Towards a dynamic monitoring system to assess status and spatiotemporal changes of soil erosion at European scale

ExpectedOutcome:

Activities under this topic will help to progress towards the objective of the Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’, in particular specific objective 5 “Prevent erosion”. Activities will also contribute to the EU Soil Strategy 2030, the Common Agricultural Policy and its Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF), the framework of indicators in the proposed Soil Monitoring Law, and the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicator set for monitoring progress towards SDG 15 and SDG 2.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

• Enhanced knowledge on multi-process soil erosion dynamics (e.g., water, wind, tillage, etc.) across Europe based on a combination of novel computer-based estimates and monitoring activities for better estimation of policy impact.
• Further validation of soil loss by water and wind erosion indicators at continental scale with local/regional assessments which can be used for policy making and implementation (e.g., in the Common Agricultural Policy, the Soil Strategy for 2030 or the proposed directive of soil monitoring and resilience).
• Best management practices that significantly reduce erosion adjusted to different pedo-climatic conditions in Europe and various cropping systems are compiled and more widely known by relevant stakeholders including land managers such as farmers.
• A robust soil erosion monitoring network is established across EU and Associated Countries to further develop estimates and validate gross erosion rates at parcel level.

Scope:

Current EU/European estimates on soil loss by water and wind erosion are long-term averages performed with empirical models, which, in agricultural areas, are subject to huge uncertainties. Policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) would benefit from more up to-date and annual estimates. Improved estimates would contribute to developing a process-based model, which can incorporate management practices and their potential for reducing soil loss by water, and wind erosion in agricultural fields and facilitate the adoption of the best practices. Other processes such as tillage erosion or gullies can also be considered. Existing partially explicit parcel data (e.g., LPIS-GSA), data from the EU Land use and land cover survey (LUCAS) and the latest updates from the COPERNICUS platform could/should be used to improve current pan-European modelling frameworks.

Proposed activities should:

• Create a network of stakeholders to monitor soil loss by water and wind erosion across EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries in different crop conditions (including managed grasslands).
• Develop a monitoring scheme to implement, test and validate methods for assessing soil loss by soil erosion at European (continental) scale.
• Develop process-based models at continental scale, which consider soil erosion factors such as management practices applied by farmers, rainfall intensity, soil properties, topography and other biophysical attributes.
• Incorporate both field observations and latest state-of-the-art Copernicus products to better quantify and calibrate soil erosion factors.
• Quantify the impact of different management practices (e.g., cover crops, reduced tillage, plant residues, mulching, grass margins, crop rotation, terraces, etc.) on reducing soil erosion.
• Link those scientific outputs (e.g. improved soil erosion factors, impact of management practices) with the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) requirements of the CAP (e.g., impact of management practices such as cover crops or reduced tillage in CAP GAECs).
• Provide landowners and various stakeholders with best information on soil losses and with recommendations on the most suitable management practices to reduce soil loss.

Proposals should include a dedicated task and appropriate resources to collaborate and capitalise on activities and results from projects financed under other Work Programme topics of the Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’, in particular AI4SoilHealth, Benchmarks and Soil O-Live.

Cooperation with international networks in UNCCD, FAO Global Soil Partnership and the IPCC is encouraged to upscale the produced knowledge at global scale.

Proposals should demonstrate a route towards open access, longevity, sustainability and interoperability of knowledge and outputs through close collaboration with the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO) and the project SoilWISE. In particular, to ensure that relevant data, maps and information can potentially be used and displayed in the EUSO.