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Temporary Dataset Download: Soil pH in Europe

Dataset Access Expires on

28-May-2026

Notifications

  1. The data of the "Map of Soil pH in Europe" have been prepared for use by the Land Resource Management Unit (Institute for Environment & Sustainability) of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission.
  2. The data of the "Map of Soil pH in Europe" were elaborated by the DG Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) through the processing of data available at the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC). The data are the result of a JRC internal research activity; the underlying model and resulting data still need to be validated and verified; no formal quality check on the data has been made yet. The JRC, on behalf of the Commission, does not accept any liability whatsoever for any error, missing data or omissions in the data, or for any loss or damage arising from its use. The JRC, on behalf of the Commission, agrees to provide the data free of charge but is not bound to justify the content and values contained in the databases.
  3. 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.
  4. 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).

Soil pH in Europe

Download the Data

 

The JRC created a quantitative map of estimated soil pH values across Europe from a compilation of 12,333 soil pH measurements from 11 different sources, and using a geo-statistical framework based on Regression-Kriging. Fifty-four (54) auxiliary variables in the form of raster maps at 1km resolution were used to explain the differences in the distribution of soil pHCaCl2 and the kriged map of the residuals from the regression model was added. The goodness of fit of the regression model was satisfactory (R2adj = 0.43) and its residuals follow a Gaussian distribution. The lowest values correspond to the soils developed on acid rock (granites, quartzite’s, sandstones, etc), while the higher values are related to the presence of calcareous sediments and basic rocks. The validation of the model shows that the model is quite accurate (R2adj = 0.56). This shows the validity of Regression-Kriging in the estimation of the distribution of soil properties when a large and adequately documented number of soil measurements are available.

The soil pH map comes in 2 formats:

- as a ESRI GRID (in the link above)

- (since 16/09/2024, for the convenience of the user) as a geoTiff file.

Publication - Citations

The data are explained in a publication: "CONTINENTAL-SCALE DIGITAL SOIL MAPPING USING EUROPEAN SOIL PROFILE DATA: SOIL PH", Hannes Isaak Reuter, Luis Rodriguez Lado, Tomislav Hengl & Luca Montanarella, Hamburger Beiträge zur Physischen Geographie und Landschaftsökologie – 92 Heft 19/2008, pp. 91-102.

(in Böhner, J., Blaschke, T., Montanarella, L. [Eds.] (2008): SAGA – Seconds Out. Hamburger Beiträge zur Physischen Geographie und Landschaftsökologie, Vol.19, 113pp.)

'Map of Soil pH in Europe', Land Resources Management Unit, Institute for Environment & Sustainability, European Commission – Joint Research Centre, 2010

 

Joint Research Centre - European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC)
ID 129075
Date - Time Thu, 05/14/2026 - 16:37
Name of User Joan S. Fuster
Organization Universitat Politècnica de València
Type of Organization University
-- Other
E-mail joan.s.fuster@gmail.com
Purpose academic project in cartography and environmental sciences
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