EUROSION · European Soil Erosion Monitoring and Modelling Network for Sustainable Agricultural Land Management

Erosion is a major threat to the ecosystemic services provided by soils, especially for nutrient cycling, provision of food, water purification, leading to significant on- and off-site effects that needs to be monitored, studied and prevented. EUROSION will tackle this issue by developing and demonstrating a dynamic soil erosion monitoring system able to continuously and precisely estimate soil erosion across spatial and temporal scales, considering water, wind and tillage effects in agricultural lands.This will be achieved with: (i) the creation of a robust multi-scale monitoring network composed of EUROSION partnership and representatives of complementary monitoring stakeholders, (ii) the elaboration of a monitoring scheme using harmonized monitoring methods allowing to collect up-to-date and reliable data, (iii) interrelated wind-water-tillage-related process-based erosion models capable of quantifying soil erosion from local to EU scale and across time and estimate the impact of management practices. These enhanced knowledge and innovative bricks will lead to the development of a user-friendly interactive and open-access platform for policymakers, researchers and monitoring stakeholders to visualize dynamic maps of erosion and conduct further research. Thus, EUROSION soil erosion monitoring system will deliver reliable estimates and validated indicators, on which the project will take stock to provide policymakers and agricultural land managers with recommendations on best management practices reducing soil erosion, supported by tailored cost-benefit analysis. EUROSION will also enable science-based trade-offs for the development and update of soil-related policies, including the new CAP. The project will run in close collaboration with local stakeholders, EU policymakers, and the JRC, and will be implemented in specific 12 Monitoring Nodes, representing European erosion hot spots and key agricultural areas.