E-SOTER

Regional pilot platform as EU contribution to a Global Soil Observing System

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Soil and land information is needed for a wide range of applications but available data are often inaccessible, incomplete, or out of date. GEOSS plans a global Earth Observation System and, within this framework, the e-SOTER project addresses the felt need for a global soil and terrain database. As the European contribution to a Global Soil Observing System, it will deliver a web-based regional pilot platform with data, methodology, and applications, using remote sensing to validate, augment and extend existing data. Technical barriers that have to be overcome include: quantitative mapping of landforms; soil parent material and soil attribute characterization and pattern recognition by remote sensing; standardization of methods and measures of soil attributes to convert legacy data. Two major research thrusts involve: 1) improvement of the current SOTER methodology at scale 1:1 million in four windows in Europe, China and Morocco. Moderate-resolution optical remote sensing will be combined existing parent material/geology and soil information, making use of advanced statistical procedures; 2) within 1:250 000-scale pilot areas, advanced remote sensing applications will be developed - geomorphic landscape analysis, geological re-classified remote sensing, and remote sensing of soil attributes. Advances beyond the state of the art include: transformation of pre-existing data and addition of new information with remote sensing and DEM; interpretations of the e-SOTER database that address threats defined in the EU Soil Thematic Strategy and comparing the results with current assessments; and delivery through a web service of a data portal. e-SOTER will deliver a Pilot Platform and a portal that provides open access to: 1) a methodology to create 1:1 million-scale SOTER databases, and an enhanced soil and terrain database at scale 1:1 million for the four windows; 2) an artifact-free 90m digital elevation model; 3) methodologies to create 1:250 000-scale enhanced SOTER databases, and the databases themselves for four pilots; 4) advanced remote sensing techniques to obtain soil attribute data; 5) validation and uncertainty propagation analysis; 6) dedicated applications related to major threats to soil quality and performance.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Soil data is important for managing land use and directing environmental policy. A recent project has developed a working prototype for a global soil and terrain database.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Mismanagement of soil and land use leads to uncontrolled environmental impacts from farming and other human activities, and eventually to the degradation of important resources. There is thus an urgent need for a soil database to help farmers and environmental policymakers make better decisions about land management.

The EU funded a project called 'Regional pilot platform as EU contribution to a global soil observing system' (E-SOTER) to deliver a pilot platform for soil data collection and analysis. The project was tested in four representative windows in China, Europe and Morocco.

E-SOTER delivered on its promise by producing a working, web-based platform that provided soil data on the 1:250 000 and 1:1 000 000 scales. The platform includes data on terrain, soil type and soil patterns.

Project partners also developed a way to standardise old soil data for inclusion in the new database. Another outcome of the project was a method for data collection that can be used anywhere in the world.

The E-SOTER pilot system for a global soil and terrain database has been adopted by the European Soil Bureau Network to update the European Soil Database. Future work will extend the use of E-SOTER to the rest of the world.