This Joint Research Centre's (JRC) report evaluates the from the soil perspective and provides baseline data for the two impact indicators (soil erosion, soil organic carbon) related to soil in the context of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) stocks across Europe for the 2018 were estimated by modelling the changes over a 9-year period from the 2009 baseline (data available in ESDAC) with a statistical model trained with LUCAS soil survey observations. In the final model spatial estimates of SOC stocks it was observed a marked influence of environmental and site-specific edaphic conditions such as soil clay content. The combine effect of such natural affecting variables therefore directly limits or enhance the potential of carbon sequestration soil management practices. The mean SOC stock in the EU agricultural areas is about 57.5 t ha-1 (croplands mean stock: 46.6 t ha-1; grasslands mean stock: 84.6 t ha-1).
A first-ever assessment at European scale combines the threat of water, wind, tillage and harvesting to reveal the cumulative impact on arable land. It is a basis for developing a comprehensive monitoring system for soil health. This first assessment could be the basis for a composite soil erosion indicator including all erosional processes. Summing up the total soil displacement of all erosional process, we estimate a 575 million tonnes. According to our multi-model approach, water erosion is the most dominant erosional process contributing to 51% of the total soil loss in EU and UK.
Pubication date: 02/08/2023