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Notifications
- The data provided has been prepared for use by internal research activities in the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in the context of developing the new Soil Loss Map of Europe .
- The data were developed for research purposes of the JRC (European Commission). The JRC does not accept any liability whatsoever for any error, missing data or omission in the data, or for any loss or damage arising from its use. The JRC agrees to provide the data free of charge but is not bound to justify the content and values contained in the databases.
- The permission to use the data specified above is granted on condition that, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES are these data passed to third parties. They can be used for any purpose, including commercial gain.
- The user agrees to:
a) Make proper reference to the source of the data when disseminating the results to which this agreement relates;
b) Participate in the verification of the data (e.g. by noting and reporting any errors or omissions discovered to the JRC).
C-Factor
In arable lands, the C-factor was estimated using crop statistics (% of land per crop) and data on management practices such as conservation tillage, plant residues and winter crop cover. The C-factor in non-arable lands was estimated by weighting the range of literature values found according to fractional vegetation cover, which was estimated based on the remote sensing dataset Fcover. Conservation management practices (reduced/no tillage, use of cover crops and plant residues) reduce the C-factor by on average 19.1% in arable lands
Title: Cover Management(C-factor) factor of soil erosion by water at European Scale.
Description: The C-factor (Cover and Management) is presented at 100m resolution. This C-factor was estimated for a) arable lands based on crop composition and for b) all other land uses (non-arable) based on the vegetation density and land cover type. The management practices (reduced tillage/no till, plant residues and winter cover crops) were taken into account in estimating C-factor in arable lands.
Spatial coverage: European Union (28 Countries)
Pixel size: 100 m
Measurement Unit: Dimensionless
Projection: ETRS89 Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area
Temporal coverage: 2010 - Updates are also available for the years 2000, 2016 and 2023.
References:
A complete description of the methodology and the application in Europe is described in the papers:
Panagos, P., Borrelli, P., Meusburger, C., Alewell, C., Lugato, E., Montanarella, L., 2015. Estimating the soil erosion cover-management factor at European scale. Land Use policy journal. 48C, 38-50. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.05.021
Borrelli, P., Panagos , P. 2026. A data-driven indicator for assessing the evolving impact of the EU Common Agricultural Policy on soil erosion mitigation. Data in Brief, 112390, DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2025.112390
Borrelli, P.; Panagos, P. 2020. An indicator to reflect the mitigating eff ect of Common Agricultural Policy on soil erosion. Land Use Policy . 92, 104467.
Data
The user can download 2 different datasets for the year 2010.
1) The C-factor dataset is in Raster format: Cover-management factor (C-factor) in the European Union at 100m resolution (1.1 GB)
2) Shapefile for arable lands where the user can map:
a) Cover-Management factor (C-factor) in arable lands at regional (NUTS2) level in the European Union (field: C_factor)
b) Influence of Tillage practices on C-factor reduction (field: ImTillage)
c) Influence of plant residues on C-factor reduction (field: ImResid)
d) Influence of cover crops on C-factor reduction (field: ImCover).
Moreover, in this shape file there are additional fields:
- ImAll: Impact of all 3 management practices (Tillage, plant residues, cover crops)
- C_factor_N: C-factor based only on crop composition (without taking into account the 3 management practices)
- Only _Tilla, CoverCrop, Only_Resid: are the 3 C-factors taking into account only the corresponding practice.
Update 1 (03/2020): A dataset update for C-factor (Reference year: 2016) is available . The increase of land under soil conservation practices and the land cover change have contributed to decreasing the mean C-factor by –0.8%.
Update 2 (12/2025): An update of the the C-factor in arable lands (Reference year: 2023) is available. This update focus in Arable lands. An update for the C-factor in Pre-GAEC period (Reference year: 2000) is available. Thereofe, for aranble lands 4 datasets exist for the periods : 2000, 2010, 2016, 2023
Panagos, P., Borrelli, P., Meusburger, C., Alewell, C., Lugato, E., Montanarella, L., 2015. Estimating the soil erosion cover-management factor at European scale. Land Use policy journal. 48C, 38-50. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.05.021
Borrelli, P., Panagos , P. 2026. A data-driven indicator for assessing the evolving impact of the EU Common Agricultural Policy on soil erosion mitigation. Data in Brief, 112390, DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2025.112390
Borrelli, P.; Panagos, P. 2020. An indicator to reflect the mitigating eff ect of Common Agricultural Policy on soil erosion. Land Use Policy . 92, 104467.
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Joint Research Centre - European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC)
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|---|---|
| ID | 123586 |
| Date - Time | Sat, 01/10/2026 - 16:40 |
| Name of User | Janis Donis |
| Organization | Silava |
| Type of Organization | Research Organization |
| -- Other | |
| janis.donis@silava.lv | |
| Purpose | test soil erosion risk in forest |
| Notes |
When making reference to the ESDAC
- Panagos, P., Van Liedekerke, M., Borrelli, P., Köninger, J., Ballabio, C., Orgiazzi, A., Lugato, E., Liakos, L., Hervas, J., Jones, A. Montanarella, L. 2022. European Soil Data Centre 2.0: Soil data and knowledge in support of the EU policies. European Journal of Soil Science, 73(6), e13315. DOI: 10.1111/ejss.13315
- Panagos P., Van Liedekerke M., Jones A., Montanarella L., “European Soil Data Centre: Response to European policy support and public data requirements”; (2012) Land Use Policy, 29 (2), pp. 329-338. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2011.07.003
- European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu, European Commission, Joint Research Centre