The general objective of SHARInG-MeD is building an open and concerted soil monitoring scheme to integrate physico-chemical, biological (microbes, nematodes, invertebrates, plants), agronomic, economic and environmental indicators of the Med- iterranean croplands; build models of the soil properties at the wide scale; changes of soil properties at the fine scale; relationship between land or crop (especially soil) management practices with environmental and economic performances of the agri- cultural systems or crops; models of harmonization of soil data among various public databases; and foster the diffusion of the soil improving practices (conservation agri- culture, application of organic materials, use of beneficial microbes) in the Mediterra- nean drylands, with special emphasis to the West Asia and Nord Africa (WANA). These data and models will increase the agriculture sustainability by informing stake- holders on the use of and relationships among these indicators for Mediterranean landscape and crop sustainable managements and will provide a tool to modulate the contribution of agriculture on the mitigation of the climate change.

To achieve SHARInG-MeD aim, the soil sampling campaigns from two wide land collection strategies in Europe (LUCAS soil module) and Africa (H2020 Soil4Africa) and the Soil Atlas of the Mediterranean Region will be derived, along with data from the literature on the methodologies of soil and crop analyses. The sampling scheme of SHARInG-MeD will include both new sites and resampling of known sites in LUCAS soil module, Soil4Africa, and Soil Atlas and covering their lack of sampling. Sampling will be conducted in paired land uses (including a cropland, and considering areas affected by salinity and/or overgrazing) or field experiments dealing with soil improv- ing management practices. The above-mentioned soil properties (including soil life indicators) and potential GHG emissions will be measured. In the field experiments, economic fluxes and Life Cycle Assessment will be measured. Models will be built to harmonize these sampling schemes. The models produced in SHARInG-MeD will undergo both an internal and an external validation against published data in national, EU, and non-EU research repositories, infrastructures, and living labs.