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Temporary Dataset Download: Cover Management factor (C-factor) for the EU

Dataset Access Expires on

21-October-2021

Notifications

  1. 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 .
  2. 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.
  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).

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

References:
A complete description of the methodology and the application in Europe is described in the paper:
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

The References to the source are always necessary!

Data

The user can download 2 different datasets:

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.

A dataset update for C-factor (Reference year: 2016) is also available

Support practices

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. 2020. An indicator to reflect the mitigating eect of Common Agricultural Policy on soil erosion. Land Use Policy . 92, 104467.

Joint Research Centre - European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC)
ID 47720
Date - Time Thu, 10/07/2021 - 16:09
Name of User Rodhraí Crowley
Organization Munster Technological University
Type of Organization University
-- Other
E-mail rodhrai.crowley@mycit.ie
Purpose This data will be used for integration into a hydrological model for a river catchment to estimate the C component of the MUSLE equation with the ultimate goal of simulating a catchment sediment yield.
Notes

When making reference to the ESDAC

  • 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