1Sofia 2005
Luca Montanarella
Towards the EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection
2Sofia 2005
Policies for a Sustainable Use of the Soil Resource
• National – USA, Germany, United Kingdom, etc….
• Trans-national (regional)– EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection,
Alpine Convention, Euro-Mediterranean Partnership
• Global– MEA’s: UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD
3Sofia 2005
US Soil Conservation Act 1935
The ‘Dust bowl’
4Sofia 2005
US Soil Conservation Act 1935
• Recognition of the problem• Establishment of the US Soil Conservation
Service• Participatory approach with strong local
partnership (Soil Conservation Districts)• Establishment of technical guidelines• Implementation of soil conservation
measures• Monitoring of results
5Sofia 2005
NRCS National Resources Inventory
6Sofia 2005
Bruxelles, le 16.4.2002COM(2002) 179 final
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL, THEEUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND
THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
Towards a Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/soil/index.htm
7Sofia 2005
• Food and other biomass production
– Agriculture
• Storage, filtering, and transformation
– Water protection
• Habitat and gene pool
– Nature protection
• Physical and cultural environment for mankind
– Archeology and cultural heritage
• Source of raw materials
– Peat, Sand, Clay, etc….
Main functions of soils:
8Sofia 2005
Threats to soil as identified in COM(2002) 179
• Erosion
• Decline in organic matter
• Soil contamination
• Soil sealing
• Soil compaction
• Decline in soil biodiversity
• Salinisation
• Floods and landslides
9Sofia 2005
Council June 2002
EESC September 2002
CoR February 2003
EP May 2003
Opinions of EU Institutions
10Sofia 2005
Participatory approach
Soil mailbox: [email protected]
Soil internet site: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/
policies: Soil
Soil electronic library and discussion site: CIRCA (june 03)
11Sofia 2005
Soil Policy Development Organisational Set-up
Advisory Forum Chair DG ENV
Stakeholders meetings
Chair DG ENV
TWG 1MonitoringGermany/JRC
Co-chair UK
TWG 2Erosion
Spain/BelgiumCo-chair EEB
TWG 3Organic matter
FranceCo-chair IUSS/FEAD
TWG 4Contamination
Austria/NLCo-chair EEA
ISWG = Interservice Working GroupTWG = Technical Working Group
Commission ISWG Chair DG ENV
Technical co-ordination group and secretariat Chair DG ENV
TWG5Research
W. Blum/ RTDCo-chair ELO
12Sofia 2005
http://eusoils.jrc.it/ESDB_Archive/eusoils_docs
13Sofia 2005
The Pan-European Soil Erosion Risk Assessment - PESERA - is a process-based and spatially distributed model to quantify soil erosion by water and assess its risk across Europe
PESERA Soil Erosion Risk Assessment
14Sofia 2005
PESERA Soil Erosion Risk Assessment
15Sofia 2005 Aggregated results
16Sofia 2005
National reports
17Sofia 2005
Observed sediment export
Sediment volume
t/ha/year
Erosion
Amount of sedimentSDR =
Total volume of erosion
Sediment delivery
Predicted sediment export
Reservoir
Basin
Predicted soil erosion
t/ha/year
18Sofia 2005
Validation of research - building confidence
Central Belgium (Verstraeten and Poesen,
K.U.Leuven)
Czech Republic (Dostal et al., CVUT Prague)
Spain (Avendano Salas et al., Devente, Poesen and Verstraeten) Italy (Bazzoffi et al., ISSDS,
Firenze)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
y = 0.4883x + 0.7188
R2 = 0.5445
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00
19Sofia 2005
Develop regionalized approaches for risk assessment
20Sofia 2005
21Sofia 2005
Global soil protection policies:Synergies between the 3 Rio Conventions
SOIL PROTECTION
UNCCDCBD
22Sofia 2005
M. Robert, 2004
23Sofia 2005
24Sofia 2005
European Soil Database: WRB classification
http://eusoils.jrc.it
25Sofia 2005
European land coverCORINE + USGS Eurasia
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
Co
rre
ctio
n F
acto
r
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000Temperature Range (AAAT deg. C)
Semi-natural Cultivated Avg. Ground Data Model
TEMPERATURE CORRECTION FOR OCCeofficient for temperature variation
(> 3 ground measurements)
Avg Annual Temp
Global Historical Clim Network
Soil DB 1:1M
Pedo transfer rules(van Ranst, 1995)
ModelSpatial processing at 1km resolution
soil typetexture ctfTEMP n
AAATcor cos*
Topsoil Organic Carbon Content (30cm)
26Sofia 2005
Organic Carbon (%) No Data 0 - 1 1 - 2 2 - 5 5 - 10 10 - 25 25 - 35 > 35
Organic carbon content (%) in the surface horizon (0-30 cm) of soils
Organic Carbon Gt 0.0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 12.5 15.0
0.5 3.5
5.0
1.6 7.1
0.3
0.8 5.8
0.7
2.0
0.6
5.6
5.7
13.8 12.5
1.5
1.8
1.1
1.1 0.6
1.2 1.0 0.2
0.5 0.5 1.0
2.3
1.0
0.2 0.6
0.2
0.2
National Soil Organic Carbon stocks (0-30cm) in Gt
Model output Aggregated results
Topsoil Organic Carbon Content (30cm)
27Sofia 2005
Stocks of C in soils (0-0.3 m) in France - Arrouays et al. (2002)
3,1 Pg
OC content in topsoils (0-0.3 m) in France - European Soil Database
Organic Carbon (%) No Data 0 - 1 1 - 2 2 - 5 5 - 10 10 - 25 25 - 35 > 35
5,0 Pg
28Sofia 2005
Soil
carb
on
Initialcultivation
C<0 C 0 C>0
Effect onatmospheric
CO2
~
Managementchange
Agricultural land
Emission Sequestration
time
Natural land
increase decrease
We need to detect changes over time: Monitoring!
29Sofia 2005
%OC
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3FYM
FYM since 1885FYM since1968NPK
No fertilisers or manures
FYM applied at 35 t ha-1 yr-1 Goulding
Management/vegetation % C
Old pasture (8-18cm) 1.5Old woodland (13-18cm) 2.4
Broadbalk, after 50 yearscontinuous wheat, 1893
No manure since 1839 (0-23cm) 0.9
Complete minerals and 185kg
(NH4)2SO4 most years since 1843
1.1
14 tons of farmyard manureannually since 1843 (0-23cm)
2.2
Monitoring SOM at Rothamsted
Declining soil organic matter
30Sofia 2005
Change in organic matter content by commune, in Brittany, between 1980-85 and 1990-95 [M. Robert, pers. comm.]
31Sofia 2005
Member States JRC EEAStreamlining the flow of policy relevant soil information in Europe
Reporting policy relevant soil data aggregated by administrative units
ACCESS HARMONISATION REPORTING
Georeferenced Soil Database for Europe
Soil Mapping Unit(Soilscape)
Normalised Statistical Unit
32Sofia 2005
The way forward
• Improve our policy relevant soil information.
• Delineate areas at risk of soil degradation by the various threats.
• Implement existing legislation and MEA’s.
• Monitor the impact of existing legislation on soil protection.
• Develop (if necessary) specific legislative instruments for soil protection.