The European Soil Bureau Network

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1 The European Soil Bureau Network Luca Montanarella 1 Robert J.A. Jones 1,2 Jean Dusart 1 1 European Commission, Directorate General JRC - Joint Research Centre, TP 280, I Ispra (VA), ITALY 2 Cranfield University, Silsoe, Bedfordshire. MK45 4DT, UNITED KINGDOM Summary The European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN), located at the Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra (I), was created in 1996 as a network of national soil science institutions. Its main tasks are to collect, harmonise, organise and distribute soil information for Europe. This paper describes the history, background and current work programme of the network. The ESBN is experiencing a surge in the demand for soil information in Europe, for addressing a number of environmental problems and questions. These include: leaching of agrochemicals, deposition of heavy metals, disposal of waste (agricultural, domestic and industrial), degradation of soil structure (through loss of organic matter, salinisation and subsoil compaction), risk of erosion (by water and wind), immobilisation of radionuclides, supply of water at catchment level, assessing the suitability (and sustainability) for traditional and alternative crops, and estimation of soil stability. This report is an update on that published in the first edition (Bullock et al., 1999). Introduction The European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN) was created in 1996, as a network of national soil science institutions, managed through a permanent Secretariat located at the Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy. It is part of the Soil and Waste Unit (SWU) of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES), one of three institutes at the JRC s Ispra site (Meyer-Roux and Montanarella, 1998). The ESBN s aim is to carry out scientific and technical work programmes in order to collect, harmonise organise and distribute soil information relevant to Community policies, to a number of Directorates General (DG s), to the European Environment Agency (EEA) and to individual Institutions of the EU Member States. The origins of the ESB go back to the 1980s and are inextricably linked to the compilation of a European Soil Map and associated attribute databases. An EC Soil Map was produced at 1:1,000,000 scale in the 1970s by a loose network of academic soil scientists. The most important contributors to the map are listed below. Belgium: J. Ameryckx, A. Louis, R. Maréchal, R. Tavernier; Denmark: K. Rasmussen; France: J. Dupuis, M. Jamagne, A. Mori, E. Servat; Germany: E. Mückenhausen; Greece: A. Koutalos, N. Yassoglou; Irish Republic: M. Gardiner, J. Lee; Italy: F. Mancini, R. Salandin; Luxembourg: A. Puraye, J. Wagener; Netherlands: H. De Bakker, J. Pons, J. Schelling, R. Van der Schans; Portugal: J. Carvalho Cardoso; Spain: A. Guerra, F. Monturiol; United Kingdom: B. Avery, R. Glentworth, R. Grant; FAO: R. Dudal; CEC: A. Cole, J. Gillot, A. Prendergast; Advisors: K. Beek, S. Lunt, G. Smith, C. Sys,; Computerisation: H.B. Madsen, A.M. Norr, S.W. Platou The digital age for European soil information effectively began in 1982 when a Computerisation of Land Data Group (CLDG) was established by DGVI, comprising representatives of the main centres of expertise within the EC at that time. The work of the CLDG was executed under the guidance of the Land and Water Use Steering Committee of DGVI, now DG AGRI (Agriculture). The first meeting of the group was in Ispra in Draft proposals for the compilation of a Land Data Catalogue for the whole of the EC were presented at the second CLDG meeting in Montpellier (1983). In 1985, the EC Soil Map and legend (FAO- UNESCO, 1974) was finally published in 7 sheets and covered the EC-12 countries (CEC, 1985). It 3

2 was printed on a base map provided by the UK Military Authorities with a topographical component compiled from the ONC-map series (Operational Navigational Chart Series). The base map comprised the geodetic constants of a Lambert conformal conical projection. A manual, describing the soil map units and their contents, was also published with the maps. This task was completed in parallel with the work of the CLDG but provided a key foundation for the future of digital European Soil Data. The group continued to meet annually until 1988 and it was responsible for a number of initiatives with respect to European soil and land data: Digitisation of the EC Soil Map (Platou et al. 1989) Compilation of an EC Land Data Catalogue (Nørr, 1986) Proceedings of the Bonn (1986) and Pisa (1987) meetings (Jones and Biagi, 1989) Proceedings of the Wageningen meeting (1988) on applications of the digital EC Soil Map and climate data (van Lanen and Bregt, 1989) In 1989, DGVI ceased funding the activities of the Computerisation of Land Data Group and a period of dormancy followed. However, there was still a need for such activities at a European level. The Directorate General for Agriculture (DG VI) MARS (Monitoring Agriculture with Remote Sensing) Project at JRC needed information on the water holding capacities of European soils for input to the crop growth monitoring system (CGMS) that was under development for forecasting the yields of the main agricultural crops throughout the continent (Vossen and Meyer-Roux, 1995). This lead in 1990 to the setting up of a Soil and GIS Support Group funded by the MARS Project (JRC). In the previous year (1989), a meeting of Heads of European Soil Surveys was held at Silsoe (UK) to review the activities connected with soil survey and data collection throughout Europe (Hodgson, 1991). In addition to providing MARS with data on the water holding capacities of soils in Europe, the Soil and GIS Support Group began work on a number of fundamental database projects: 1. A major update of the EC Soil Geographical Database (the digital version of the published EC Soil Map) described by King et al. (1995b); 2. The compilation of a soil profile analytical database (Madsen, 1991, Madsen and Jones, 1995); 3. Development of a pedotransfer rules database (King et al., 1994; van Ranst et al., 1995). As a result of its expanding activities, the Soil and GIS Support Group was renamed, in 1992, the Soils Information Focal Point (SIFP) with a work programme devised by a Soil Information System Development (SISD) Committee, under the chairmanship of Dr. D. King (INRA, Orleans, Fr.). The Heads of Soil Surveys met again in December 1994, in Orleans. At this meeting (Le Bas and Jamagne, 1996), it became clear that the amount of soil survey and soil monitoring activity, being undertaken in the member states of the EU, had reduced significantly compared to 1989 (Hodgson, 1991). In an effort to revive soil monitoring as an important research activity, a network of centres of excellence in soil hydrology was set up (in 1994) under the EU Human Capital and Mobility Programme. This began to produce data for computing pedotransfer functions for estimating the hydraulic properties of European soils (Bruand et al., 1997). At the Athens meeting of the SIFP in 1996, the European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN) came into existence and the SISD evolved into the ESBN Scientific Committee. Table 1 charts the meetings of the ESBN and its predecessor organisations that have been associated with the computerisation of soil and land data in Europe. Much of the work undertaken by the Soil and GIS Support Group, the SIFP/SISD and the ESBN (in its first year) is described in King et al. (1995a) and Heineke et al. (1998). European Soil Bureau Network The activities of the ESBN are, and have always been, driven essentially by the demands for soil information by the EU Member States and the European Commission. The services most heavily involved in soil related policies are DG AGRI (Agriculture) and DG ENV (Environment), though recently a surge of interest in soil information has been observed coming from other Commission services. These are most notably DG REGIO (Regional policy) in relation to the European Spatial Planning Perspective (ESDP), and DG RELEX and DG DEV (Development) in relation to soil information in non-eu countries. The extension of the European soil databases to non-eu countries has indeed been stimulated by the needs of these Directorates General. Specifically in the framework of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), there is the need for adequate soil information systems in the affected regions. 4

3 Table 1 Meetings on the computerisation of soil and land data in Europe Date Location Organiser 1982 JRC Ispra, Italy 1983 INRA, Montpellier, France Jean-Paul Legros 1984 Bureau of Land Data (ADK), Vejle-Copenhagen, Henrik Madsen Denmark 1985 Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and the Doug Fitch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, London, UK 1986 Ministry of Agriculture, Bonn, West Germany E. C. Lapple 1987 CNR Instituto Elaborazione Informazione, Pisa, Benedetto Biagi Italy 1988 Stiboka, Wageningen, The Netherlands Johan Bouma 1989 No meeting held 1990 IRSA, JRC, Ispra, Italy Paul Vossen 1991 University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium E. Van Ranst 1992 Madrid, Spain Juan Jose Ibanez 1993 Geographical Institute, University of Copenhagen, Henrik Madsen Copenhagen, Denmark 1994 BGR Hannover, Germany Wolf Eckelmann 1995 FAO, Roma, Italy Freddy Nachtergaele 1996 University of Athens, Athens, Greece Nicholas Yassoglou 1997 Regione Emilia Romagna, Bologna, Italy Nicola Filippi, Luca Montanarella 1998 No meeting held 1999 Umweltbundesamt, Vienna, Austria Gundula Prokop, Luca Montanarella Therefore significant extension of the current coverage of the soil databases, available from the ESBN, is foreseen in the future. The European Soil Information System (EUSIS) The core of this system is currently the European Soil Database, based on the 1:1,000,000 scale Soil Geographical Database of Europe (Jamagne et al., 2001) that is currently covering Europe. The database has been recently extended to cover countries in the Mediterranean basin, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belorus and Moldova, formerly part of the Soviet Union (Montanarella, 2001; Stolbovoi et al., 2001). This new coverage also forms part of the joint Circumpolar Soil Database under development in collaboration with Canada (Agriculture Canada) and the United States of America (USDA-NRCS). This extension will serve as a tool for the more accurate estimation of soil organic carbon pools in the boreal areas and for estimates of potential changes in GHG emission in relation to changes of soil temperature regimes in these areas. A first version of this common Euro-Asian Soil Database is available (Figure 1). EUSIS is developing into a multi-scale spatial system integrating data at different levels of detail into a single Geographic Information System (GIS) (King, et al., 1998; Montanarella, 1999). It forms an essential link in the chain from global scale systems with the 1:5,000,000 scale World Soil and Terrain database (SOTER) (UNEP/ISSS/ISRIC/FAO, 1995) to detailed national, regional and local soil information systems, at scales 1:250,000 to 1:5,000, within the European Union, ensuring a coherent approach from the local to the global scale (Figure 2). The system incorporates also a number of pedotransfer rules (Van Ranst et al., 1995) that allow the preparation of derived products, such as soil erosion risk maps, soil organic carbon estimates, susceptibility to subsoil compaction, water holding capacity and many others. More complex models (CGMS) use EUSIS for the early forecast of crop production in MARS, risk of desertification, groundwater vulnerability to agrochemicals, etc. Future developments will improve the links to other environmental databases land cover/use, elevation, climate, geology and hydrology. Although there is considerable scope for improving the resolution and quality of the data currently incorporated, EUSIS remains the only soil information system covering the entire European continent. The main elements of are described in the sections below. 5

4 Soil Geographical Database of Europe at scale 1: Version 1 of this database (SGDBE) was digitised by Platou et al. (1989) for inclusion in the CORINE project (Co-ordination of Information on the Environment). To answer the needs of the, MARS Project (see above), the database was enriched in from the archive documents of the original EC Soil Map and the resulting database became version 2. The work of the Soil and GIS Support Group of the MARS Project lead to version 3 of the database. A slightly updated version (3.2.8) of the Soil Geographical Database at scale 1:1,000,000, covering central and eastern European and Scandinavian countries (Jamagne et al., 1995), forms the core of version 1.0 of the European Soil Database. The aim of the database is to provide a harmonised set of soil parameters, covering Europe (the enlarged EU) and bordering Mediterranean countries, to be used in agro-meteorological and environmental modelling at regional, national, and/or continental levels. Recently the Soil Geographical Database of Europe (SGDBE) has been extended in version 4.0, to cover Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The most recent extension covers Iceland and the New Independent States (NIS) of Belarus, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Work is ongoing to incorporate soil data for other Mediterranean countries: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. In addition to these geographical extensions, the database has also experienced important changes during its lifetime. The latest major changes include the introduction of a new extended list of parent materials, and, for coding major soil types, the use of the new World Reference Base (WRB) for Soil Resources (FAO, 1998). The database is currently managed using the ArcGIS Geographical Information System (GIS) software system and associated relational databases. Figure 1: Provisional map extracted from the Soil Geographical Database of Eurasia at Scale 1:1,000,000 (SGDBE). 6

5 United Nations European Union World Soil and Terrain Database Soil Geographical Database of Europe Georeferenced Soil Database of Europe Global assessments 1 : 5,000,000 1 : 1,000,000 1 : 250,000 Member States Catchment Information System 1 : 50,000 Regions Communes Local Soil Information System 1 : 5,000 Spatial planning precision farming Figure 2: EUSIS responding to users (in blue) needs at different scales (in red) The database contains a list of Soil Typological Units (STU), characterizing distinct soil types that have been identified and described. The STU are described by attributes (variables) specifying the nature and properties of the soils, for example the texture, the moisture regime, the stoniness, etc. It is not appropriate to delineate each STU separately thus STUs are grouped into Soil Mapping Units (SMU) to form soil associations. The criteria for soil associations and SMU delineation have taken into account the functioning of pedological relationships within the landscape. A detailed instruction manual for the compilation of data for the Soil Geographical Database of Europe version 4.0 has been published by Lambert et al. (2003). Georeferenced Soil Database for Europe at scale 1:250,000 The scale and the precision of the 1:1,000,000 database is no longer sufficient to ensure the harmonisation in methodology between the various soil survey organisations and to meet the needs for users of soil information. The Task Force of the European Environment Agency and DG XI (now Environment) of the European Commission initiated a study on the feasibility of the creation of a soil inventory of Europe at scale 1:250,000 (Dudal et al., 1993). The study concluded that the preparation of such a map was feasible and desirable. Meetings of the heads of soil surveys of the European Union, (Hodgson, 1991; Le Bas and Jamagne, 1996) recommended and endorsed the preparation of a georeferenced soil database for Europe at scale 1:250,000. The implementation of these recommendations was ensured by the (SISD) and subsequently entrusted to the European Soils Bureau (Montanarella, 1996). A specific working group elaborated the basic concepts underlying the creation of this new database. A Manual of Procedures was therefore published (ESB, 1998), outlining the basic structure and procedures of this new soil inventory. The Manual has subsequently been translated into French (ESB, 2001), Italian (ESB, 1999a) and Spanish (1999b, and a version in German is in preparation. In five selected areas of Europe (Figure 3) detailed pilot studies were implemented, leading to the creation of the first elements of a complete coverage of Europe in the future. During 2003 a new pilot area covering the complete Danube river basin was initiated and preliminary results are now available for Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Soil Profile Analytical Database of Europe In order to enhance information about soils in the SGDBE, a Soil Profile Analytical Database was complied in (Madsen and Jones, 1995). This database, called SPADE 1 contains soil profile characterisations with physical and chemical analyses. The initial objective was to compile data for the dominant STU in each SMU, from representative soil profile data selected by the experts in each contributing country. 7

6 1. Oder basin 2. Test area of Chemnitz (Germany) 3. International pilot project of the Meuse basin (France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands) 4. Test area of Côte d Or (Dijon) 5. National Program of Italy 6. National Program of Lebanon 7. Interreg II Italy Albania 8. Danube basin Figure 3: Pilot areas at 1:250,000 scale completed or on-going by Initially difficulties arose because compilation of the data had begun prior to finalisation of the SMUs for the whole of Europe (some geographical coverage was added in after the SPADE 1 project had finished). There were other problems of data harmonisation across country boundaries and some countries, bound by confidentiality, were unable to release georeferenced data. To overcome the latter problem, the decision was made to define two different kinds of profiles, for each STU and record estimated and/or measured soil profile data depending on availability (Madsen and Jones, 1995). The estimated soil profile data were based on expert judgement that these data are representative of the modal concept of an STU rather than a georeferenced profile. As such the estimated data are, based on the average of various observations and expert knowledge, which are essentially more appropriate. The measured soil profile data are derived directly from georeferenced soil profiles that have been described and sampled in the field, and analysed in the laboratory. For estimated profiles the analytical methods are defined to facilitate trans-national comparisons. For measured profiles, the analytical methods were coded and missing values identified. Because of the inherent spatial variability of soil, estimated soil profile data should provide the data that best describe each STU. Lambert et al. (2003) describe revised procedures for compiling soil profile data, based on the knowledge gained after completion of version of the Soil Geographical Database of Europe. However, recently work (in ) has concentrated on SPADE 2, a revised version of the Soil Profile Analytical Database, containing estimated profile data for the dominant and sub-dominant land uses for the country SMUs. A beta version of SPADE 2 is almost complete (Hollis, pers comm., 2005) but there are still gaps in the geographical coverage. However being land use specific, the data will be much more useful for thematic studies than SPADE 1 data. 8

7 Table 1: List of selected output attributes from pedotransfer rules with their required inputs parameters. Output attributes Input attributes Output classes Topsoil organic carbon content (OC_TOP) (0-25cm) Presence of a raw peaty topsoil horizon (PEAT) USE ATC BIOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTES - Regrouped land use class - Accumulated mean temp. Y(es) N(o) CHEMICAL ATTRIBUTES H(igh): > 6.0% M(edium): % L(ow): % V(ery) L(ow): < 1.0% Soil profile differentiation (DIFF) H(igh) differentiation L(ow) differentiation O: No differentiation Profile Mineralogy (MIN) (C)hemical or Geochemical (M)echanical or Physical MC: Chemical and Mechanical ND: No Differentiation Topsoil Mineralogy (MIN_TOP) Subsoil Mineralogy (MIN_SUB) Topsoil Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC_TOP) Subsoil Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC_SUB) Topsoil Base saturation (BS_TOP) Subsoil Base saturation (BS_SUB) Depth to rock (DR) Volume of stones (VS) Subsoil textural class (TD) Topsoil structure (STR_TOP) PM MIN PM MIN DIFF MIN OC_TOP MIN_SUB TD USE MIN_SUB PM PHASE PHASE PM DR USE - Parental material - Profile Mineralogy - Parental material - Profile Mineralogy - Soil profile differentiation - Profile Mineralogy - Topsoil organic carbon content - Subsoil mineralogy - Subsoil textural class - Regrouped land use class - Subsoil mineralogy MECHANICAL ATTRIBUTES - Parent material - Phase - Phase - Parent material - Depth to rock - Regrouped land use class KQ: 1/1 minerals + quartz KX: 1/1 minerals + oxides & Hy. MK: 2/1 and 1/1 minerals M: 2/1 and 2/1/1 non swelling m. MS: Swelling and non s. 2/1 m. S: Swelling 2/1 minerals TV: Vitric materials TO: Andic materials L(ow): < 15cmol(+)kg -1 soil M(edium): H(igh): > 40 L(ow): < 50% M(edium): 50-75% H(igh): > 75% L(ow): < 50% H(igh): > 50% S(hallow): 0-40cm M(oderate): 40-80cm D(eep): cm V(ery) D(eep): > 120cm 0% stones - 10% stones 15% stones 20% stones 1 Coarse 2 Medium 3 Medium fine 4 Fine 5 Very Fine G(ood) N(ormal) P(oor) Subsoil structure (STR_SUB) H(umic) or Peaty soil O : Peaty subsoil Topsoil Packing Density (PD_TOP) Subsoil Packing Density (PD_SUB) STR_TOP USE STR_SUB TD - Topsoil structure class - Regrouped land use class - Subsoil structure class - Subsoil textural class L(ow): < 1.4g/cm 3 M(edium): g/cm 3 H(igh): > 1.75g/cm 3 9

8 Table 1: continued Output attributes Input attributes Output classes HYDROLOGICAL ATTRIBUTES Parent material hydrogeological PM - Parent material R, C, S, L, H, M (INRA et al., type (PMH) 1993) Depth to a gleyed horizon (DGH) S(hallow): 0-40cm M(oderate): 40-80cm D(eep): cm V(ery deep): > 120cm Depth to impermeable layer (DIMP) Hydrological class (HG) Topsoil Available Water Capacity (AWC_TOP) Topsoil Easily Available Water Capacity (EAWC_TOP) Subsoil Available Water Capacity (AWC_SUB) Subsoil Easily Available Water Capacity (EAWC_SUB) PD_SUB ATC PMH ALT DIMP PD_TOP PD_TOP TD PD_SUB DR TD PD_SUB DR - Subsoil packing density - Accumulated mean temp. - Parent material hydrogeological type - Elevation - Depth to impermeable layer S(hallow): < 80cm D(eep): > 80cm HG1: soil with permeable substratum, remote from groundwater: seldom wet HG2: lowland soil affected by groundwater, seasonally or permanently wet, or artificially drained HG3: soil with impermeable layers within 80cm depth, seasonally or permanently wet HG4: soils of the uplands and mountains - Topsoil packing density - Topsoil packing density V(ery) H(igh): > 190mm H(igh) : mm - Subsoil textural class - Subsoil packing density - Depth to rock - Subsoil textural class - Subsoil packing density - Depth to rock M(edium) : mm L(ow): < 99mm Pedotransfer rules The fourth component of the European Soil Database is a series of pedotransfer rules (PTR) allowing to derive a number of additional properties for practical purposes. These are based on expert judgement, mainly qualitative, and assume that a due weight is given to the confidence level of individual inferred attributes. A set of tools was conceived within Arc/Info to manage and use a rules database for the inference of new information from that available within an Info database. These tools may be considered as a prototype of an expert system shell and were used in the above context. Several hundred rules were defined by Van Ranst et al., (1995) in the form of IF <condition> AND <condition>... THEN <inferred value>. At this stage, although rules are applied to spatial objects (soil units) and the system does not take spatial relationships between objects into consideration. Output attributes were selected on the basis of the environmental parameters needed for the problems faced, e.g., hydrology of soil types for predicting catchment response to rainfall and standard percentage of run-off; location and sensitivity of wetlands; soil buffering capacity for predicting soil susceptibility; ecosystem and surface water deposition; vulnerability of ground -and surfacewater to pollution by agrochemicals and farm waste; soil erosion potential, etc. Table 1 summarises the PTRs defined by Van Ranst et al. (1995), listing input and output parameters,. There four groups that respectively correspond to attributes of biological, chemical, mechanical and hydrological nature. Some of them can be derived directly from the European Soil Database, others need attributes derived previously by other PTRs as input. The output attributes are class values in view of the low level of precision of some input attributes. The thresholds selected for class intervals were chosen as a compromise between currently established 10

9 values used in Soil Science, and the level of precision at the scale of input data (in this case 1:1,000,000). As a result, the adopted values may not always correspond to the thresholds necessary for environmental problems. The pedotransfer rules DB remains one of the fundamental tools for deriving useful information from existing soil databases. However it is important to appreciate that most of the PTRs were developed using a knowledge base for Western Europe (EU-12) only (King et al., 1994; Van Ranst et al., 1995) and it would be inappropriate to apply them to the extended Euro-Asian Soil Geographical Database (v4.0). Recent implementation of complex pedotransfer rule based evaluations of soil erosion (Kirkby et al., 2004) and topsoil organic carbon content (Jones et al., 2004) have demonstrated the great potential of such expert-based approaches compared to more deterministic modelling exercises. The current lack of reliable, comparable and compatible input data for sophisticated deterministic models leaves the pedotransfer approach as the only realistic means to derive policy-relevant information from the SGDBE. Future perspectives Within its 6 th Environmental Action Programme, the European Commission has established the objective of protecting soils against a number of major threats erosion, pollution, decline of organic matter content, loss of biodiversity, sealing by infrastructure, salinization and desertification. In order to achieve this objective it has proposed the introduction of a specific thematic strategy for soil protection. The way forward towards this proposed strategy has been outlined in the Communication COM 179 (EC, 2002) Towards a Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection. The Communication recognizes several distinctive features of soils that make the development of a soil protection policy somewhat different from the protection of air and water. One of these features is the very high degree of spatial variability of soils across Europe. The great diversity of European soils reflects the differences in climate, geology, vegetation, land use and historical development that are characteristic of Europe. Recognizing soil diversity implies to take into account the strong local connotation of any soil protection policy. Different soils require different management and protection measures. It seems therefore a mandatory pre-condition to the development of any future soil protection strategy is the compilation of a detailed and up-dated inventory of the current status of European soils. The future development of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI) within the INSPIRE ( initiative of the European Commission will generate a fully streamlined flow of soil data and information from the local scale up to the European scale. Such a nested soil information system (King et al., 1998) will allow to access to soil information at the appropriate scale for each of the required applications (global, European, national, regional, local) by the different stakeholders. The development of a coherent approach to soil protection within the EU will take time. In the long term, a soil framework directive may be the appropriate instrument to achieve fully the goals outlined in the soil protection strategy. Nevertheless, some initial steps are already possible within the existing legislative framework. One of the major existing instruments for improving soil protection in the EU is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The mid-term review of this policy and the resulting new Council Regulation No. 1782/2003 of 29 th of September 2003 explicitly specifies under article 5 obligations for Member States to ensure good agricultural practices and environmental condition of land. Annex IV of the regulation specifies in detail what practices should be implemented and according to which minimum standards. Among these practices there are measures to reduce soil erosion, increase soil organic matter content and improve soil structure. Already implementing these new measures will result in a substantial step forward towards soil protection in Europe. Other important policy areas where immediate action could be implemented are the Nitrates Directive, the Water Framework Directive, the Air Quality Directives, the Landfill Directive, the Habitats Directive and other, more general environmental legislation, making a significant contribution to the prevention of contamination and the protection of biodiversity. Pre-condition to the successful implementation of any of such measures will be the development of a coherent European Soil Information System involving stakeholders at all levels: from the local to the global scale. In this sense, the European Soil Bureau Network will continue in future to be the main European soil data and information provider for the implementation and monitoring of the future thematic strategy for soil protection. 11

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