Soil Databases in Support of Pan-European Soil Water Model Development and Applications

Abstract

Parallel to the advancement of soil hydrological models an evolution of soil datasets available for continental scale applications has taken place in Europe in the last two decades.A milestone in this development was the release of the digital European Soil Database, which includes a full coverage of soil information on a 1:1M scale, a Soil Profile Analytical Database and a Pedotransfer Rules Database. The ESDB allows adaptation of soil hydrological models, such as HYPRES, for spatial representation of soil water properties and for various further modeling applications.The establishment of the European Soil Data Center (ESDAC), hosted in the Joint Research Centre marked the beginning of a new era of soil information provision in Europe. Main aim of the ESDAC is to serve primary and derived, well documented soil information through a harmonized system. The ESDAC - one of the European environmental data centers – is the infrastructural framework to satisfy increased data demand. General (e.g. the ESDB) and thematic (eg. soil organic carbon map; soil salinity map) soil datasets are stored in the ESDAC, which is constantly updated with new data.To answer the increasing need for up-to-date coherent soil data in Europe, the European Commission carried out a topsoil survey in 2009 within the LUCAS (Land use and Land Cover Area Frame Survey). During this survey more than 20,000 soil samples were taken in 25 EU Member States. In 2012 two additional new Member States (Bulgaria and Romania) were sampled applying the same sampling methodology and soil analysis. The LUCAS Soil database, among others, includes measured information on soil attributes which are most needed for soil hydrological models(e.g. particle size distribution, organic carbon and CaCO3 content). Although limited to topsoil, the LUCAS Soil dataset, in combination with other information, has a potential to provide basic soil information for regional scale modeling.Leading institutes in soil hydrological research in Europe have decided to establish a common European Soil Hydropedological Data Inventory (EU-HYDI) in 2012. The EU-HYDI dataset contains information on both basic and hydrological soil properties of over 16,000 soil samples from 18 countries, covering all major biophysical regions of Europe, from Portugal to Russia. The EU-HYDI, being the most comprehensive dataset of its kind is foreseen to yield a series of new research results, including accurate and reliable inputs for soil water models in the coming years. This expected new information, combined with evolving spatial datasets can contribute to a number of applications that build on pan-European soil water models and maps.