Stats based indicator measurements aim to utilise and harmonise data from existing datasets, as they exist in many countries, and at EU or global level providing a huge amount of information relating to soil health.
The first domain of stats data includes spatial soil information derived from interpolation or modelling of sample data (e.g. LUCAS – topsoil layer maps or SoilGrids – globla soil property and class maps).
The second domain of stats data involves soil management information. Often, such information is lacking for sample data, and it forms a bottleneck in upscaling soil indicators from sample locations to landscape scale and beyond.
A final domain of stats data involves derived soil information. Often, modelling and scenario analyses underpin such data. The purpose of processing can vary from understanding the variability of spatial soil information (e.g., frequency distributions across soil types, and assessing relative performance) to understanding the impact of soil health and/or management on soil-based ecosystem services (e.g., soil erosion risk mapping) and establishing the potential for, or thresholds of aspired soil health outcomes (e.g., soil organic carbon sequestration potential).
Creamer, R.E. (2022) BENCHMARKS Proposal – Building a European Network for the Characterisation and Harmonisation of Monitoring Approaches for Research and Knowledge on Soil.
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