CUP4SOIL: High-resolution soil property service development for National and European soil carbon reporting

This action aims at a downstream service to support national and European agencies for reporting on soil health/quality and thus, contribute to the Land Degradation Monitoring (LDN) and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 15.3.1) reporting. It further underpins the pre-operational Soil Monitoring System currently being developed within the ESA WorldSoils project with the potential to serve as a component of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. Using synergies between this action and the ESA WorldSoils project will streamline the activities and boost the user uptake. The 2-year CUP4SOIL project comprises the following objectives:

• Develop a potential Copernicus downstream service to support national and European agencies for reporting on soil health/quality.
• Generate European-wide data products and indicators characterising soil health/quality
• Prepare and develop a user community that tests and validates data products for soil health/quality information
• Ensure close cooperation with the ESA WorldSoils project activities and other related projects/initiatives such as the EJP soil project STEREOPES, SERENA, etc.

Initiatives and literature: In the first step, CUP4SOIL explores the different literature and project resources to get an update about the current discussion of essential soil health indicators. This will be collected in a first version of a User Requirement Document (URD) that CUP4SOIL presents, discuss and adapt with a larger community during the first User Requirement virtual meeting. For this purpose, a specific online user survey will be developed based on the framework of the FPCUP requirements. The survey is planned to be repeated regularly.

Soil data products: In the next step, CUP4SOIL generates European-wide soil information products based on Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data. For this purpose, DLR and ISRIC join their large-scale processing expertise and facilities. DLR is creating several soil-related input products such as soil reflectance composites, information about the cover frequency of soils and the vegetation dynamic on a high spatial resolution (20 m). These data products flow into the high-performance computing environment of ISRIC that generates information about soil organic carbon content, texture pH values, etc. using digital soil modelling approaches. The data will be made publicly available. Selective key users are involved to evaluate the usability of the proposed soil information products. It is also planned to compare the CUP4SOIL products with other existing European-wide soil products. The results will be presented and discussed during the first workshop that will be held in cooperation with the WorldSoils Symposium in 02/2024.

Showcases: Based on this user exchange and feedback, the Copernicus URD will be updated and required changes are integrated into the soil information processors of DLR and ISRIC to improve the soil product portfolio. In this phase, showcases will be developed together with local municipalities, national institutes and European agencies. The showcases use the suggested Copernicus soil input data to derive higher-value information about soil quality and health for specific regions to demonstrate the usability and applicability of the soil product portfolio for Copernicus users. The results and evaluation of these showcase developments will be presented and discussed for a larger user community at the final CUP4SOIL workshop (11/2024).

You can access recent CUP4SOIL Presentations at the German National Copernicus Soil Buero, two presentations at ESA SYMPOSIUM ON EARTH OBSERVATION FOR SOIL PROTECTION AND RESTORATION at ESA-ESRIN and the latest CUP4SOIL Presentation at the German National Forum for Earth Observation and Copernicus through the links below.