Land Management and Natural Hazards Unit1 European Soil Data Centre: current status and outlook Panos Panagos, Marc Van Liedekerke Institute for Environment.

Land Management and Natural Hazards Unit 1

European Soil Data Centre:current status and outlook

Panos Panagos, Marc Van Liedekerke Institute for Environment and Sustainability

Joint Research Centre of the European Commission

E-mail: [email protected]


1. Background2. Requirements 3. Information providers 4. Current Status5. Future

Outline


CONTEXT - Background

CONTEXTCONTEXT Technical arrangement on Data Centres (November 2005)

Joint Commitment of ENV, EEA, ESTAT and JRC ("Group of 4“) for the establishment of Environmental Data Centres to share responsibilities, enhance collaboration and coordination

JRC: Soil and Forest Data Centers INSPIRE Directive (May 2007) Shared Environmental Information System Forest Action Plan EFDAC / ESDAC Implementation Plan 2007-2009

GOALSGOALS Establishment DC as the focal point at the EU level. Provision of high-quality, timely available data and information to

policy makers for sound knowledge-based decision making. Contribution to the enhancement of data collection, management

and dissemination.


EUROSTATWaste

Natural resourcesIPP

JRCSoil

Forest

EEAClimate Change

WaterAir

Land useBiodiversity

DG ENVData requirements

Need to collect and assess soil data and information Establishment of ESDAC as one centre in the new system of European Data Centers for the environment, decided by “the group of four (Go4)” (DG ENV, ESTAT, JRC, EEA)

Go4

Background


The “technical arrangement” in the Go4 specifies for each data centre that:

It 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’s requirements, 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”

Background

Data Centres are driven by DG ENV requirementsData Centres are driven by DG ENV requirements


DG ENV Requirements for ESDAC

Initial DG ENV overall requirements : Initial DG ENV overall requirements : scientific and technical support for issues in relation to the Soil

Thematic Strategy and the proposed Soil Framework Directive such as Guidelines on the identification of “risk areas” Guidelines on data issues (quality, methods, access, data-exchange

formats) scientific and technical support for the development of

European datasets (e.g. maps of risk for the different soil threats in the EU)

access to soil related data, maps, information at EU levelShared Environmental Information SystemWithin SOIL ActionWithin SOIL Action

organize activities that respond to these requirements. 2006: preparatory work:

Identify data and information providers; Inventory of existing data at EU level Metadata Implementation plan 2007-2009


•EC and JRC soil related activities: SOIL Action, BioSoil, LUCAS, SoCo…

•JRC in house developments: European Soil Database

•EC funded projects results: ENVASSO, RAMSOIL, GS-SOIL…

•Research Collaborations: EuroGeoSurveys, FAO, ISRIC

•European Soil Bureau Network: Working Groups

•EIONET National Reference Centers

•Member States e.g. in future Soil Framework Directive

Data and Information Providers ESDAC


JRC

European Soil Regions Soil regions of Europe (scale 1:5,000,000)

European Soil Database (ESDB) and derived products

Soil geometry and attribute data for Eurasia obtained through harmonization of national soil data (scale 1:1,000,000)

PESERA Soil erosion map for Europe (1k cells)

OCTOP Organic Carbon map for Europe (1k cells)

Various datasets at 1:250,000 Italy, Albania, Odra basin, Meuse basin

Various soil profile datasets (point data)

Soil Profile Analytical Databases for Europe (SPADE), Danube basin

European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM)

Archive of >5000 scanned soil related maps for all continents.

Forest Focus, BioSoil Forest soil (point )data

SINFO ESDB data expanded for the Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS)

ESTAT Soil data from LUCAS project

EEA, EIONET, ETC/TE

Data on progress in management of contaminated sites for EU

Compiled data related to the following indicators: Soil sealing, Diffuse contamination (“Heavy metal accumulation” and “Sewage sludge application”), Soil erosion

EC Data from various EC funded soil related projects (e.g. ENVASSO (Environmental Assessment of soil for monitoring))

Member StatesCurrently : existing soil data documented in EUR Reports "Soil Resources in Europe"

Future : possibly “risk area” data for major soil threats identified in context of Soil Thematic Strategy and Soil Framework Directive

ESDAC Inventory of available data


Title The ESDBv2 Raster Library - 1km x 1km

Subject Prepared raster images for 73 soil attributes of the European Soil Database v2.0 (ESDBv2)

Keywords Soil, Raster, Grid, SGDBE, Soil Geographical Database, PTRDB, Pedotransfer Rules Database, LAEA, INSPIRE

Publisher European Commission – DG JRC and European Soil Bureau Network

Status Final

Description The library contains raster (or grid) data files (in native ESRI GRID format) for most attributes (73 in total) of the SGDBE and PTRDB databases of the ESDB v2.0; cell sizes are 1km x 1km and the grid is aligned with the reference grid recommended during the 1st Workshop on European Reference Grids in the context of the INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) initiative. ….

Datasource European Soil Databasev2.0

Type Rasters (grids)

Format ESRI GRID

Coverage The grid origin is defined 4.321.000,0 m west and 3.210.000,0 m south of projection centre point (52N, 10 E), centre point. The grid extent is such that it covers all EU25 countries. Width : 7.500.000,0 m ; Height : 5.500.00,0 m ; 7500 columns, 5500 rows.

Scale/Resolution Cell sizes of 1km x 1km

Frequence of Updates One time effort

Last update April 2006

Contact Marc Van Liedekerke ([email protected]), JRC

Rights / Accessibility Free for download after registration

URL http://eusoils.jrc.it/ESDB_Archive/ESDB_data_1k_raster_intro/ESDB_1k_raster_data_intro.html

Inventory – metadata example


• ESDAC will become 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 will be taken into account (yearly)

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

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

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

• ESDAC will be 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.

2007-2009 Implementation Plan


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

DataData

DocumentsDocuments

ApplicationsApplications

ThemesThreats

ThemesThreats

ProjectsProjects

UtilitiesUtilities

Soil BureauSoil Bureau

European Soil Portal

European Soil Portal

80 major updates in 2008


•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) •Projects• … and much more

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

•User base : 1000+ users have been registered

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

In 2007, European Soil Portal re-design: Http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu

Could be considered as ESDAC Technical Platform but was lacking:• targeted search• possibility to interconnect to other systems

ESDAC Technical Platform (2007)


Data (eg European Soil Database)

On-line services/applications (eg ESDB data)

Maps (as images)

ESDAC: data, maps, applications


OCTOP -- Organic Carbon in topsoils (as images)

Pan-European Soil Erosion Risk Assessment (PESERA)

ESDAC: value added products


In 2008, a technical platform was developed:• In essence a Metadata system

• Contains metadata on data, applications/services, reports, events, links and projects

• Metadata points to actual resource

• For data and services: use of Metadata catalogue according to INSPIRE suggested standard (ISO19115) – populated with metadata for all JRC-local data holdings

• Browse and Local search of the metadata

ESDAC Technical Platform

browse and searchMetatata

data, services, …

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

ESDAC Technical Platform (2008)


2009 further developments:

• Launch the new technical platform and seek feedback

• 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)

• Started work with a ESBN working group on INSPIRE: contribute to INSPIRE soil data specifications (by 2012) to make ESDAC interoperable with Member States in terms of soil data (European INSPIRE compliant soil data community)

ESDAC ESDAC: EU - node

Member State - nodes

Soil Metadata; Soil data

ESDAC outlook 2009


Metadata Metadata Catalogue:Catalogue:

Catalogue of soil Catalogue of soil related data, services, related data, services, applications, applications, documents and documents and projects at EU levelprojects at EU level

ESDAC Technical PlatformESDAC Technical Platform

ESDAC Map ViewerESDAC Map Viewer::

Web application for Web application for the viewing of subset the viewing of subset of available soil dataof available soil data

Interoperable with Interoperable with EFDACEFDAC


ESDAC Metadata Catalogue

Browsing metadata of all datasets

Viewing all metadata for one dataset


ESDAC Metadata Catalogue

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


ESDAC Map Viewer example

Integration of all Soil layers in one place

Navigation (Zoom, Pan)

Overlay of layers

Query

Interoperability EFDAC


“ESDAC will be one node in a system consisting of distributed data nodes: as a soil data node, it will hold soil data at European level, while other soil data nodes at regional, national or global level will focus on data of different scales.”

ESDAC and National Nodes


Within the European Soil Bureau Network, ESDAC is leading the Working Group on INSPIRE to contribute in the data specification process

INSPIRE data specifications for the soil


• Test the Data Center by partners, feedback on usability of the system and suggestion of new functionalities

• Continue retrieval, analysis and fulfillment of data/information needs of DG ENV and EEA

• Development of an Implementation Plan for after 2009

• Contribute further to the interoperability of DC’s through:• Continued input to the work of the Common Architecture Drafting

Team• Definition at developer’s level of common use of data and services

with partners (on line data processing, common services, etc.)• Implementation of future INSPIRE rules concerning data

specifications and services

• Strengthen collaboration of the networks of national representatives for the development of ESDAC (ESBN and EIONET) for data and service provision, all in line with INSPIRE

WAY FORWARD


What ESDAC expect from the GS Soil?

• JRC ensures the cooperative development of GS Soil Portal

• Share the same objectives:– Data Harmonisation– Data Standardisation

• ESDAC and GS-SOIL can be Complementary and not in competition

• Data Excahnge:– ESDAC can provide to GS-SOIL data which are not available to the general

public– GS-SOIL can provide to ESDAC data in order to develop added value

products

• Interoperability between the 2 portals:– Interoperable datasets in place– Metadata Availability– Interoperability of Services– Collaboration of 2 catalogues


• 18 countries represented with 25 Data Providers: – Increase networking capacity– Cover countries with “poor participation” in Soil data Management

• INSPIRE Directive: contribute in the data specification process initiated in JRC / Soil / ESBN

• Awareness increase:– Section in the European Soil Portal about GS-SOIL– Monthly Newsletter distribution

• After the end of the project:– Knowledge transfer to ESDAC– Use of best practice output of the project– Fill existing gaps

What ESDAC expect from the GS Soil? (Contd)

Land Management and Natural Hazards Unit1 European Soil Data Centre: current status and outlook Panos Panagos, Marc Van Liedekerke Institute for Environment.

Documents

soil related data

existing soil data

data sinfoesdb data

soil erosion ec data

soil action

data need

attribute data

etcte data