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Welcome to the European Soil Portal

This Soil Portal contributes to a thematic data infrastructure for soils in Europe. It presents data and information regarding soils at European level. It connects to activities within JRC concerning soil (JRC SOIL Action). It serves also as a vehicle to promote the activities of the European Soil Bureau Network. Spatial data collection and processing within this infrastructure is performed according to emerging ideas behind the INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) initiative.

  • European Soil Data Center: is one of the ten environmental data centres in Europe and is the focal point for soil data at European level.
  • Soil at JRC: Soil activities within the JRC are concentrated in a specific JRC Action, called FP7 "Soil Data and Information Systems" or SOIL.
  • Documents - Publications: European Soil Bureau Research Reports, JRC Scientific and Technical Reports, Papers in Journals, Publications in Conferences, Posters and Publications in CD-ROMs, Glossary of Soil Terms.
  • Soil Projects: many past and current projects relate to the soil activities of JRC .
  • Soil Themes: covers various results for different soil themes such as Erosion, soil Organic Carbon Content, Salinisation, Landslides, Soil Compaction, Biodiversity and soil Contamination.
  • European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN): is a network of soil institutes supporting the JRC soil activities
  • Events - Presentations in various events(Conferences, Workshops, Meetings, Summer Schools) which are related to the work that the Land Management Unit is doing in relation to the European Soil Bureau Network. Calendar of future events is also available.
  • What's new? chronology of items added to this soil portal. Get the NEWS either in XML RSS feed or Atom format and the monthly Newsletters.
  • Utilities - Various : A mailing list has been set up in order to keep interested persons up to date with the latest contents on this site. Other Tools such as the Search Engine are also available.
  • Team - Action SOIL: the people at JRC behind the soil activities.

  • Links: key pointers to soil related bodies and International Organisations

World Soil Day: 5th December

      Newsletter
Highlights
HYPRES
(16/11/09) Using existing soil data to derive hydraulic parameters for simulation models in environmental studies and in land use planning .... more

Soil Awareness Raising
(11/11/09) Important Challenge: Soil Action is establishing an action plan for the development of measures/programmes/initiatives to raise awareness of the importance of soil across European society. .... more

SPADE2v11: Soil Profile Database 2 Ver 1.1
(05/11/09) Important Development: Access to the SPADE2v11 database is granted to users. .... more

Envasso Volume IVb: Prototype Evaluation – Pilot Studies
(30/10/09) Announcing the Volume IVb of the Environmental Assessment of Soil for Monitoring (ENVASSO) "Prototype Evaluation – Pilot Studies". .... more

Visit of Dutch Provincial Authorities
(06/10/09) Important Visit of the Dutch Provincial Authorities and their interprovincial forums in JRC .... more

DIGISOIL 2nd meeting
(06/10/09) How the DIGISOIL project is going on? The first results after the 2nd Meeting of DIGISOIL partners.... more

Final report on the project ‘Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation (SoCo)’
(24/09/09) This report synthesises the findings of the SoCo project and translates them into conclusions and recommendations...... more

Distribution of Organic Carbon in Soil Profile Data
(18/09/09). Soil organic carbon (SOC) content has been estimated at pan-European scale for the soil layer from 0 to a depth of 30 cm. The methodology used to generate the data layer relied on a combination of a pedo-transfer rule and pedo-transfer functions.... more

Addressing soil degradation in EU agriculture: relevant processes, practices and policies
(13/08/09) Having recognised the environmental challenges of agricultural land use, the European Parliament requested the European Commission to carry out a pilot project on 'Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation through simplified cultivation techniques' ....more

Holistic approach to biodiversity and bioindication in soil .
(9/7/09)To study and investigate soil biodiversity is a difficult task because of the complex interactions that exist in soil and the need for considerable expertise to undertake the necessary investigation..more

Dioxins, Trace elements, Bioindicators and biodiversity in Soils .
(9/7/09) Soils of the Province of Pavia have been the object of a biological, physical and chemical survey in order to obtain a detailed assessment of their “quality”.... more

Service Provision for technical support in the LUCAS study, provision of central laboratory services for soil analysis .
(1/7/09) 20,000 points will be selected on which soil samples will be taken. These soil samples, weighting about 0.5 kg each, will then be dispatched to the laboratory selected in answer to the present ITT for carrying out physical/chemical analyses ... more

Climate change: soil can make a difference!.
(30/6/09) Climate is a principle factor of soil development. Soil is one of the key life support systems responsible for the performance of major ecological functions such as biomass production in agriculture and forestry, storing, fi ltering and transforming nutrients, substances and water, biodiversity... more

   

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© European Communities, 1995-
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European Commission - Joint Research Centre
Institute for Environment and Sustainability
Contacts:
Marc Van Liedekerke(tel. +39-0332-785179)
Panos Panagos (tel. +39-0332-785574)