Govern our soils

Global soil governance and the Global Soil Partnership.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

Use of soil and climate data to assess the risk of agricultural drought for policy support in Europe.

This paper describes the use of soil and climatic data for assessing the risk of drought in Europe. Soil moisture regimes are defined for soil classification purposes and these can be used to delineate areas with the same type of soil climate. Maps showing the distribution of arid soils in USA and dry areas in Southern Europe are presented. In the case of agricultural drought, it is the soil water available to plants (SWAP) that is the most important soil factor in assessing this risk and a simple model for estimating this is described. This model can be linked to spatial and point data from the European Soil Database. In the absence of sufficient soil water retention measurements, preliminary maps of SWAP in Europe have been produced using pedotransfer rules. The study concludes that basic soil maps can be used to identify some areas where agricultural drought is likely to be a problem. However more precise modelling of droughtiness, based on interactions of soil available water with the average soil moisture deficit, estimated from meteorological data, is needed, to support policy making today

Potential synergies between existing multilateral environmental agreements in the implementation of Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry activities

There is potential for synergy between the global environmental conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification: changes in land management and land use undertaken to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions can simultaneously deliver positive outcomes for conservation of biodiversity, and mitigation of desertification and land degradation. However, while there can be complementarities between the three environmental goals, there are often tradeoffs. Thus, the challenge lies in developing land use policies that promote optimal environmental outcomes, and in implementing these locally to promote sustainable development. The paper considers synergies and tradeoffs in implementing land use measures to address the objectives of the three global environmental conventions, both from an environmental and economic perspective. The intention is to provide environmental scientists and policy makers with a broad overview of these considerations, and the benefits of addressing the conventions simultaneously.Climate change, LULUCF, Biodiversity, Desertification, Sustainable development.

Facing policy challenges with inter- and transdisciplinary soil research focused on the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Our current information society, populated by increasingly well-informed and critical stakeholders, presents a challenge to both the policy and science arenas. The introduction of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offers a unique and welcome opportunity to direct joint activities towards these goals. Soil science, even though it is not mentioned as such, plays an important role in realizing a number of SDGs focusing on food, water, climate, health, biodiversity, and sustainable land use. A plea is made for a systems approach to land use studies, to be initiated by soil scientists, in which these land-related SDGs are considered in an integrated manner. To connect with policy makers and stakeholders, two approaches are functional. The first of these is the policy cycle when planning and executing research, which includes signaling, design, decision making, implementation, and evaluation. Many current research projects spend little time on signaling, which may lead to disengagement of stakeholders. Also, implementation is often seen as the responsibility of others, while it is crucial to demonstrate – if successful – the relevance of soil science. The second approach is the DPSIR approach when following the policy cycle in land-related research, distinguishing external drivers, pressures, impact, and responses to land use change that affect the state of the land in the past, present, and future. Soil science cannot by itself realize SDGs, and interdisciplinary studies on ecosystem services (ESs) provide an appropriate channel to define contributions of soil science in terms of the seven soil functions. ESs, in turn, can contribute to addressing the six SDGs (2, 3, 6, 12, 13, and 15) with an environmental, land-related character. SDGs have a societal focus and future soil science research can only be successful if stakeholders are part of the research effort in transdisciplinary projects, based on the principle of time-consuming “joint learning”. The internal organization of the soil science discipline is not yet well tuned to the needs of inter- and transdisciplinary approaches.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

An SRTM based Procedure to Delineate SOTER Terrain Units on 1:1 and 1:5 million Scales

The work presented here has taken advantage from the emerging digital soil mapping technology and the 90 m resolution Shuttle Radar Topography Missions (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM) for the development of a quantitative procedure for SOTER Terrain Unit delineation. Tha target scale were 1:1 and 1:5 million. The procedure is based on the SOTER Manual specifications and is meant to be compatible with the datasets formally developed using the traditional way. Meanwhile, suggested changes regarding the Terrein Units delineation have already been implemented.JRC.H.6-Spatial data infrastructure

Use of Descriptive Statistical Indicators for Aggregating Environmental Data in Multi-Scale European Databases

There is a strong need for accurate and spatially referenced information regarding policy making and model linkage. This need has been expressed by land users, and policy and decision makers in order to estimate spatially and locally the impacts of European policy (like the Common Agricultural Policy) and/or global changes on economic agents and consequently on natural resources (Cantelaube et al., 2012). The proposal for a framework Directive (COM (2006) 232) (EC, 2006) sets out common principles for protecting soils across the EU. Within this common framework, the EU Member States will be in a position to decide how best to protect soil and how use it in a sustainable way on their own territory. In this policy document, European Commission identifies 8 soil threats: soil erosion, soil organic carbon decline, salinisation, landslides, soil compaction, biodiversity and soil contamination. The policy document explains why EU action is needed to ensure a high level of soil protection, and what kind of measures must be taken. As the soil threats have been described in the proposed Soil Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection (COM (2006) 231), there is a need to address them and relative issues at various scales; from local/province scale, to regional/national scale, and at the end to continental/global scale. The modeling platform should be constructed in such a way that knowledge and information can be passed along the spatial scales causing the minimum loss of information. Particular interest will be given to outputs from the aggregation model such as organic carbon decline, soil erosion and soil. Soil data and information are highly relevant for the development, implementation and assessment of a number of EU policy areas: agriculture, soil protection, bio-energy, water protection, nature protection, development policy, health and sustainable development. All those policy areas request soil data in various scales depending on the application.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

Integrated monitoring and trans national coordination to support sustainable land management strategies: ideas for new joint Euro-Mediterranean initiatives: special EU report

The aim ofthis paper is double: I. To discuss and comment some of the achievement reached by the MEDCOASTLAND Thematic Network in relation to desertification indicators; 2. To present some initiatives, recently accomplished or currently on-going at the European/Mediterranean level, which could be used as examples, or exported, in the frame of new, integrated joint Euro-Mediterranean initiatives which could be promoted with reference to the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme (7th FP). The projects considered are MEDRAP, related to "intemational and regional coordination and harmonisation" and DESERTWATCII, related to "data based operational monitoring system"

Soil Quality and Sustainability Evaluation - an Integrated Approach to Support Soil-Related Policies in the European Union - A JRC Position Paper

In the context of the policies of the European Union the purposes of soil quality descriptions can be on the one hand represented by the performed functions of the soil, which correspond to the land use goals. With the consideration of soil dynamics through responses to human or natural impacts on the other hand, a complex approach is achieved that gives a solid ground to evaluate and relate the quality of soil according to the requirements of sustainability. Therefore functions and responses are considered in our soil quality perception with special regards to major degradation threats, which are in the focus of the Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection in the European Union. Concept and definitions in the soil quality domain (soil quality, soil threath index, soil sustainability index etc.) are given in the report. The report provides a framework for soil quality and sustainability evaluation, that can be applied in variouse planning and decision making procedures.JRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazard

Combining Soil Databases for Topsoil Organic Carbon Mapping in Europe

In this paper, SOC contents of Koiliaris (Greece), Damma Glacier (Switzerland), Lysina (Czech Republic) and Fuchsenbigl (Austria) critical zone observatories (CZOs) have been investigated by Regression-Kriging method. Different environmental predictors (elevation, slope, aspect, TWI, temperature, precipitation, geology, land-cover map, soil map) were used to predict distribution of organic carbon and producing a continuous map for the study areas. Soil characteristics and watershed dynamics of these study areas, which all take part in SoilTrEC Project as CZOs by representing degraded (Koiliaris), new (Damma Glacier), forest (Lysina) and agriculture (Fuchsenbigl) soils, are totally different from each other. As a conclusion, this study helps us to monitor soil organic carbon distributions in different conditions in the digital soil mapping perspective and also to summarize the characteristics of the four CZOs in Europe.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

Threats to Soil Quality in Europe

During the recent years, there has been a surge of concern and attention in Europe to soil degradation processes. One of the most innovative aspects of the newly proposed Soil Thematic Strategy for the EU is the recognition of the multifunctionality of soils. This report is summarizing the reserch results on the fields of soil degradation and soil quality reserach. Chapters of the report include: Preface Characterisation of soil degradation risk: an overview Soil quality in the European Union Main threats to soil quality in Europe The Natural Susceptibility on European Soils to Compaction Soil Erosion: a main threats to the soils in Europe Soil Erosion risk assessment in the alpine area according to the IPCC scenarios An example of the threat of wind erosion using DSM techniques Updated map of salt affected soils in the European Union A framework to estimate the distribution of heavy metals in European Soils Application of Soil Organic Carbon Status Indicators for policy-decision making in the EU Main threats on soil biodiversity: The case of agricultural activities impacts on soil microarthropods Implications of soil threats on agricultural areas in Europe MEUSIS, a Multi-Scale European Soil Information System (MEUSIS): novel ways to derive soil indicators through UpscalingJRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazard