Soil information Assessing & Monitoring

Since soil is a non-renewable resource, consistent and accessible information about its condition is crucial to prevent degradation and guide evidence-based policies that restore soil health and promote sustainable management. Within this framework, eight EJP SOIL research projects and a dedicated work package have made significant contributions to harmonizing, organizing, and storing soil-related knowledge. During the EJP SOIL program, the European soil landscape underwent major developments, including the launch of the European Soil Observatory (EUSO) in 2021, the Mission Soil initiative, the Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive proposal (European Council, 2024), and the anticipated ESA satellites in 2028.

Framework & Indicators

Assessing soil health necessitates agreement on its definition and its quantification with relevant soil
health indicators (e.g. Faber et al. 2023). Indicators are assessed using target and/or threshold val-
ues, which define achievable levels of the indicators or functions (e.g. Matson et al. 2024).

Peer reviewed articles

Acutis, M.; Tadiello, T.; Perego, A.; Di Guardo, A.; Schillaci, C. & Valkama, E. 2022. EX-TRACT: An excel tool for the estimation of standard deviations from published articles. Environmental Modelling & Software, 147: 1-9.

Assennato F.; Smiraglia D.; Cavalli A.; Congedo L.; Giuliani C.; Riitano N.; Strollo A.; Munafo M. 2022. The Impact of Urbanization on Land: A Biophysical-Based Assessment of Ecosystem Services Loss Supported by Remote Sensed Indicators. Land, 11 (2).

Janku J.; Jehlicka J.; Hermanova K.; Toth D.; Maitah M.; Kozak J.; Vopravil J.; Vacha R.; Jacko K.; Herza T. 2022. An overview of a land evaluation in the context of ecosystem services. Soil and Water Research, 17 (1), 1-14.

Policy briefs and notes

Faber, J. H., Cousin, I., Meurer, K. H. E., Hendriks, C. M. J., Bispo, A., Viketoft, M., ten Damme, L., Montagne, D., Hanegraaf, M. C., Gillikin, A., Kuikman, P., Obiang-Ndong, G., Bengtsson, J., & Taylor, A. R. (2023). Soil health and ecosystem services: monitoring and evaluation. EJP SOIL policy brief. Zenodo.

Matson, A., Fantappiè, M., A. Campbell, G., F. Miranda-Vélez, J., H. Faber, J., Carvalho Gomes,L., Hessel, R., Lana, M., Mocali, S., Smith, P., Robinson, D., Bispo, A., van Egmond,F., Keesstra, S., P.A. Saby, N., Smreczak, B., Froger, C., Suleymanov, A., & Chenu, C.(2024). A framework for setting soil health targets and thresholds in agricultural soils. EJP SOIL policy brief. Zenodo.

Deliverables and reports

Pavlu, L., Sobocka, L., Boruvka, L., Penizek, V., Adamczyk, B., Baumgarten, A., Castro, I.V., Cornu, S., De Boever, M., Don, A., Feiziene, D., & Vervuurt, W. 2021. Towards climate-smart sustainable management of agricultural soils: Deliverable 2.2 Stocktaking on soilquality indicators and associated decision support tools, including ICT tools. EJP SOIL Work Package 2 Deliverable. Wageningen University & Research. 

 

Datasets

Hessel, R., & Trip, M. (2024). SERENA EJPSOIL NL EROSION SOILLOSS (Version 1) [Dataset].

Hessel, R., & Trip, M. (2024). SERENA EJPSOIL NL GHG NEP (version 1) [Dataset].

Oorts, K., Josipovic, D., Luts, D., & Salomez, J. (2024). SERENA EJPSOIL BE Flanders SOCLO-SS SOC 0-20cm cookbook (2024) [version 2 Dataset]. Databank Ondergrond Vlaanderen

Webinars & Educational Materials

Bispo, A., Fantappiè, M., van Egmond, F., Smreczak, B., Bakacsi, Z., Hessel, R., Wetterlind, J., Siebelec, G., & Jones, A. T. (2022). Examen des systèmes de suivi des sols existants pour ouvrir la voie à l’Observatoire Européen des Sols. EJP SOIL snack card.

Janku, J., Jehlicka, J., Hermanova, K., Toth, D., Maitah, M., Kozak, J., Vapravil, J., Vacha, R.,Jacko, K., & Herza, T. (2022). How to evaluate a land? – In the context of ecosystem services. EJP SOIL snack card.

Innovation and Methods for data acquisition

In recent years, soil sensing technologies (both proximal and remote) have emerged as a promising solution to speed up and reduce the cost of soil surveys. The current performance of proximal sensing techniques for soil property estimation was evaluated, including the effect of different spectral transformation, model calibration and transfer approaches for soil property estimation using existing soil spectral libraries (e.g. Metzger et al. 2023). SOC content prediction using remote sensing has been improved using temporal mosaics from time series, available information on soil texture, and accounting for soil moisture (e.g. Urbina-Salazar et al. 2021).

Peer reviewed articles

Lopez-Nunez, R. 2022. Portable X-ray Fluorescence Analysis of Organic Amendments: A Review. Applied Sciences-Basel, 12(14).

Bazzi, H; Baghdadi, N; Nino, P; Napoli, R; Najem, S; Zribi, M; Vaudour, E. 2024. Retrieving Soil Moisture from Sentinel-1: Limitations over Certain Crops and Sensitivity to the First Soil Thin Layer. Water, 16(1): 40.

Ben Dor, E; Efrati, B; Amir, O; Francos, N; Shepherd, J; Khosravi, V; Gholizadeh, A; Klement,A; Boruvka, L. 2024. A standard and protocol for in-situ measurement of surface soil reflectance. Geoderma, 447: 116920.

Datasets

Castaldi, F. (2024). D3.2_20240117_ProbeField_Preprosessed_Spectra_V1 [Data set]. Zenodo.

Castaldi, F. (2024). D3.3_20230919_ProbeField_Aligned_Spectra_V1 [Data set]. Zenodo.

Gabriel, J. L., San-Juan-Heras, R., Delgado, M. del M., Lazaro, A., & Rodríguez-Martín, J. A. (2024). Soil grid data for agricultural fields in Spain for STEROPES (EJP Soil) project (ECe, texture, soil organic carbon, pH) [Data set]. Zenodo.

 

Webinars & Educational Materials

Blanchy, G., Albrecht, L., Koestel, J., & Garré, S. (2023). Empowering environmental research:NLP for metadata extraction. EJP SOIL snack card.

Fohrafellner, J., Zechmeister-Boltenstern, S., Murugan, R., & Valkama, E. (2023). Quality assessment of meta-analyses on soil organic carbon. EJP SOIL snack card.

Knadel, M., Castaldi, F., Barbetti, R., Ben Dor, E., Gholizadeh, A., & Lorenzetti, R. (2022). No “One-technique-fits-all”: multiple techniques should be used for sound data analysis. EJP SOIL snack card

Harmonised soil information, data and monitoring systems

While Europe is relatively data rich, the existing soil information is not harmonized and little shared on national and INSPIRE portals by public institutions (e.g. Cornu et al. 2023, Fantappie et al. 2021).
A draft general agreement for specific data sharing has been proposed, as well as a metadata catalogue of soil datasets and subsequent workflow, guidance and tools to harvest and provide such metadata of soil datasets. Soil monitoring systems across countries studied differ in sampling designs, protocols, analytical methods, and revisit frequencies (Bispo et al. 2023; Froger et al., 2024; Meurer et al., 2024) which can lead to non-comparable data at national and international levels.

Peer reviewed articles

Froger, C. Tondini, E. Arrouays, D., Oorts, K., Poeplau, C., Wetterlind, J., Putku, E.,Saby, N. P. A., Fantappie, M., Styc, Q., Chenu, C., Salomez, J., Callewaert, S., Vanwindekens, F. M., Huyghebaert, B., Herinckx, J., Heilek, S., Harbo, L. S. Gomesi, L. D. C., Lazaro-Lopez, A., Rodriguez, J. A., Pindralk, S., Smreczak, B., Beno, A., Bakacsi, Z., Teuling, K., van Egmond, F., Hutar, V., Palka, B., Abraham, D., Bispo, A. 2024. Comparing LUCAS Soil and National Systems: Towards a Harmonized European Soil Monitoring Network. Science and Remote Sensing, 9: 100118.

Meurer, KHE; Hendriks, CMJ; Faber, JH; Kuikman, PJ; van Egmond, F; Garland, G; Putku, E; Barancikova, G; Makovnikova, J; Chenu, C; Herrmann, AM; Bispo, A. 2024. How does national SOC monitoring on agricultural soils align with the EU strategies? An example using
five case studies. European Journal of Soil Science e13477, (1-20).

Vanino, S.; Pirelli, T.; Di Bene, C.; Bøe, F.; Castanheira, N.; Chenu, C.; Cornu, S.; Feiza, V.; Fornara, D.; Heller, O.; Kasparinskis, R.; Keesstra, S.; Lasorella, M.V.; Madenoğlu, S.; Meurer, K.H.E.; O’Sullivan, L.; Peter, N.; Piccini, C.; Siebielec, G.; Smreczak, B.; Thorsøe, M.H.; Farina, R. 2023. Barriers and opportunities of soil knowledge to address soil challenges: Stakeholders’ perspectives across Europe. Journal of Environmental Management, 325: 116581.

Policy briefs and notes

Mason, E., Froger, C., Bispo, A., Fantappiè, M., Hessel, R., van Egmond, F., Wetterlind, J., Bożena, S., Bakacsi, Z., & Chenu, C. (2023). Soil monitoring systems challenges / recommendations towards harmonization. EJP SOIL policy brief. 

Deliverables and reports

Andrenelli, M. C., Armolaitis, K., Aponte, C., Arrouays, D., Assennato, F., Bakacsi, Z., Barbetti,R., Basile, A., Bevivino, A., Bispo, A., Blombäck, K., Borůvka, L., Buttafuoco, G., Cagnarini, C., Calzolari, C., Callewaert, S., Cockx, K., Cousin, I., D’Avino, L., … Wetterlind, J.(2023). Deliverable 6.5 Guidelines for accounting and mapping agricultural soil carbon, fertility and degradation changes at different scales. EJP SOIL Work Package 6 Deliverable.

Bispo, A., Arrouays, D., Saby, N., Boulonne, L., Fantappiè, M., Armolaitis, K., Bakacsi, Z.,Baumgarten, A., Brenna, S., Dernova, V., van Egmond, E., Hessel, R., Hutar, V., Kasparinskis, R., Knotters, M., Meuli, R. G., Nuutinen, V., Oorst, K., O’Sullivan, L., … Wetterlind, J. (2021). Proposal of methodological development for the LUCAS programme in accordance with national monitoring programmes. EJP SOIL Work Package 6 Deliverable

Fantappiè, M., Peruginelli, G., Conti, S., Rennes, S., Le Bas, C., van Egmond, F., Smreczak, B.,Wetterlind, J., Chenu, C., Bispo, A., Oorts, K., & Bulens, J. (2021). Report on the nationaland EU regulations on agricultural soil data sharing and national monitoring activities. EJP SOIL Work Package 6 Deliverable.

Datasets

Fantappie, M., Bispo, A., Wetterlind, J., Smreczak, B., van Egmond, F., Bakacsi, Z., Farkas-Iványi, K., & Molnár, S. (2023). EJP SOIL project, WP6 – Questionnaire for supporting harmonised soil information and reporting.

Poeplau, C., Don, A., Flessa, H., Heidkamp, A., Jacobs, A., & Prietz, R. (2020). First German Agricultural Soil Inventory – Core dataset. OpenAgrar.

Webinars & Educational Materials

Bispo, A., Fantappiè, M., van Egmond, F., Smreczak, B., Bakacsi, Z., Hessel, R., Wetterlind, J., Siebelec, G., & T. Jones, A. (2022). A review of existing soil monitoring systems. EJP SOIL snack cards.

Murugan, R., Meurer, K., Fohrafellner, J., Kasper, M., Ecker, E., Bergese, F., Mason, E., & Zechmeister-Boltenstern, S. (2024). A participatory meta data catalogue for sharing data. EJPSOIL snack card.

Vašát, R., Vacek, O., & Borůvka, L. (2023). Spatial structure of pedodiversity. EJP SOIL snack card

Find the complete list of publications here.

Illustration of agricultural land being monitored by a drone and other scientific tools. By Laura Laroche

Illustration by Laura Laroche

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