Privacy statement | Legal notice | Contact | Search
European Commission > Joint Research Centre > Institute for Environment and Sustainability > Land Resource Management Unit

Soil Projects > eSOTER

eSOTER: Regional pilot platform as EU contribution to a Global Soil Observing System

Call: FP7-ENV-2007-1; Start: 01/09/2008
Duration: 42m; Call- ENV.2007.4.1.3.3.
Development of a Global Soil Observing System;
Consortium: 14 partners from Europe and the world (China + Marocco).

As the European contribution to a Global Soil Observing System (part of GEO), it will deliver a web-based regional pilot platform with data, methodology, and applications, using remote sensing to validate, augment and extend existing data for a global soil and terrain database.



GEOSS plans a global Earth Observation System to meet the need for land resources information, and a global soil and terrain database is identified as a component of an agricultural monitoring system (AG-07-03 in the GEO work plan for 2007-9). e-SOTER is proposed as the European contribution to a Global Soil Observing System, overcoming the present shortcomings of SOTER and providing a Regional Pilot Platform that can be extended worldwide, for example under the proposed Gates Foundation initiative GlobalSoilMap.net. e-SOTER adds value by: 1) using remotely-sensed data both to validate and correct existing survey data; 2) to generate new data surfaces; 3) improving the quality of results of applications previously based on legacy data alone; and 4) providing a web service that delivers both selected data in an easy-to-use format and procedures to compile e-SOTER databases locally and upload these data to the European database if they meet prescribed quality standards. e-SOTER makes use of detailed digital elevation models (DEMs), recent advances in remote sensing, and new analytical tools for landform analysis, parent material detection and soil pattern recognition - both to extend the legacy soil data and to build a framework for new data acquisition. Remote sensing cannot generate, in itself, the same kind of soil pattern as mapped in SOTER – for instance remote sensing is limited in the number of classes it can identify (of the order of 20 compared with the several hundred of soil associations occurring in global maps) (Clevers et al. 2007; Harsanyi and Chang 1994) and only a few remote-sensing techniques can penetrate deep below the ground surface - but the patterns detected by remote sensing are real and meaningful and lend invaluable support to soil survey.
JRC as the Focal Point for Soil Information in Europe will perform research in all WPs on developing eSOTER datasets and methods. Additionally JRC is leader of WP6 where the Data dissemination portal for the eSOTER project as a contribution the a global soil observation system will be developed. Thereby we will research on how to transfer the knowledge/data/algorithms provided by the WPs 1 to 3 into the ESDAC data structure / algorithm database.

Events

Joint Global Soil Partnership/e-SOTER workshop

Strengthening of Soil Data and Information is one of the main pillars of action of the FAO Global Soil Partnership. Knowing the state of the art of Global soil data and information for serving different users demands is a crucial activity. This will then allow the global community to develop a coordinated joint plan of action for generating the required data and information in the coming future.

Is in this regard that the Global Soil Partnership together with the EU-funded e-SOTER Project (coordinated by ISRIC) are organizing a one week workshop “Towards Global Soil Information: activities within the GEO Task Global Soil Data” at FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy from 20-23rd March 2012.

Keynote presentations addressing the state of soil information globally and the needs for soil data and information by users will be followed by a number of presentations by most of the different ongoing soil mapping initiatives. Then a hands-work session for developing a plan of action of the GSP pillar will be devoted.

First Announcement: Towards Global Soil Information: activities within the GEO Task Global Soil Data

Registration Form: Word Document or PDF Document

Links

Important legal notice
© European Communities, 1995-
Last updated:

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