Opportunities offered by the Design and the Use of a Gridded Multi-Scale European Soil Information System in Support of European Soil Policy

During the last years the need for a coherent approach to soil protection has come on the political agenda in Europe and in this context of a European Soil Thematic Strategy (STS), the European policy makers require access to European soil data to assess the state of soils at European level. The creation of European soil datasets is not new but has always been the result of a complex and time-consuming undertaking, the best example being the development of the European Soil Database. In the light of updates to existing soil data and of collection of new soil data simplification is needed through a suitable technical framework. Recently, the INSPIRE initiative (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) has embarked on a common framework for spatial data in the EU. One pillar is to conduct reporting and analysis of environmental information on the basis of a hierarchical system of grids. This system constitutes a suitable framework for the building of a nested system of soil data and could lay the basis for a Multi-scale European Soil Information System (MEUSIS). In order to achieve this, a common standard for the collection of harmonized soil information is to be developed and implemented. MEUSIS, aiming to be the harmonized soil information system for Europe which potentially could streamline better the flow of information from the data producer at a local or regional scale to the data users at wider scales, will offer a number of opportunities. The parties involved in the use of such a system are the data contributors, the data users (scientists and policy makers) and the data managers, who generally speaking will only benefit from such an approach.