Wind erosion susceptibility of soils

Wind erosion susceptibility of European soils

The current state of the art in erosion research lacks knowledge about where and when wind erosion occurs in Europe, and intensity of erosion that poses a threat to agricultural productivity. To gain a better understanding of the geographical distribution of wind erosion processes in Europe, we propose an integrated mapping approach to estimate soil susceptibility to wind erosion. The wind-erodible fraction of soil (EF) is one of the key parameters for estimating the susceptibility of soil to wind erosion. It was computed for 18,730 geo-referenced topsoil samples (from the Land Use/Land Cover Area frame statistical Survey (LUCAS) dataset). Our predication of the spatial distribution of the EF (Chepil, 1950; Fryrear et al., 2000) and a soil surface crust index drew on a series of related but independent covariates, using a digital soil mapping approach (Cubist-rule-based model to calculate the regression, and Multilevel B-Splines to spatially interpolate the Cubist residuals). The spatial interpolation showed a good performance with an overall R2 of 0.89 (in fitting). We observed the spatial patterns of the soils' susceptibility to wind erosion, in line with the state of the art in the literature. We used regional observations in Lower Saxony and Hungary to ensure the applicability of our approach. These regional control areas showed encouraging results, and indicated that the proposed map may be suitable for national and regional investigations of spatial variability and analyses of soil susceptibility to wind erosion.

Study Area

The study area was made up of 25 Member States of the European Union. Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia were excluded from the study because data from their LUCAS soil samples were not available. The total land surface is about 4 million km², providing living space for a population of about 470 million (Eurostat, 2012). According to Eurostat (2012) two-fifths (about 1.55 million km²) of the total land area was used for agricultural purposes in 2007.

Data

The wind-erodible fraction of soil (EF) is provided in GeoTIFF Raster format (32 Bit floating point). To get access to the data, please compile the  online form; instructions will then follow how to download the data. The data download page will provide you access the page containing three available datasets: 1. Revised Wind Erosion Equation (RWEQ) ; 2. Index of Land Susceptibility to Wind Erosion (ILSWE) 1981-2010; 3. Wind-erodible fraction of soil (EF), and 4. Agriculture Field Parameters on NUTS-3 regions for Wind erosion research.

Title: Wind erosion susceptibility of European soils
Description: The wind-erodible fraction of soil (EF) is one of the key parameters for estimating the susceptibility of soil to wind erosion.The predication of the spatial distribution of the EF and a soil surface crust index drew on a series of related but independent covariates, using a digital soil mapping approach. A complete description of the methodology and the application in Europe is described in the paper: Borrelli, P., Ballabio, C., Panagos, P., Montanarella, L. (2014). Wind erosion susceptibility of European soils. Geoderma, 232, 471-478.
Spatial coverage: 25 Member States of the European Union where data available (All EU member states except Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia). 
Pixel size: 500m 
Projection: ETRS89 Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area 
Temporal coverage:2014

Input data source:LUCAS point data, European Soil Database.

Information: Pasquale Borrelli, Panos Panagos
European Commission, Institute of Environment and Sustainability, Land Resource Management Unit, Ispra, Italy. 

References - Citations
Borrelli, P., Ballabio, C., Panagos, P., Montanarella, L. (2014). Wind erosion susceptibility of European soils. Geoderma, 232, 471-478.

 

Maps

Erodible fraction
Figure 1: Map of wind erosion susceptibility of European soils (500 m spatial resolution) based on the estimation of the wind-erodible fraction of soil (EF). Non-erodible surfaces (such as lakes, glaciers, bare rocks and urban areas) were described as No Data.

Figure 2: Comparison of the predicted wind erosion susceptibility of soil (background raster image) with regional observations (represented with yellowish lines), a) The Geest area in Lower Saxony (Gross and Schäfer, 2004), b) Area affect

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