Development of a harmonised soil profile analytical database for Europe a resource for supporting regional soil management

摘要

Abstract. Soil mapping is an essential method for obtaining a spatial overview of soilresources that are increasingly threatened by environmental change andpopulation pressure. Despite recent advances in digital soil-mappingtechniques based on inference, such methods are still immature forlarge-scale soil mapping. During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, soil scientistsconstructed a harmonised soil map of Europe ( 1:1?000?000 ) based on national soilmaps. Despite this extraordinary regional overview of the spatialdistribution of European soil types, crude assumptions about soil propertieswere necessary for translating the maps into thematic information relevant tomanagement. To support modellers with analytical data connected to the soilmap, the European Soil Bureau Network (ESBW) commissioned the development of the soil profile analytical database for Europe (SPADE) in the late 1980s. Thisdatabase contains soil analytical data based on a standardised set of soilanalytical methods across the European countries. Here, we review theprinciples adopted for developing the SPADE database during the past fivedecades, the work towards fulfilling the milestones of full geographiccoverage for dominant soils in all the European countries (SPADE level?1)and the addition of secondary soil types (SPADE level?2). We illustrate theapplication of the database by showing the distribution of the root zonecapacity and by estimating the soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks at a depthof 1 m for Europe to be 60×10~(15) g . The increased accuracy, potentiallyobtained by including secondary soil types (level?2), is shown in a casestudy to estimate SOC stocks in Denmark. Until data from systematiccross-European soil-sampling programmes have sufficient spatial coverage forreliable data interpolation, integrating national soil maps and locallyassessed analytical data into a harmonised database remains a powerfulresource to support soil resources management at regional and continentalscales by providing a platform to guide sustainable soil management and foodproduction.