and from 11.3 to 126.3. t. C/ha for the mineral soil 0-20. cm (Germany: 0-30. cm) (5 and 95 percentiles). Histosols were excluded because of methodological differences and data gaps. When looking at the median values of the strata investigated, relationships were found. For example, carbon stocks in the O-layer of sandy soils are distinctly higher than those of fine-textured soils. However, the variability is so high that some of these relationships disappear. For example in western and central Europe, the level of carbon stocks in the mineral soil between shallow soils (Leptosols) and more deeply developed soils (Podzols and Cambisols) do not differ very much. It was also found that just the investigation of topsoils is not sufficient to understand the regional pattern of organic matter in forest soils - unless the subsoil becomes included as well. It is hypothesized that for Europe, the impact of site factors such as climate, texture and relief are difficult to extract from such a database if the data are only stratified according to macro-climatic areas. Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2010.03.025 Last Update: 05/07/2011

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

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

Comparison of two landslide susceptibility assessments in the Champagne-Ardenne region (France). Den Eeckhaut M.V., Marre A., Poesen J. Comparison of two landslide susceptibility assessments in the Champagne-Ardenne region (France) (2010) Geomorphology, 115 (1-2), pp. 141-155. The vineyards of the Montagne de Reims are mostly planted on steep south-oriented cuesta fronts receiving a maximum of sun radiation. Due to the location of the vineyards on steep hillslopes, the viticultural activity is threatened by slope failures. This study attempts to better understand the spatial patterns of landslide susceptibility in the Champagne–Ardenne region by comparing a heuristic (qualitative) and a statistical (quantitative) model in a 1120 km² study area. The heuristic landslide susceptibility model was adopted from the Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières, the GEGEAA – Reims University and the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. In this model, expert knowledge of the region was used to assign weights to all slope classes and lithologies present in the area, but the final susceptibility map was never evaluated with the location of mapped landslides. For the statistical landslide susceptibility assessment, logistic regression was applied to a dataset of 291 'old' (Holocene) landslides. The robustness of the logistic regression model was evaluated and ROC curves were used for model calibration and validation. Access the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2009.09.042 Last Update: 05/07/2011

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 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

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

Dioxins, Trace elements, Bioindicators and biodiversity in Soils Soils of the Province of Pavia have been the object of a biological, physical and chemical survey in order to obtain a detailed assessment of their “quality”. For this purpose, standard international methods were used to identify sampling, collection, handling and analysis points. With the use of the Land Use Cover Area from Statistical Survey (LUCAS) network, 7 Primary Points and 34 Secondary Points have been identified. On the basis of the same network, 116 sampling points (Tertiary Points) have been selected within six areas of prevalently industrial nature. The bio-physical-chemical analyses of all the soil samples were the following: trace elements (As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Ti and Zn), macro elements (C tot, Corg, Al, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, N, Na, P and Si), dioxins and furans, pH, water retention, pedological profile, bacteria Authors: R. M. Cenci, F. Sena, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities 2009 – 192 pp, EUR23935EN– Scientific and Technical Research series – ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-12793-9, DOI 10.2788/2351 Download report: (Size: 12 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 09/07/2009

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

Climate change: soil can make a difference! Climate is a principle factor of soil development. Climate drives major soil-forming processes including transformation, accumulation and transport of substances that result in the diversity of soil types on the Earth. Soil is one of the key life support systems responsible for the performance of major ecological functions such as biomass production in agriculture and forestry, storing, fi ltering and transforming nutrients, substances and water, biodiversity (e.g. habitats, species and genes), physical and cultural environment for humans and human activities, source of raw materials, etc. The change of climate alters all processes in soil which may have serious consequences for the both environment and society. Therefore, climate-soil relationship is one of the priority topics in soil science. This booklet presents an overview of the various activities which are being carried out by the Soil Action or to which the basic soil data were provided. In addition, new methods to verify the changes of the organic carbon and estimate the potentials of carbon change in the EU mineral soils are introduced. The overall goal of the document is to provide examples that clearly illustrate that soil is an important issue in climate change. Policies and strategies supporting the effective management of soil can really make a difference for the mitigation of climate change. Vladimir Stolbovoy, Brechje Maréchal, Arwyn Jones, Ezio Rusco and Luca Montanarella, 2008. Conference on ‘Climate change - can soil make a difference?’ , 12th June 2008 , Centre Borschette, Brussels Download report: (Size: 13 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 30/06/2009

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

Soils, Society & Global Change This book highlights how our ability to manage soils plays an important role in global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity reduction, food and water security, and economic and social progress. It explores policy and legal challenges, knowledge management issues, and the crucial role of soil in the successful implementation of the global environmental conventions. The book concludes with the Programme for Action which includes a number of proactive recommendations on how global policies can be improved to protect soil as a resource. The context for this book is the 2007 centennial celebrations of organized conservation and restoration of soil and vegetation in Iceland. As Europe’s northernmost nation, Iceland historically suffered acute land degradation problems and through a century of perseverance has now become a world leader in soil restoration research and techniques. A number of international partners and world-class experts on a variety of pertinent fields gathered in Selfoss, Iceland to join in an International Forum. This book outlines the groundbreaking ideas developed by these experts to address the global soil problems and innovative ways to address the combined challenges of soil, society and global change. Proceedings of the International Forum Celebrating the Centenary of Conservation and Restoration of Soil and Vegetation in Iceland Edited by Harriet Bigas, Gudmundur Ingi Gudbrandsson, Luca Montanarella and Andrés Arnalds. European Communities, pp 212, 2009. JRC50243, EUR 23784 EN, Catalogue number: LB-NA-23784-EN-C , ISSN: 1018-5593, ISBN 978-92-79-11775-6, DOI: 10.2788/84964 Download report: (Size: 10 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 30/06/2009

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

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

ENVASSO: ENVironmental ASsessment of Soil for mOnitoring. The project's main objective was to define and document a soil monitoring system for implementation in support of a Soil Framework Directive, aimed at protecting soil in the EU. The final reports from the ENVASSO project can be downloaded through the following links: Volume I identifies 290 potential indicators relating to 188 key issues for nine threats to soil identified in the Commission's Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection. Volume IIa identifies the existing soil inventory and monitoring systems in the EU Member States and evaluates the extent to which existing soil monitoring networks adequately represent European soil typological units, land use/cover, specific soil criteria - such as soil organic carbon, bulk density, heavy metal contents - and existing spatial assessments of threats to soil such as soil erosion, compaction and desertification. Volume IIb is a Survey of National Soil Monitoring Networks, containing comprehensive fact sheets listing for each national network, its purpose, the sampling strategy adopted, the analytical methods used and the number of monitoring sites. Volume III reviews user-needs for soil information and briefly describes existing soil information systems in a selection of Member States. Volume IVa summarises the results of testing 22 indicator procedures in 28 Pilot Areas in the Member Sates. (Oct 2009) Volume IVb contains 28 Pilot Area study reports that adhere to a standard reporting template to aid comparison and evaluation. They represent a wide range of soil-landscapes from the north to the south of Europe........ Volume V describes the procedures and protocols needed for harmonised soil monitoring in Europe which have been modified following the extensive testing of 22 indicators in 28 Pilot Areas of EU Member States reported in Volume IV. Volume VI summarises the results presented in the preceding volumes (I-V) and concludes with a proposed approach to monitoring soil conditions in Europe. Last Update: 30/10/2009

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

Landslide Mapping in Austria. This study presents and discusses landslide inventories, susceptibility and hazard maps and databases available in Austria. Schweigl, J., Hervás, J., 2009. Landslide Mapping in Austria. JRC Scientific and Technical Report EUR 23785 EN, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 61 pp. ISBN 978-92-79-11776-3. Download report: (Size: 26 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 07/04/2009

Sustainable mineral resources management: from regional mineral resources exploration to spatial contamination risk assessment of mining. Gyozo Jordan and JRC PECOMINES Project (Giovanni Bidoglio, Marco D'Alessandro, Tamas Hamor, Stefan Sommer, Panos Panagos, Marc van Liederkerke, Anca-Marina Vijdea), Environmental Geology, Springer Berlin , ISSN 0943-0105, Issue Volume 58, Number 1 / July, 2009, pp 153-169, DOI 10.1007/s00254-008-1502-y. Wide-spread environmental contamination associated with historic mining in Europe has triggered social responses to improve related environmental legislation, the environmental assessment and management methods for the mining industry. The objective of this paper is to show how regional mineral resources mapping has developed into the spatial contamination risk assessment of mining and how geological knowledge can be transferred to environmental assessment of mines. The paper provides a state-of-the-art review of the spatial mine inventory, hazard, impact and risk assessment and ranking methods developed by national and international efforts in Europe. It is concluded that geological knowledge on mineral resources exploration is essential and should be used for the environmental contamination assessment of mines. Access the paper Last Update: 26/04/2010

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 :

Basin characteristics and nutrient losses: the EUROHARP catchment network perspective. F. Bouraoui, B. Grizzetti, G. Adelsköld, H. Behrendt, I. de Miguel, M. Silgram, S. Gómez, K. Granlund, L. Hoffmann, B. Kronvang, S. Kværnø, A. Lázár, M. Mimikou, G. Passarella, P. Panagos, H. Reisser, B. Schwarzl, C. Siderius, A. S. Sileika, A. A. M. F. R. Smit, R. Sugrue, M. VanLiedekerke and J. Zaloudik. Journal of Environmental Monitoring, 2009, 11, 515 - 525, DOI: 10.1039/b822931g The EC-funded EUROHARP project studies the harmonisation of modelling tools to quantify nutrient losses from diffuse sources. This paper describes a set of study areas used in the project from geographical conditions, to land use and land management, geological and hydro-geological perspectives. The status of data availability throughout Europe in relation to the modelling requirements is presented. The relationships between the catchment characteristics and the nutrient export are investigated, using simple data available for all the catchments. In addition, this study also analyses the hydrological representativity of the time series utilised in the EUROHARP project. Access the paper Last Update: 26/04/2010

Soil Biodiversity What is biodiversity? Biodiversity has different meanings depending on the situation being discussed and the target audience. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary defines biodiversity as being. The variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat. This is definition is clearly sufficient for non-specialists. However, when looking more specifically at biodiversity, it becomes evident that thought needs to be given to other groups such as fungi, bacteria and archea. As soil is such as diverse system when considered biologically (as well as physically or chemically) it is necessary to include all taxonomic groups. Therefore, throughout this booklet, when referring to soil biodiversity it will be in reference to the variety of all living organisms found within the soil system. Ciro Gardi and Simon Jeffery EUR23759EN, ISBN 978-92-79-11289-8, ISSN 1018-5593, DOI 10.2788/7831 , Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2009. Download report: (Size: 4 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Soil Erosion in the Alpine Area: Risk Assessment and Climate Change. Bosco C, Rusco E, Montanarella L, Panagos P. Soil Erosion in the Alpine Area: Risk Assessment and Climate Change. Studi Trentini di Scienze Naturali 85; 2009. p. 117-123 Objective of the research is to define the magnitude of the Actual Soil Erosion Risk in the alpine area and linked it with a perspective of medium long terms in relation to climate change. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was applied to the whole alpine space. It allowed to produce, with a spatial resolution of 100 m, the map of actual soil erosion and two further maps defining soil erosion rates in IPCC A2 and B2 scenarios. This analysis was carried out by means of the dataset the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) of Trieste made us available. It provides daily rainfall values for the years 1960 - 1990 and for the IPCC A2 and B2 scenario 2070 - 2100. From a comparison between actual erosion and soil losses in A2 and B2 scenarios it comes out that our model does not show relevant raises in erosion rates. Download the paper Last Update: 26/04/2010

Bioindicatori per valutare la qualità dei suoli di alcuni parchi della città di Roma Il presente studio è stato effettuato alfine di stimare parte della qualità ambientale in alcuni parchi della città di Roma. Per tale indagine sono stati utilizzati muschi, suoli superficiali raccolti nei parchi di Villa Borghese, Villa Ada e Villa Doria Pamphili. Queste aree sono state scelte perché adiacenti a strade ad alto traffico veicolare. Complessivamente sono state approntate 11 stazioni di prelievo. R. M. Cenci, D. Dabergami, E. Beccaloni, G. Ziemacki, A. Benedetti, L. Pompili, A. S. Mellina, M. Bianchi EUR 23567 IT, Catalogue number LB-NA-23567-IT-C, ISSN 1018-5593, ISBN: 978-92-79-10648-4 Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities , 2008. Download report: (Size: 1 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Threats to Soil Quality in Europe The special session during EUROSOIL 2008 dedicated to the threats to soil quality in Europe has allowed for an indepth analysis of the status of research in this are and the identification of still existing research gaps for future action. The full coverage of the threats identified within the Soil Thematic Strategy will allow to further support the on-going process towards better soil protection in Europe. Gergely Tóth, Luca Montanarella and Ezio Rusco (eds.) EUR 23438 EN, ISBN 978-92-79-09529-0, ISSN 1018-5593, DOI 10.2788/8647 . Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities , 2008. Download report: (Size: 8MB) Preview FrontPage :

Digital Soil Map of the World. Published in SCIENCE, Pedro A. Sanchez, Sonya Ahamed, Florence Carré, Alfred E. Hartemink, Jonathan Hempel, Jeroen Huising, Philippe Lagacherie, Alex B. McBratney, Neil J. McKenzie, Maria de Lourdes Mendonça-Santos, Budiman Minasny, Luca Montanarella, Peter Okoth, Cheryl A. Palm, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Keith D. Shepherd, Tor-Gunnar Vågen, Bernard Vanlauwe, Markus G. Walsh, Leigh A. Winowiecki, Gan-Lin Zhang. Science 7 August 2009, Vol. 325. no. 5941, pp. 680 - 681, DOI: 10.1126/science.1175084 Soils are increasingly recognized as major contributors to ecosystem services such as food production and climate regulation (1, 2), and demand for up-to-date and relevant soil information is soaring. But communicating such information among diverse audiences remains challenging because of inconsistent use of technical jargon, and outdated, imprecise methods. Also, spatial resolutions of soil maps for most parts of the world are too low to help with practical land management. While other earth sciences (e.g., climatology, geology) have become more quantitative and have taken advantage of the digital revolution, conventional soil mapping delineates space mostly according to qualitative criteria and renders maps using a series of polygons, which limits resolution. These maps do not adequately express the complexity of soils across a landscape in an easily understandable way. Access the paper or Download it Last Update: 26/04/2010

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 :

Numerical classification of soil profile data using distance metrics. F. Carré and and M. Jacobson, Geoderma, November 2008 , Volume 148, Issues 3-4, 15 January 2009, Pages 336-345. Quantitative grouping of soil layer descriptions into profile classes has not advanced much since the 1960s. Here we tackle the problem from pedological, utilitarian and joint points of view using an application, OSACA, that we have developed for the purpose. The program calculates the taxonomic distances between observed profiles based on layer (horizon) characteristics. Characteristics can be either observed soil properties or layer class memberships. OSACA either allocates profiles to existing classes, or creates a new classification of the profiles. Since the pedological distance seems to be more useful for creating classes for pedogenetic and geomorphic studies, whereas the utilitarian distance may be more useful for environmental applications, we test the three distances for soil taxonomy application and available water capacity prediction by using as input variables, soil attributes, and classifying them into new set of profiles. More information about the Article or contact the Author

Soil geography and geostatistics (Concepts and Applications) Geostatistics, which can be defined as the tools for studying and predicting the spatial structure of georeferenced variables, have been mainly used in soil science during the past two decades. Since now, hundreds of geostatistical papers have been published on soil science issues (see bibliography ibid., this volume).The use of geostatistical tools in soil science is diverse and extensive. It can be for studying and predicting soil contamination in industrial areas, for building agrochemical maps at the field level, or even to map physical and chemical soil properties for a global extent. The users of the output maps are going from soil scientists to environmental modelers. Krasilnikov, P., Carré, F. & Montanarella, L. (eds.). EUR 23290 EN, Catalogue number: LB-NA-23290-EN-C, ISBN 978-92-79-08720-2, ISSN 1018-5593 Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities , 2008. Download report: (Size: 5 MB) Preview FrontPage :

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

Environmental impact study of the project for the enlargement of the Landfill of Poiatica (Reggio Emilia, ITALY) This study was developed to obtain the approval by the Province of Reggio Emilia for the enlargement of the landfill of Poiatica (Reggio Emilia). It was prepared on the basis of the Guidelines produced by the Emilia - Romagna Region to assess the impact of a landfill on the environment. The study includes five chapters: programme framework, project framework, synergistic anthropic factors independent from the project, baseline conditions of the environment, environmental impact of the project and alternatives. Cenci, R. et Al.(2002) Studio di impatto ambientale relativoal progetto generale definitivo per l' approvazione dell' ampliamento della discarica di I Categoria di R.S.U. et R.S.A. DI Poiatica di Carpineti per 1.000.000 mc Dda realizzarsi in lotti successivi in relazione alle indicazioni della pianificazione. EUR 20426 IT. European Communities, Ispra (2002). 812 pp. Download report: (Size: 150 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Assessment of Mercury-Polluted Soils Adjacent to an Old Mercury-Fulminate Production Plant. M. Camps Arbestain, L. Rodríguez-Lado, M. Bao, and F. Macías . Applied and Environmental Soil Science Volume 2009 (2009), Article ID 387419, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2009/387419 Mercury contamination of soils and vegetation close to an abandoned Hg-fulminate production plant was investigated. Maximum concentrations of Hg (>6.5?g kg-1 soil) were found in the soils located in the area where the wastewater produced during the washing procedures carried out at the production plant used to be discharged. DOI: 10.1155/2009/387419 Access the paper or contact the Author

Multiple regression analysis of As ground-water hazard and assessment of As-attributable human health risks in Chakdha Block, West Bengal. D. Mondal1, A. Hegan, L. Rodriguez-Lado, M. Banerjee, A. K. Giri and D. A. Polya. Mineralogical Magazine; February 2008; v. 72; no. 1; p. 461-465; DOI: 10.1180/minmag.2008.072.1.461 SOLUBLE inorganic As is toxic with both cancer and non-cancer endpoints. Of the 80 million people in West Bengal, 50 million are living in the nine As-affected districts with millions at risk from using water for drinking, cooking or irrigation (Chakraborti et al., 2004). An environmental tragedy is developing in West Bengal with an alarming number of cases of skin lesions (Guha Mazumder et al., 1998; Mukherjee et al., 2005), respiratory symptoms (von Ehrenstein et al., 2005), adverse pregnancy outcomes and infant mortality (von Ehrenstein et al., 2006) and neurological complications (Mukherjee et al., 2005) associated with ingestion of As-contaminated water. DOI: 10.1180/minmag.2008.072.1.437 Access the paper or contact the Author

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 :

Landscape and Mitigation Factors in Aquatic Ecological Risk Assessment Holmes, A. Huber, F. de Jong, M. Liess, S. Loutseti, N. Mackay, W-M. Maier, S. Maund, C., Pais, W. Reinert, M. Russell, T. Schad, R. Stadler, M. Streloke, M. Styczen, J. van de Zande (2007) Landscape and Mitigation Factors in Aquatic Ecological Risk Assessment. Download Volume I: (Size: 3.2 MB) - Extended Summary and Recommendations. Final Report of the FOCUS Working Group on Landscape and Mitigation Factors in Ecological Risk Assessment. EC Document Reference SANCO/10422/2005 v2.0. 169 pp. Brown, C., A. Alix, J-L Alonso-Prados, D. Auteri, J-J Gril, R. Hiederer, C. Holmes, A. Huber, F. de Jong, M. Liess, S. Loutseti, N. Mackay, W-M. Maier, S. Maund, C., Pais, W. Reinert, M. Russell, T. Schad, R. Stadler, M. Streloke, M. Styczen, J. van de Zande (2007) Landscape and Mitigation Factors in Aquatic Ecological Risk Assessment. Download Volume II: (size 4.5 MB) - Detailed Technical Reviews. Final Report of the FOCUS Working Group on Landscape and Mitigation Factors in Ecological Risk Assessment. EC Document Reference SANCO/10422/2005 v2.0. 436 pp.

Modelling arsenic hazard in Cambodia: A geostatistical approach using ancillary data. Luis Rodríguez Lado, David Polya, Lenny Winkel, Michael Berg and Aimee Hegan. Applied Geochemistry, Volume 23, Issue 11, November 2008, Pages 3010-3018. The As concentration in shallow groundwater in Cambodia was estimated using 1329 georeferenced water samples collected during the period 1999–2004 from wells between 16–100 m depth. Arsenic concentrations were estimated using block regression-kriging on the log transformed As measurements. Auxiliary raster maps (DEM-parameters, remote sensing images and geology) were converted to 16 principal components that were used to explain the distribution of As over the study area. The regression-kriging model was validated using an external set of 276 samples, and the results were compared to those obtained by ordinary block kriging. DOI: 10.1016/j.apgeochem.2008.06.028 Access the paper or contact the Author

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 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

Derivation methods of soil screening values in Europe. A review and evaluation of national procedures towards harmonisation Soil Screening Values (SVs) are quality standards that are used to regulate contaminated sites. Derivation methods of SVs have scientific and political bases; they differ from country to country, and SVs numerical values vary consequently. In relation to the common environmental policies in Europe, this variability has raised concern among both regulators and risk assessors. Carlon, C. (Ed.) (2007). Derivation methods of soil screening values in Europe. A review and evaluation of national procedures towards harmonization. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, EUR 22805-EN, 306 pp. ISBN: 978-92-79-05238-5, ISSN: 1018-5593 Download report: (Size: 2.2 MB) Preview FrontPage :

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

The Bio Bio Project. R. Cenci . FRESENIUS ENVIRONMENTAL BULLETIN, August 2008, Volume 17, Pages 1107-1109 The Pavia Project had as principal objective: the evalua-tion of the quality and health of soil in Pavia Province and included a study to appraise the eventual differences in soil health, that have resulted from different management prac-tices: organic farming, animal manure and mineral fertiliz-ers and soil receiving sewage sludge. Soil health was appraised by studying physical and chemical properties coupled with biodiversity and bio- indication concepts, using some organisms and/or their “products” that are present under the three main manage-ment systems. Twelve international organizations partici-pated in the BIO-BIO Project. More information about the Article

Background values in European soils and sewage sludges Results of a JRC- coordinated study on background values B. M. Gawlik and G. Bidoglio(2006) EUR 22265 EN , European Commission, Ispra, Italy, ISBN 92-79-02120-6 , ISSN 1018-5593 Part I - Evaluation of the relevance of organic micro-pollutants in sewage sludge (R. Leschber). Download Part I: (Size: 0.5 MB) Part II - Contents of trace elements and organic matter in European soils (J. Utermann, O. Düwel, I. Nagel). Download Part II: (Size: 7.5 MB) Part III - Conclusions, comments and recommendations (B. M. Gawlik , G. Bidoglio) Download Part III: (Size: 0.4 MB)

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

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 :

Carbon Sink Enhancement in Soils of Europe: Data, Modeling, Verification The results on ‘Data and Database Strategy’ of the Integrated Sink Enhancement Assessment (INSEA) project of the 6th Framework Programme are presented. The collection of papers include a wide range of studies carried out in the EU: observation of available data sources on soils; the organic carbon content in the top soil and its validation; field verification of the changes in the soil organic carbon; application of the field-scale model EPIC. Author(s): Eds. Vladimir Stolbovoy, Luca Montanarella and Panos Panagos, 2007. Carbon Sink Enhancement in Soils of Europe: Data, Modeling, Verification. EUR 23037 EN, European Commission, Ispra, Italy, 183pp. ISBN 978-92-79-07691-6 Download report: (Size: 6.4 MB) Preview FrontPage :

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

Characterisation of a Pleistocene debris-avalanche deposit in the Tenteniguada Basin. Lomoschitz, A., Hervás, J., Yepes, J., and Meco, J. (2008). Landslides, Springer Berlin , pp. 227-234, Volume 5, Number 2 / May, 2008 We studied a large debris-avalanche deposit of Pleistocene age in the Tenteniguada Basin, Gran Canaria Island, Spain. This deposit, which is well preserved because it is mostly covered by basanite lava flows, has distinctive matrix and block facies, hummocky topography and internal structures typical of debris avalanches. However, neither syneruptive lavas nor some characteristic features of volcanic debris-avalanche deposits, such as a stratovolcano edifice or a horseshoe-shaped crater, are present. Keywords: Debris avalanche - Volcanic island - Large landslide - Canary Islands - Gran Canaria. Access the paper or contact the Author

Lessons Learnt from Landslide Disasters in Europe Landslides are a widespread hazard in many mountainous and hilly regions of Europe. They cause significant economic losses as well as human victims. The socio-economic impact is however difficult to quantify at European scale, mainly because it is usually not considered separately when landslides acompany other natural hazards such as floods or earthquakes. Hervás, J. (Ed.), 2003. Lessons Learnt from Landslide Disasters in Europe. EUR 20558 EN, European Commission, Ispra, Italy, 91 p. Download report: (Size: 4.3 MB) Preview FrontPage :

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 :

Towards protecting soil biodiversity in Europe: The EU thematic strategy for soil protection. Luca Montanarella. Biodiversity: Journal of Life on Earth. Volume 9 , Numbers 1 & 2, pp 75-77(2008) The new EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection will include a strong reference to soil biodiversity as a key soil component that needs preserving. Since available knowledge on soil biodiversity is recognised as being very limited, the main effort of the strategy will be in stimulating new research programmes for the improved understanding of soil biota. Related to this will be the increased development of soil quality indicators taking into account the biological function of soils. A full range of potential bio-indicators for soil health and soil function is available but needs to be fully explored for operational soil monitoring activities. Existing soil biodiversity monitoring initiatives and the first results of on-going European research programmes are presented and reviewed. Access the paper

Soil Sampling Protocol to Certify the Changes of Organic Carbon Stock in Mineral Soils of European Union (Version 2) The objective of this report is to introduce a second, updated, version of the Protocol for soil sampling (Stolbovoy et al., 2005) which includes improvements on Technical specification, Location of the sampling sites, Sampling quantity and composition, Sample collection, Data acquisition and accuracy control, Field validation of the AFRSS method. EUR 21576 EN/2 . 57 pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Vladimir Stolbovoy, Luca Montanarella, Nicola Filippi, Arwyn Jones, Javier Gallego and Giacomo Grassi Download report: (Size: 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

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 :

Soil organic carbon content indicators and web mapping applications. Panagos, P., Van Liedekerke, M., Montanarella, L. and Jones, R.A (2008). ENVIRONMENTAL MODELLING & SOFTWARE, Elsevier LTD, Volume 23· Issue 9: pp 1207-1209, DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2008.02.010. Distributing geographic information via the Internet allows interoperability with similar information and real-time integration of data from around the world. The software developed allows the users to exchange, integrate, and analyze data in new ways. Users can combine various environmental indicators (Organic carbon con-tent) and information accessed via the Internet with their local data for display, query, and analysis. In order to guarantee interoperability, the developed services are based on international standards, as promoted by the INSPIRE initiative. Keywords: Web mapping services; Organic carbon; Environmental indicators; Interoperability; INSPIRE; European soil database. Access the paper

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 :

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 :

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

An Innovative Approach for Updating Soil Information based on Digital Soil Mapping Techniques In this study, we propose a novel innovative approach to address the issues on evaluating the traditional soil maps and updating the existing soil information based on the principles of digital soil mapping. EUR22545, 44pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg (2007). Senthil-Kumar Selvaradjou, Luca Montanarella, Florence Carre, Arwyn Jones, Panos Panagos, Kaliaperumal Ragunath, Ramalingam Kumaraperumal, and Subramanian Natarajan. Download report: (Size: 1.7 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Soil Profile Analytical Database for Europe (SPADE): Reconstruction and Validation of the Measured Data (SPADE/M). Hiederer, R., R.J.A. Jones and J. Daroussin (2006). Geografisk Tidsskrift, Danish Journal of Geography 106(1). p. 71-85. The Soil Profile Analytical Database of Europe of Measured profiles (SPADE/M) was created to provide a common structure for storing harmonized information on typical soil profile properties of European soils. Keywords: soil properties, soil profile data, database design. Access the paper

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

Il Suolo della Provincia di Pavia (Volume II) Valutazione della concentrazione di composti organici ed inorganici persistenti attraverso lo sviluppo di una rete di monitoraggio del suolo. This document is the second Volume of the Report "Il Suolo della Provincia di Pavia Volume I" (No 33). EUR22132 (Volume II) IT, 86pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg (2007). Roberto M. Cenci and Fabrizio Sena. Download report: (Size: 7.7 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Application of the SIte COmparison Method (SICOM) to assess the potential erosion risk — a basis for the evaluation of spatial equivalence of agri-environmental measures. Detlef Deumlich, J. Kiesel, J. Thiere, , H.I. Reuter, L. Völker, and R. Funk, 2006. Published by CATENA Volume 68, Issues 2-3, 31 December 2006, Pages 141-152 . The paper presents a comparative method (SICOM) to evaluate complex site conditions at different area units as a basis for the estimate of spatial equivalence of agri-environmental measures (AEM). . Keywords: Wind erosion; Water erosion; Erosion risk; Moving-window-technique; Site evaluation; Agri-environmental measures (AEM) . Access the paper

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 :

An evaluation of void-filling interpolation methods for SRTM data. H. I. Reuter; A. Nelson; A. Jarvis , 2007. Published by International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Volume 21, Issue 9 January 2007 , pages 983 - 1008. The Digital Elevation Model that has been derived from the February 2000 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) has been one of the most important publicly available new spatial data sets in recent years. However, the 'finished' grade version of the data (also referred to as Version 2) still contains data voids (some 836,000 km2) - and other anomalies - that prevent immediate use in many applications. Keywords: DEM; Interpolation methods; Void filling; DEM fusion. Access the paper

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 :

Digital Soil Assessments: beyond DSM F. Carré, A.B McBratney, T. Mayr, L. Montanarella, 2007. Published by Geoderma 142, 69-79. This paper presents the concepts of Digital Soil Assessment as the implementation of Digital Soil Mapping for modeling threats to soil, soil functions and risk assessments. Two case studies are used for applications to demonstrate the efficiency of the framework. Over the last 10 years Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) has emerged as a credible alternative to traditional soil mapping. However, DSM should not be seen as an end in itself, but rather as a technique for providing data and information for a new framework for soil assessment which we call Digital Soil Assessment (DSA). Access the paper

Provincia di Varese C.C.R di Ispra: Flussi di ricaduta di metalli pesanti valutati mediante muschi e suoli Varese Province and JRC Ispra: Depositions of heavy metals by means of mosses and soil EUR 22137 IT, 84pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg (2006). R.M Cenci, F. Leva M., Bianchi. Download report: (Size: 4.6 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Evaluation of the sensitivity of European soils to the deposition of acid compounds: different approaches provide different results L. Rodríguez-Lado, L. Montanarella & F. Macías., 2007. Published by Water, Air, & Soil Pollution, Springer Netherlands., Volume 185, Numbers 1-4 / October, 2007, pp 293-303 Analysis of the sensitivity of soils to acidification caused by the deposition of atmospheric pollutants has been one of the major scientific issues in Europe during the past few decades. In the present study, critical loads of acid deposition were calculated using the most accurate datasets available at present for European soils, by the “Simple Mass Balance” method. Access the paper

Monitoraggio ambientale antecedente l’entrata in funzione di un termodistruttore Environmental Monitoring before the entrance in function of Power Plants EUR 20674 IT, 257pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg (2003). R.M Cenci, M. Barbiere et al. Download report: (Size: 32.7 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Validation of the EU Soil Sampling Protocol to verify the changes of Organic Carbon stock in mineral soil (Piemonte Region, Italy) Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a measure of the total amount of organic compounds or carbon (C) in soil independently of their origin or decomposition. Interest in SOC is common among soil scientists and related practitioners because of its importance for principle physical, chemical and biological soil ecological functions and that SOC is a universal indicator of soil quality. EUR 22339 EN, 46pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Stolbovoy Vladimir, Nicola Filippi, Luca Montanarella, Mauro Piazzi, Fabio Petrella, Javier Gallego, Senthil-Kumar Selvaradjou Download report: (Size: 1.9 MB) Preview FrontPage :

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

Il Suolo della Provincia di Pavia The soils in Pavia Province (Italy) EUR 22132 IT, 128pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. R.M Cenci, G. Lodigiani, L. Musmeci, N. Filippi, F. Bouraoui, Gunther Umlauf and F. Sena Download report: (Size: 52 MB) Preview FrontPage :

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

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 :

Northern Peatlands: their characteristics, development and sensitivity to climate change C. Tarnocai and V. Stolbovoy In the past two decades there has been considerable work on global climatic change and its effect on the ecosphere, as well as on local and global environmental changes triggered by human activities. Download the Introduction or contact the Author V. Stolbovoy for more information Full Access to the research paper: Elsevier Publisher, Petlands - Evolution and Records of Environmental and Climate Changes. (35 pp)

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 :

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 :

Soil carbon in the forests of Russia The 50% variation in the estimates of carbon (C) content in the forest soils of Russia at present is caused by confusion of terms and ignorance of the soil geographical representativeness in forests. Vladimir Stolbovoi Springer 2006, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change (2006) 11: pp. 203 -222 Look for the article: Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change (2006) 11: pp. 203 -222

3rd European Summer School on Soil Survey MICHÉLI, E., PANAGOS, P., JONES, A. and MONTANARELLA (2006), EUR 22193EN, 219pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Presentationsand Videos of the 3rd European Summer School on Soil Survey [Szent István University and European Soil Bureau, Institute of Envrionement and Sustainability and (July 2005)] Download report: (Size: 19 MB) Preview FrontPage : Available also the CD 3rd European Summer School on Soil Survey

Monitoraggio Ambientale Mediante l' impiego di suoli e di muschi per le discariche di Rio Riazzone, Rio Vigne e Poiatica di Reggio Emilia Soil and mosses to value environmental quality of Rio Riazzone, Rio Vigne and Poiatica landfills in Reggio Emilia. EUR 21561 IT, 59pp. R.M Cenci, M. Bergonzoni, F. Bo, L. Canovi, S.Contini, V.Guberti, L.Musmeci, G. Locoro, E.Meglioli, V.Pedroni, M. Privitera, M. Puglisi, L. Roncari, F.Sena, N. Simonacci, P. Trincherini (2005) Download report: (Size: 22.3 MB) Preview FrontPage :

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 :

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:

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 :

Progress in landslide susceptibility mapping over Europe using Tier-based approaches. Günther, A., Hervás, J., Reichenbach, P., Malet, J.-P., 2010. Progress in landslide susceptibility mapping over Europe using Tier-based approaches. Geophysical Research Abstracts, 12, EGU2010-15275. The European Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection aims, among other objectives, to ensure a sustainable use of soil. The legal instrument of the strategy, the proposed Framework Directive, suggests identifying priority areas of several soil threats including landslides using a coherent and compatible approach based on the use of common thematic data. In a first stage, this can be achieved through landslide susceptibility mapping using geographically nested, multi-step tiered approaches, where areas identified as of high susceptibility by a first, synoptic-scale Tier ("Tier 1") can then be further assessed and mapped at larger scale by successive Tiers. Download the Article: Progress in landslide susceptibility mapping over Europe using Tier-based approaches Last Update: 20/05/2010

European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) - Soil Maps of Asia : DVD-ROM version. EUR 21823. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Selvaradjou, S-K., Montanarella, L., Spaargaren. O. and Dent. D. (2005).

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

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

A Geographical Knowledge Database on Soil Properties for Environmental Studies Final Report of EC Contract No. 3392004 November 1994 DGXI, Brussels. King, D. ; Jamagne, M. ; Daroussin, J. ; Vanmechelen, L. ; Van Ranst, E.; Hollis, J.M. ; Thomasson, A.J. ; Jones,R.J.A. ; Le Bas C. ; Ngongo L. This report presents a method to translate data stored in the SGDB database to data needed for environmental purposes. This method is based on the concept of pedotransfer function. Due to the qualitative nature of the SGDB data, these functions are simple tables and are called pedotranfer rules. Download report: Size: 7.4 MB) Preview FrontPage :

European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) - Metadata of the Soil Maps of Asia European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) – Metadata of the Soil Maps of Asia. EUR 21820 EN, 204 pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg Selvaradjou, S-K., Montanarella. L, Spaargaren. O, Dent. D, Filippi, N, and Dominik, S. (2005). Download report: (Size: 2.0 MB) Preview FrontPage :

Soil Information and Education for a Sustainable Management: The Soil Atlas of Africa. Dewitte O, Jones A, Montanarella L. Soil Information and Education for a Sustainable Management: The Soil Atlas of Africa. Oral presentation in: African Soil Science Society 5th International Conference, Yaounde, Cameroon, 22-28 November 2009, Yaounde; 22 November 2009; Yaounde (Cameroon); African Soil Science Society (Organiser). 2009 The richness of African soil resources need to be protected for future generations. A number of threats are affecting the functioning of African soils, not only for the purpose of agricultural production, but also for other important environmental services that soil delivers to all of us. The Soil Atlas of Africa is an international project involving the Institute for Environment and Sustainability of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, ISRIC, World Soil Information, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Land and Water Development Division) and scientists from the European Soil Bureau Network and the Africa Soil Science Society. The Atlas will compile existing information on different soil types in easily understandable maps (both at national to continental scale) covering the entire Africa. Download the Article: Soil Information and Education for a Sustainable Management: The Soil Atlas of Africa. Last Update: 26/04/2010

European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) - Soil Maps of Africa. EUR 21657 EN, 386 pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Selvaradjou, S-K., L. Montanarella, O. Spaargaren and D. Dent, (2005).

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:

Landslide susceptibility mapping at 1:1M scale over France: exploratory results with a heuristic model Malet, J.-P., Thiery, Y., Puissant, A., Hervás, J., Günther, A., Grandjean, G., 2009. Landslide susceptibility mapping at 1:1M scale over France: exploratory results with a heuristic model. In: Malet, J.-P., Remaître, A., Boogard, T. (Eds), Proc. International Conference on Landslide Processes: from Geomorphologic Mapping to Dynamic Modelling, 6 -7 February 2009, Strasbourg, France. CERG Editions, Strasbourg, pp. 315-320. Download the Article: Landslide susceptibility mapping at 1:1M scale over France: exploratory results with a heuristic model Last Update: 17/11/2009

Common Criteria for Risk Area Identification according to Soil Threats This report presents an overview of common criteria and approaches to identify risk areas for the threats Soil Organic Matter (SOM) Decline, Soil Erosion, Soil Compaction, Salinization and Landslides. Wolf Eckelmann, Rainer Baritz, Stanislav Bialousz, Pavel Bielek, Florence Carré, Beata Houšková, Robert J.A. Jones, Mark Kibblewhite, Josef Kozak, Christine Le Bas, Gergely Tóth, Tibor Tóth, György Várallyay, Markku Yli Halla,Marko Zupan. European Soil Bureau Research Report No.20, EUR 22185 EN, 94pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg (2006). Download document: (Size: 4.1 MB) Preview FrontPage:

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

A Soil Sampling Protocol to Certify the Changes of Organic Carbon Stock in Mineral Soils of European Union. EUR 21576 EN, 12 pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Stolbovoy Vladimir, Luca Montanarella, Nicola Filippi, Senthil-Kumar Selvaradjou, Panos Panagos and Javier Gallego.

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

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

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:

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:

Introduction of European Soil Portal and Soil Mapping Panagos, P., Montanarella, L and Van Liedekerke, M. . Pages 95 - 99 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the East and Southeast Asia Federation of Soil Science Societies (ESAFS9), Symposium on Asia-Centric Soil Informatics . 27 october - 28 October 2009, Seoul, Korea. The European Soil Portal is the joint contribution of the European Commission and the European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN) to the building of a thematic spatial data infrastructure for soils. This portal, located at http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu , is the place in which all relevant data and information regarding soils at European level has been collected. It serves also as a vehicle to promote the activities of the European Soil Bureau Network. Spatial data collection and processing within this infrastructure is performed according to emerging ideas behind the INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community. INSPIRE deals, among others, with difficulties to identify, access and use available spatial information in Europe. The European Soil Portal has been considered as a success story of networking different soil information in European level. It is mainly built around the European Soil Database (ESDB), which consists of a number of components of which the Soil Geographical Database of Eurasia (SGDBE) at Scale 1:1,000,000 is one. It is a representation of the diversity and spatial variability of the soil coverage across Europe and its neighbouring countries. Download the Article: Introduction of European Soil Portal and Soil Mapping Last Update: 3/11/2009

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.

Soil Contamination with PCDD/Fs as a Function of different types of land use in a semi-rural region in Northern Italy Vives I, Umlauf G, Christoph EH, Mariani G, Ghiani M, Skejo H, Cenci R, Bidoglio G Organohalogen Compounds Vol 68 (2006) Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) are, among others, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) listed in the Stockholm Convention. They are released into the environment from many sources, such as municipal and industrial waste incineration, automobile exhaust, and as unwanted byproducts, in various chlorinated chemical formulations Look for the article: Organohalogen Compounds Vol 68 (2006), Pages 1034 - 1038

For the first time, a comprehensive picture, at community scale, of the aquifers and their characteristics is available in digital form. For several Member States of the European Communities (Belgium, Federal Republic of Germany, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands and United Kingdom) this pioneer study provides a complete catalogue of national water resources.

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 :

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)

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

Soils, Society & Global Change. Proceedings of the International Forum Celebrating the Centenary of Conservation and Restoration of Soil and Vegetation in Iceland Edited by Harriet Bigas, Gudmundur Ingi Gudbrandsson, Luca Montanarella and Andrés Arnalds. 31 August - 4 September 2007, Selfoss, Iceland. This book highlights how our ability to manage soils plays an important role in global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity reduction, food and water security, and economic and social progress. It explores policy and legal challenges, knowledge management issues, and the crucial role of soil in the successful implementation of the global environmental conventions. The book concludes with the Programme for Action which includes a number of proactive recommendations on how global policies can be improved to protect soil as a resource. The context for this book is the 2007 centennial celebrations of organized conservation and restoration of soil and vegetation in Iceland. As Europe's northernmost nation, Iceland historically suffered acute land degradation problems and through a century of perseverance has now become a world leader in soil restoration research and techniques. A number of international partners and world-class experts on a variety of pertinent fields gathered in Selfoss, Iceland to join in an International Forum. This book outlines the groundbreaking ideas developed by these experts to address the global soil problems and innovative ways to address the combined challenges of soil, society and global change. Download the Proceedings: Soils, Society & Global Change. Last Update: 30/06/2009

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

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:

European Soil Bureau

Michael J. Kirkby et al.

Field Guide to the Soil-landscapes of the Piemonte eastern plain. F. Petrella, M. Piazzi, P. Martalò, P. Roberto, F. Giannetti, N. Alliani, V. Ancarani, G. Nicoli, R. Salandin, & N. Filippi. (2003). EUR 20829 EN, 33pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download document: (Size: 15 MB) Preview FrontPage:

Approaches for Delineating Areas Susceptible to Landslides in the Framework of the European Soil Thematic Strategy. Günther, A., Reichenbach, P., Hervás, J., 2008. Proceedings of the First World Landslide Forum, Tokyo, 18-21 November 2008, pp. 235-238. Download the Paper: Approaches for Delineating Areas Susceptible to Landslides in the Framework of the European Soil Thematic Strategy

Validation of soil erosion estimates at European scale. A.J.J. Van Rompaey, V. Vieillefont, R.J.A. Jones, L. Montanarella, G. Verstraeten, P. Bazzoffi, T. Dostal, J.Krasa, J. Devente, J. Poesen. (2003). EUR 20827 EN, 24pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Available in 2 languages: Download document: (Size: 1.7 MB) Preview FrontPage: Télécharger le document: (Taille: 1.7 MB) Prévisualiser la page de couverture:

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)]

Desertification in Europe (15th International Congress, Budapest, Hungary). Montanarella, L. and G. Tóth 2008. 15th Congress of the International Soil Conservation Organization. 18-23 May, 2008. Budapest. Download the Article: Desertification in Europe from the Proceedings Volume Publised by the Geographycal Research Institute, Hungary ISBN 978 963 9545 20 5. Attached is also the Presentation "Desertification in Europe"

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).

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:

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

JONES, A.R., HOUŠKOVÁ, B., FILIPPI N., MICHÉLI, E., SELVARADJOU, S.K., MONTANARELLA, L. and JONES, R.J.A. (2004). EUR 21210 EN, 285pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Presentations of the 2nd European Summer School on Soil Survey [European Soil Bureau, Institute of Environement and Sustainability (July 2004)]

The European soil database Panagos, P., 2006. The European soil database Geo: International , July/Aug 2006 Volume 5 · Issue 7: 32-33 Pan-European in scope, this database provides a consistent view and understanding of the soil we depend upon for living. Look for the article: GeoConnexion: Spatial data & landuse

GOBIN, A., JONES R.J.A., KIRKBY, M., CAMPLING, P., GOVERS, G., KOSMAS, C., and GENTILE, A.R. (2004). Environmental Science & Policy 7, 25-38.

The European soil database Panagos, P., 2006. The European soil database Geo: International , July/Aug 2006 Volume 5 · Issue 7: 32-33 Pan-European in scope, this database provides a consistent view and understanding of the soil we depend upon for living. Look for the article: GeoConnexion: Spatial data & landuse

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.

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:

Evaluating Adequacy and Usability of Soil Maps in Croatia Hengl, T., Husnjak, S., 2006. Evaluating Adequacy and Usability of Soil Maps in Croatia. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 70 (3): 920-929 Look for the research paper: Soil Science Society of America Journal

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

JONES, R.J.A., SPOOR, G. and THOMASSON, A.J. (2003). Soil & Tillage Research 73, 131-143.

Land Degradation. L. Montanarella and R.J.A. Jones (eds). (2003). EUR 20688 EN, 324pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download document: (Size: 15 MB) Preview FrontPage:

Soil Resources of Europe, Second edition R.J.A. Jones, B. Houskova, P. Bullock and L. Montanarella. EUR 20559 EN, 420 pp (2005). This volume provides the most comprehensive summary yet attempted of the current position regarding the detail and availability of soil information, particularly spatial data, at national and European levels. Download PDF document: ( Size: 30 MB) or ZIP version , Navigate the Contents: Preview FrontPage:

Modeling sediment yields in Italian catchments VAN ROMPAEY, A.J.J., BAZZOFFI, P., JONES, R.J.A. and MONTANARELLA, L.(2005). Modeling sediment yields in Italian catchments. Geomorphology 65 (2005) 157-169. Sediment yield observations, derived from 40 long-term sedimentation records in Italian reservoirs, were used to calibrate and validate the spatially distributed sediment delivery model WaTEM/SEDEM using the best data available at national scale Keywords: Sediment yield; Soil erosion; Reservoirs; Italy Look for the research paper: Elsevier Publisher

JONES, R.J.A., HIEDERER, R., RUSCO, E., LOVELAND, P.J. and MONTANARELLA, L. (2003). Proceedings of the 4th European Congress on Regional Geoscientific Cartography and Information Systems, 17-20 June 2003, Bologna, Emilia Romagna, Direzione Generale Ambiente e Difesa del Suolo e della Costa, Servizio Geologoco, Sismico e dei Suoli, p.249-251.

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:

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

RUSCO, E., JONES, R.J.A. and BIDOGLIO, G. (2001). EUR 20556 EN, 14pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg.

GRIMM, M., JONES, R.J.A. and MONTANARELLA, L. (2001). EUR 19939 EN, 38pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg.

Pan-European soil crusting and erodibility assessment from the European Soil Geographical Database using pedotransfer rules. Le BISSONNAIS, Y., JAMAGNE, M., LAMBERT, J.- J., Le BAS C., DAROUSSIN, J., KING, D., CERDAN, O., LEONARD, J., BRESSON, L.-M. and JONES R.J.A. (2005). Pan-European soil crusting and erodibility assessment from the European Soil Geographical Database using pedotransfer rules. Advances in Environmental Monitoring and Modelling, 2 (1), 1-15. Access the research paper: Advances in Environmental Monitoring and Modelling

Soil Classification 2001. Erika Micheli, Freddy O. Nachtergaele, Robert J.A. Jones & Luca Montanarella. (2002). EUR 20398 EN, 248pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Navigate the Contents: Available also the CD Preview FrontPage:

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.

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)

Variability in regional wheat yields as a function of climate, soil and economic variables: Assessing the risk of confounding. BAKKER, M.M., GOVERS, G., Ewart, F., Roundsevell, Mark and JONES, Robert. (2005). Variability in regional wheat yields as a function of climate, soil and economic variables: Assessing the risk of confounding. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 110 (3-4), 195-209. Keywords: Wheat yields; Productivity; Climate; Soils; Economics; Regression analysis Look for the research paper: Elsevier Publisher

Edito dal Comitato Scientifico dell’European Soil Bureau, Versione italiano a cura di Edoardo A.C. Costantini. (1999). EUR 18092 IT, 170pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg.

Georeferenced Soil Database for Europe: Manual of Procedures Version 1.1. European Soil Bureau, Scientific Committee. EUR 18092 EN 184pp. (2001). Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download document: (Size: 1.2 MB) Preview FrontPage: Télécharger le document: (Taille: 1.2 MB) Prévisualiser la page de couverture: Descarga documento: (Tamaño: 1.2 MB) Ver cubierta: Scaricare il documento: (Taglia: 1.2 MB) Copertina:

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

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

Land Information Systems: Developments for planning the sustainable use of land resources. The Proceedings are divided into 8 sections. The European Perspective on the compilation, management, distribution and application of soil- and land-related databases(Section 1-2); The National Perspective in Europe, with contributions from all over the continent(Section 3); Techniques and Technologies on the application of new methodologies(Section 4); Environmental Applications using information systems for solving practical problems in the management of land(Section 5); Land Evaluation on traditional uses of soil and land data for land suitability(Section 6); Poster presentations(Section 7); and a Database Dictionary for the Soil Geographical Database of Europe(Section 8). H.J. Heineke, W. Eckelmann, A.J. Thomasson, R.J.A. Jones, L. Montanarella and B. Buckley (eds). EUR 17729 EN 546pp. (1998). Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download report: (Size: 107 MB) Last Update: 10/10/2011 Navigate the Contents: Preview FrontPage:

Edité par le Bureau Europeen des Sols. Version française de J.J. Lambert. EUR 18092 FR, 174pp. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg.

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

The use of pedotransfer in soil hydrology research in Europe. A. Bruand, O. Duval, H.Wösten and A. Lilly (eds). EUR 17307 EN 211pp. (1997). Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download report: (Size: 39 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 10/10/2011

The distribution of peatland in Europe

L. Montanarella(1), R.J.A. Jones (2) and R. Hiederer (1) 

(1) Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, I-21020 Ispra (VA) - Italy,

(2) National Soil Resources Institute, Cranfield University, Silsoe, Bedford MK45 4DT, UK. © 2006 Published by Mires and Peat.

This paper derives the distribution of peatland in Europe as the extent of peat and peat-topped soils indicated by soil databases. 

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

An Open European Soil Portal (OGC User December 2005) Lance McKee with Marc Van Liedekerke and Panos Panagos of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, I-21020 Ispra (VA) - Italy . © 2005 Published by OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) - OGC User December 2005. The European Soil Portal, implementing the OpenGIS Web Map Server (WMS) Specification, came online recently to serve a wide variety of professional, business and academic users. Preview Paper:

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

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

European Land Information Systems for Agro-environmental Monitoring. Development of the European land database at the 1: 1M Scale. Soil Maps and soil information. The main objectives of the 1:1M structure respond to the EU requirements, identify national requirements, harmonize international initiatives, promote soil information systems and develop research on new methodologies for a better representation of soil variability. D. King, R.J.A. Jones and A.J. Thomasson (eds). EUR 16232 EN, 284pp. (1995). Office for the Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Download report: (Size: 7 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 10/10/2011

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