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Towards a Multi-scale European Soil Information SystemM. Van Liedekerke, P. Panagos, L. Montanarella (Joint Research Centre)

N. Filippi (Regione Emilia-Romagna, DG Ambiente)

Contact: Marc Van Liedekerke

European Commission • DG Joint Research Centre

Insitute for Environment and Sustainability

Tel. +39 0332 785179 • Fax +39 0332 786394

E-mail: marc.van-liedekerke@jrc.it

During the last years the need for a coherent approach to soil protection has come on the political agenda in Europe; it was introduced as one of the thematic strategies within the Community’s 6th Environment Action Programme.

In 2006 a proposal for a

European Soil Framework Directive

was made which

includes the requirement for data collection of various types of soil related policy-relevant data by Member States, allowing policy-makers to assess the state of soils at European level.

The creation of European soil datasets is not new. The

European Soil Database (ESDB)covering EU-25 has been developed jointly with European partners and is the only harmonized coverage of digital soil information for Europe. It is

the result of a complex and time-consuming

undertaking, due to the vast heterogeneity of soil data in countries.

In the light of updates to such a database and of collecting data

in relation to the upcoming SFWD,

simplification is needed through a suitable technical framework.

One of the INSPIRE ideas is to conduct

reporting and analysis of environmental information on the basis of a harmonized and hierarchical system of grids

with a common point of origin and a standardized location and size of grid cells.

This system constitutes a suitable framework for the

building of a nested system of soil data and facilitates

interoperability

through a common coordinate reference system, a unique grid coding system, a set of detailed and standardized metadata and an exchangeable and open format.

http://eusoils.jrc.it

many soil property maps – vector or grid –can be derived

Q: How to update each map? How to assemble new soil data maps ?

A: Through the exchange of standardized grids; each grid represents a soil property ; each cell within a grid is filled with a value for that soil property

unique cell cell-code

Lombardy region

comune or province