Global Soil Partnership, European Soil Partnership

Dr Allan Lilly, F.I.Soil Sci. Principal Soil Scientist Chair, European Soil Bureau Network

To support and facilitate joint efforts towards sustainable management of soil resources for food security and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Endorsed by 193 UN nations at Rio+20,

Currently there is an Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils

Encourages formation of Regional Partnerships

Pillar 1: Sustainable soil Management

Pillar 4: Soil data and Information

Pillar 3: Research

Pillar 2: Investment,

awareness, extension

Pillar 5: Harmonize, standardize,

facilitate, manage

Relationship between Pillars:

Global Earth Observing System of Systems eg Land cover, climate

IUSS WG SIS

Pillar 4: GSP Action Plan Initial 23 Recommendations from ITPS reduced to 4 high-level: 1. An enduring system for monitoring and forecasting the condition of soil resources 2. This system to use national and regional soil data though a collaborative network and include facilities to incorporate new data – distributed design, IP remains with data providers 3. Soil information should integrate with ‘Earth Observation System’ 4. There should be a training programme for new monitoring, mapping and forecasting specialists

Pillar 4: Why do we need a Soil Information System?

Is there enough land with good soil to feed the population? Are we managing soil, nutrients and water to maximise yields, maintain other functions and minimise degradation/GHG emissions? The quality of global soil datasets compares poorly with other on eg geology, land cover, climate

Pillar 4: Current position:

FAO-appointed consultant /WG to turn Action Plan into an Implementation Plan:

• Governance • Global datasets

o Grid o Profile

• Monitoring , forecasting and reporting • Integrate with GEOSS • Training

GEOSS -Global Earth Observation System of Systems

Pillar 4: European Soil Partnership Proposed lead organisation: European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN): >50 experts from >35 European countries (Voluntary) • 1:1 M soil map Europe • Supporting profile datasets

o SPADE o HYPRES o EU-HYDI

• Monitoring o ENVASSO o LUCAS

Land Use/Cover Area frame Statistical Survey

"A cloak of loose, soft material, held to the earth's hard surface by gravity, is all that lies between life and lifelessness." - Wallace H. Fuller, 1975.

Global Soil Partnership, European Soil Partnership

Dr Allan Lilly, F.I.Soil Sci. Principal Soil Scientist Chair, European Soil Bureau Network

Pillar 1: Sustainable soil Management

Pillar 4: Soil data and Information

Pillar 3: Research

Pillar 2: Investment,

awareness, extension

Pillar 5: Harmonize, standardize,

facilitate, manage

Relationship between Pillars:

Global Earth Observing System of Systems eg Land cover, climate

IUSS WG SIS

Links to other Groups European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN): • >50 experts from >35 European countries • Voluntary Network • 1:1 M soil map Europe • Supporting profile datasets

o SPADE o HYPRES o EU-HYDI

• Monitoring o ENVASSO

European Soil Partnership

• FAO Global Soil Partnership sees establishment of Regional elements.

• Build on existing regional networks or collaborative processes (e.g. Danube, ESBN) by linking national and local networks, partners, projects and activities.

• Address regional goals / priorities through implementation of Action Plan to strengthen work on soils and to develop synergies with other relevant initiatives and activities.

Pillar 4: Enhance the quantity and quality of soil data and information: data collection (generation), analysis, validation, reporting, monitoring and integration with other disciplines.

Mapping Europe using Digital Methods

UK

Ireland

France

Danube Basin

Denmark

16 countries

Czech Republic

Methodology for Danube Basin – a model for Europe?

• Agree on a common database structure to support soil and land policy development.

• Attribute tables linked to the structures and standards outlined in the documentation of the INSPIRE, SGDBE and e-SOTER schemes.

• Develop a coherent physiographic polygon base derived from SOTER principles based on high resolution DEM coverage.

• Soil information to be extracted from relevant national sources (e.g. legacy data, profile archives, remote sensing, etc.) to populate the physiographic polygons.

• This approach has a strong subsidiarity status as there is no obligation for the transfer of primary datasets from Member States as the generation /assignment of soil data are carried out by the relevant

national organizations. • Data will be INSPIRE compliment.

SOTER

Underpinning SOTER is the identification of areas of land with a distinctive, often repetitive, pattern of landform, lithology, surface form, slope, parent material and soil. Tracts of land distinguished in this manner are named SOTER units. Each SOTER unit thus represents one unique combination of terrain and soil characteristics (i.e. a SMU and STU).

Harmonised data collection and monitoring

Current assessments of the state and trends of soil characteristics across Europe are difficult due to a lack of current and harmonised data and monitoring systems. Policy makers require up-to-date information for effective decision-making.

• Development of harmonised soil sampling programme for non-EU counties in the Danube river basin based on the JRC's LUCAS-Soil methodology;

• Development of benchmark soil sites to assess changes in soil conditions;

• Focused collection of land and soil data through EIONET-SOIL network.

ESBN contribution to soil data collections and monitoring

• Supporting profile datasets o SPADE - profile database (largely voluntary) o HYPRES - soil physical data (Mobility funding) o EU-HYDI - soil physical/chemical data

(Voluntary/JRC led)

• Monitoring o ENVASSO – (EU funded) (ENVironmental ASsessment of Soil for mOnitoring)

Potential next steps – ESBN co-ordination

• Confirm status as national data holders and willingness to collaborate – Coalition of the Willing

• establish current status of national soil data holdings with attributes proposed by new methodology.

• Confirmation of methodology

• Define eventual database structure, spatial infrastructure, road map and timeline.

• Establishment of regional development groups (based on Soil Regions model, proximity, climate zones,…?).

• Advisory panel to assist in implementation of project.

• Work closely with JRC initiatives

"The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt “Consider what each soil will bear, and what each refuses.” Virgil

E-SOTER e-SOTER: EC-funded FP7 project, 3.5 years, 14 partners

show how advances in land sensing technologies could be used to support and advance the SOTER methodology.

The e-SOTER project showed that

• landform units could be successfully derived from DEM,

• soil patterns could (in some conditions) be mapped by remote sensing

• legacy data already held in the European Geographical Soil Database and various national databases could be used to describe SOTER soil units.

A further conclusions of the project was that the SOTER methodology could be adapted to develop a 1:250,000 product for Europe.

Soil attribute data GlobalSoilMap.net Twelve soil properties will be predicted at each location to a depth of 2m where possible at fixed depth intervals. These are:

(1) total profile depth (cm),

(2) plant exploitable (effective) soil depth (cm),

(3) organic carbon (g/kg),

(4) pH,

(5) sand (g/kg), (6) silt (g/kg), (7) clay (g/kg), (8) gravel (g/kg),

(9) ECEC (cmolc/kg)

(10) bulk density fine earth (Mg/m3)

(11) bulk density (Mg/m3) and

(12) available water capacity (mm).

Each soil property will have an estimate of the uncertainty associated with the prediction for each depth for each grid location. Uncertainty is defined as the 95% prediction interval (PI), which is the range in values within which the true value at any prediction location is expected to be found 19 times out of 20 (95%).

Pillar 4: GSP Action Plan Shared technical advances/ Training Harmonized World Soil Database to be updated/Enhanced profile database 1km vs 100m grid to be resolved e SOTER approach possible Pillar 4 Action Plan endorsed by GSP Plenary Working Group formed End 2014 to further develop and firm up the Action Plan

GlobalSoilMap.net Supported by the Australian Government and IUSS, this

project includes CSIRO, NRCS and ISRIC

the aim is to produce a global map of specific soil properties at a 100m resolution based on the principles of digital soil mapping.

There will be regional nodes

The consortium secured money from the Gates Foundation project to map the soils of sub-Saharan Africa at a scale of 100m

Much of the work will be based on legacy data with some new spectral data collected

http://www.globalsoilmap.net/

eSoter – Soil and Terrain Digital soil mapping protocol based on the traditional soils and terrain protocols. Also uses legacy soil data. Designed to provide a framework for producing a new soil map of the world and an accompanying soil database.

using remotely-sensed data both to validate and correct existing survey data (and identify soil parent materials)

generating new data surfaces – including DEM

improving the quality of results of applications previously based on legacy data alone

Could contribute to a global soil map AND provide grid data required by Global Soil Map consortium

Soter GlobalSoilMap

Spatial entity polygons Points and blocks

Spatial entity area Variable, but limited by the scale at which polygons are represented

90x90-m

Soil information Soil types and representative soil profiles. Diagnostic soil properties, derived soil parameters

Selected mandatory soil parameters (not limited) at fixed depths intervals + uncertainties

Scale 1:250,000 No scale

Data used DEM, PM maps, soil maps, RS, soil profiles…

Same…

Method Basically => draw polygons on physiography and parent material => put soil information in it.

Not unique. Various DSM methods depending on available data. Options provided in the specs.

Complementarity Soter as a co-variate for Global Soil map predictions ?

Global Soil Map as data to populate Soter ?

Soter and GlobalSoilMap – Some good reasons to collaborate

The data to create the products are basically the same

The soil experts are the same

Both polygon and raster maps are useful

They can benefit from mutual enrichment

JRC and some member states are already working on a GlobalSoilMap product at country or EU level