The European Soil Data Center

欧洲土壤数据中心

Gergely Tóth, Panos Panagos, Marc van Liedekerke,, Luca MontanarellaEUROPEAN COMMISSIONJOINT RESEARCH CENTRE

Institute for Environment and Sustainability

•is the thematic centre for soil related data in Europe

•one of the ten environmental data centres in Europe

- established in 2006 by DG ENV, DG JRC, ESTAT and the EEA (Go4)

The European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC):

• Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS)

• European Environmental Data Centers (Go4)

EUROSTATWaste

Natural resourcesIPP

JRCSoil

Forest

EEAClimate Change

WaterAir

Land useBiodiversity

DG ENVData requirements

The “technical arrangement” in the Go4 specifies that:

“a data centre will act as the primary data contact point for DG ENV in order to fulfill DG ENV’s information needs.

It will have the task of ensuring that the collected data fit DG ENV’srequirements, that data collection is organized in an efficient way, that the necessary quality assurance is performed and that all relevant existing data are accessible to other parties.

It will have the primary responsibility for organizing the availability and quality of the data required for policy.

Data collection and quality control activities in relation to such data need to be fully co-ordinated with the data centre, which should also take steps to ensure that user needs are taken fully into account”

Data Centres are driven by DG ENV requirements

Background ESDAC

• ESDAC becomes the single focal point for policy relevant soil data and information at EU level (one of the 10 Data Centers)

• DG ENV and EEA requirements are taken into account (yearly)

• New data will be produced by JRC and quality-controlled and hosted in the ESDAC

• ESDAC is one node in a system consisting of distributed data nodes: as a soil data node, it holds soil data at European level, while other soil data nodes at regional, national or global level focus on data of different scales.

• ESDAC allows linking to data and information from National providers, fully complying with the INSPIRE principle of delocalized data systems in a networked approach (interoperability)

• ESDAC is as “open” as legally possible, meaning that if data and information resident in the ESDAC can legally be published, the system will do. Even when a product is protected for access by only privileged users, efforts will be made in order to present its metadata to the user.

ESDAC Operation

Information Providers

ESDAC Catalogue of available resourcesMetadata system that describes and points to various soil resource types: datasets, services/applications, documents, events, projects and external links

ESDAC Map Viewer Navigate key soil data for Europe

European Soil Portal The virtual place where all ESDAC resources are located. The current data and information service makes available four types of products: data, documents, data-based applications and scanned maps. In addition it provides access to: soil projects(FP6-FP7), documentation on the EU soil threats, Awareness Raising activities and Events-Presentations

ESDAC Components

ESDAC User Base (Mailing List)> 2.000 MembersMonthly NewsletterInform the Soil Communities about the latest news in SoilNetwork of ExpertsEuropean Soil Bureau Network, EIONETHelpDeskSupport is important and ESDAC provides Helpdesk (more than 500 Requests on helpdesk in 2011)IT Support Long Term Mandate

ESDAC Tools

Download the for free (no costs) by accepting the license agreement

Simple process: Enter the User Details in a Web formName, Organisation, E-mail, Country of Origin, purpose for which the data will be used.

ESDAC AuthorisationESDAC helpdesk Authorises/Rejects the user request

ESDAC Data LogUseful information/feedback both for ESDAC and for Project Managers

Data: Authentication Mechanism

In practice:

• inventory of EU soil data; creation of metadata; make available on eusoils.jrc.it

• Adapted http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ with an ESDAC corner

• Development of a new technical platform• Metadata catalogue according to INSPIRE suggested standards

(ISO19115) – populated with metadata for local holdings• Local search of the metadata

• In process of setting-up JRC Framework contract for the performance of soil related studies (call published)

• In process of setting-up a list of soil data providers (in preparation)

• Collection of data requirements from DG ENV

• Established a working link between EIONET/EEA and ESDAC in relation to data on “contaminated land/sites”

ESDAC development

In practice• Launch the new technical platform (October 2008)

• Extend this new technical platform in order to make it interoperable with other meta-data catalogues (de-centralized; distributed search)

• Incorporate new data/metadata (including Biosoil and LUCAS)

• Start work with a new ESBN working group: how could ESDAC work with Member States in order to build an INSPIRE compliant soil data community

• We encourage organizations to send to ESDAC metadata concerning their soil data holdings to integrate in the ESDAC catalogue, but pointing to external source

ESDAC development

ESDAC ESDAC: EU - node

Member State - nodes

Soil Metadata; Soil data

Data distribution

Since Jan 2011, an automated ESDAC data distribution systemIn 2011: 1308 data requests (3 times more comparing to 2010)17 datasets are delivered through this system

Dataset Number of RequestsAverage Monthly requested rate

Available Since

European Soil Database 1164 24.25 Nov-06

Soil Organic Carbon 192 2.67 Nov-04

Soil Erosion (PESERA) 193 2.68 Nov-04

Soil Compaction 18 1.50 Oct-09

Salinization 19 1.58 Oct-09

pH 18 1.80 Jan-10

TOTAL 1604

Geographicalof data requests

Global Impact: ESDAC has served user data requests from 68 countries12% of requests come from outside of the European UnionEU Policy: European Commission services account for 2.5% (39 registrations) of the total requests

Panagos et al, (2012) Land Use Policy Journal

Application of ESDAC data

Intended Use No of Requests %

Education 53 3.30%

Education & Research 39 2.43%

Policy 133 8.29%

Research 1085 67.64%

Assessment - Study 212 13.22%

Other 82 5.11%

PhD, 131

Other, 201

Project, 279

Model, 382

Publication, 12Master (M.Sc), 47

Undergraduate, 21PostDoc, 8

Panagos et al, (2012) Land Use Policy Journal

Scale No of Requests %

European/Global Scale 506 31.55%

National/Regional Scale 519 32.59%

Not defined 579 36.10%

Scale of data use

Intended Use

ESDAC and policy making (1)

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP): SoCo, Soil Erosion rates, Organic carbon, Less Favourable Areas(LFA)EU Forest Action Plan: Biosoil forest soil monitoring programmeClimate Change policies: Soil organic carbon data Land use policy: soil organic carbon, pH, compaction, soil erosion and salinization are used to identify land use changesRenewable Energies (Biofuel): ESDAC Data for calculation guidelines of land carbon stocks Protection of EU consumers and food security: models estimating exposure of pesticides to soil organisms Land Take (Soil Sealing) and food security: During the period 1990-2006 the lost Potential Agricultural Production Capability is estimated around 6.2 Million tons of wheat in 19 EU Member States

Water management and water protection policies: Soil texture data, soil permeability and organic carbon data are used as inputs for pan-European flood alert modelsResearch and development (RTD) policies: FP6 and FP7 project results available in the European Soil Portal (ENVASSO, RamSoil, SoilTrEC, Digisoil, iSoil, eSoter, etc) Support to EUROSTAT: ESDAC data are the input for the formulation of the Soil Erosion and the Soil Quality indicatorDevelopment policies of the European Union: the Harmonized World Soil Database, GlobalSoilMap.net, European Digital Map Archive (EuDASM) Education / Media policies: Soil Atlas of Europe, Soil Atlas of the Northern Circumpolar Region, European Atlas of Soil Biodiversity

ESDAC and policy making (2)

ESDAC and policy making (3)

Spatial planning and urban development: 970,000 ha of agricultural land has been lost in 20 EU Member States in this ten year period due to urbanisationINSPIRE Directive: ESDAC and ESBN participates in the soil data specificationsRural development Policies: Soil Erosion data are used for rural development programmesGEOSS, SEIS: ESDAC is part of GLOSIS (Global Soil Information System) which is included in GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems)GMES(Global Monitoring for Environment and Security): New approaches for soil erosion modelling have been applied by using remote sensed Satellite ImagesDesertification: European Soil Database has been used in Italy & Portugal for policies to combat desertification

Soil Monitoring Sites

ICSU/ISRIC/FAO/UNEP

EU

Member States

Regions

Communes

World Data Centre for Soil (WDC Soil)

Operated by ISRIC on behalf of ICSU

European Soil Data Centre(ESDAC)

Operated by JRC

National Soil Data Centreto be defined

Regional Soil Data Centreto be defined

Soil information at different scales

1:5,000,000

1:1,000,000

1:250,000

1:50,000

e.g. BIOSOIL

ESDAC in operation

requirements

Website+

Internal databases+

HelpDesk

ESDAC : http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/library/esdac/

•Data (e.g. European Soil Database)•Maps (e.g. EuDASM archive of sacanned maps)•Documents (e.g. ESBN Research Reports)•On-line applications (e.g. using ESDB)

•Data distribution•Help Desk for problem solving•Download of data (some data are protected and access is subject to registration)

•User base : 1400+ users have been registered

•Communication with User Base: •Mailing list, free subscription•Regular mails for communication of updates

Data, maps, applications

Data (eg European Soil Database)

On-line services/applications (eg ESDB data)

Maps (as images)

Lucas topsoil sampling locations

Bampa et al 2011

LUCAS data (SOC content)

ESDAC: value added products

OCTOP -- Organic Carbon in topsoils (as images)

Pan-European Soil Erosion Risk Assessment (PESERA)

Data CD/DVD: Distribution of Soil Information

http://www.globalsoilmap.net/

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Globally Integrated African Soil Information Service (ASIS)

http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

Thank you for your attention!