MEUSIS: Applications

Soil Projects > MEUSIS (Multi-Scale Soil Information System) > Applications - Data

The Prototype of the Multiscale European Soil Information System (MEUSIS) is an application which allows the user to navigate in the Alpine Reference Grid. The objective of this application is to allow the user to navigate in a large Transboundary area by zooming in from upper scales towards more detailed data. Follow the instructions given below in order to better realise the concept of multiscale soil information system according to Inspire principles:

The initial Extent of the application shows the 100km x 100km Reference Grid of the 11 x 7 = 77 cells of 100km each. in the initial Map extent.
Zoom in the area of the Reference Grid 11.000 km wide by 7.000 km height. You can view the labels of the 100 km Grid cells like "38_22" , "38_23", ......."48_27", "48_28". The extent is Left: 3.800.000 - Right: 4.800.000 - Bottom: 2.200.000 - Top: 2.800.000.
Zoom more in the cell labelled " 42_25" around Laggo Maggiore in Italy. The extent is Left: 4.200.000 - Right: 4.300.000 - Bottom: 2.500.000 - Top: 2.600.000. Such a cell may cover 100km wide by 100km heigh. You can view in details the smaller cells of 10km designed in yellow border. If you focus well, you can view that 100 cells of 10km can form 1 cell of 100km.
Zoom even more in order to zoom in one of the 10km Grid cells, e.g. Zoom in the cell labelled "422_253". The extent is Left: 4.220.000 - Right: 4.230.000 - Bottom: 2.530.000 - Top: 2.540.000. In this detailed scale, the smaller 1km cells are visible with labels "4220_2530",....,"4229_2539" and cover the area of a larger Cell of 10km "422_253". As you can view in this detailed scale, the layer of "Soil Erosion" is viewed and the border of smaller cells of 1km are visible. If you check and uncheck the "Soil Erosion" layer then you can view that the borders of the INSPIRE Reference Grid 1km x 1km fit with the borders of the "Soil Erosion" Grid. The ideal Multiscale European Soil Information system(MEUSIS) allows the 100 cells of 1km grid to update the grater cell of 10km with the proper value.

Traditionally the European Soil Database has been distributed in vector format. More recently, interest was expressed for deriving a raster version of this database (better handling of cross-border inaccuracies, up-scaling capabilities, easier updating framework, etc). The Land Management Unit has adopted the recommended ETRS-LAEA reference system and converted the database according to a 10 km by 10 km proposed grid. It has been made available to the soil community on:
The ESDBv2 Raster Library - 10km x 10km (ETRS_LAEA version)

A more detailed version at 1 km resolution has been preparedand published recently. This version is delivered upon request:
The European Soil Database v2 - Raster Library 1km x 1km

European Reference Grids: This version is delivered upon request: In the context of INSPIRE it is expected that exchange of soil related data at regional, national and European level will happen in a grid- or raster-like fashion. The basis for such work is the availability of standard or reference grids in a common co-ordinate system with fixed cell sizes and common cell coding.

1km ITALY Reference Grids: The 21 1km x 1km reference grids for each of the 21 Regions of Italy

In addition, some layers resulting from projects, such as the PESERA soil erosion risk assessment, the Organic Carbon content maps and the Ecopedological Map of the Alps have been converted to a 1 km x 1km grid and are also accessible from the EU Geo Portal:

Themes	Data	Mapping services
Soil Erosion Risk Assessemnt	/ESDB_Archive/pesera/pesera_data.html	/website/pesera/
Organic Carbon Content	/ESDB_Archive/octop/octop_data.html	/website/octop/
ECALP (Ecopedological Map of Alps) Project	Pilot Areas Data	/website/ecalp/

The ECALP project was the first case where the MEUSIS principles have been applied. During 2006, another MEUSIS exercise took place in Slovakia and more information are presented in the Test case of Slovakia. In the next years, more detailed soil maps should be initiated with the use of the proposed European Grid System as the compulsory framework for reporting data collected. Regarding the data collection, some basic questions are responsed in the section " Questions and Answers".

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European Commission - Joint Research Centre
Institute for Environment and Sustainability
Contacts:
Marc Van Liedekerke(tel. +39-0332-785179)
Panos Panagos (tel. +39-0332-785574)

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