Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BENCHMARKS (Building a European Network for the Characterisation and Harmonisation of Monitoring Approaches for Research and Knowledge on Soils)
Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30
BENCHMARKS, a Horizon Europe funded project, aims to develop a transparent, harmonised, and cost-effective framework for measuring soil health across Europe. The project will co-develop the framework within 24 European landscape case studies, with a focus on multi-scale and multi-user monitoring. Working with a range of stakeholders such as land managers, legislators, value chain businesses, NGOs and policy makers, BENCHMARKS will define a monitoring system that is pertinent to the objective of assessment, applicable to the land use, and logistically feasible. Key outcomes of the project will include a harmonized and cost-effective framework for measuring soil health, a review of proposed indicators from the EU Soil Mission and BENCHMARKS, an integrated soil health tool, and scientific underpinning of soil health incentivization schemes for value-chain businesses.
Co-develop a coherent Integrated Soil Health Monitoring Framework
Workshops were held with over 500 stakeholders from 24 Case Studies across Europe. These took place in 21 workshops that were scheduled between July 2023 and January 2024. The workshops were extremely successful and based around 3 key objectives:
Establishing Stakeholder Networks: To foster an environment of mutual learning and collaboration, creating quality relationships that will spearhead long-term enhancement of soil health within and beyond individual case studies.
Exploring Soil Health Objectives and Challenges: To delve into specific soil health objectives pertinent to various contexts and work areas, identifying the challenges that impede these goals.
Identifying Management Practices and Solutions: To collaboratively explore and articulate effective soil health management practices and solutions, tailored to the unique challenges and objectives identified.
Test and validate the SH&F mission indicators as well as the alternative/additional indicators proposed by BENCHMARKS
The testing phase is implemented in WP4 and involves an amalgamation of SH&F mission indicators, indicators for the proposed Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive and indicators proposed by the BENCHMARKS project which are not considered in the other two initiatives.
The first step was an assessment of current monitoring programmes conducted across the Member States of the project partners and at a pan-European scale. This identified which indicators have been commonly applied to date and the associated sampling/analysis protocols. This helped to formulate the indicator selection and sampling/analyses protocols applied in Benchmarks. Indicator selection is also based on the spatial extent of the assessment. To achieve this, soil function models are being developed which describe the relationships between soil property attributes, soil processes and soil functions. The four soil functions (Nutrient Cycling, Carbon and Climate Regulation, Habitat for Biodiversity and Water Regulation and Purification) are then adapted to the context of the land use(agricultural, forestry and urban), resulting in 12 cognitive models.
Develop a European broad sampling framework, methodology and protocols, which can serve to support relevant EU policy (and global initiatives including; LULUCF), regulation and monitoring needs.
To achieve the testing and validation of indicators, the BENCHMARKS team has increased the number of case studies sites defined in the proposal from 24 to 29 sites. The original 24 sites have all been characterized. Testing is conducted in 3 formats:
Assessing management practices at Long Term Experimental Sites (LTEs) for specific combinations of practices commonly applied in Agricultural and Forest systems.
Assessing the sensitivity of indicator measurements across spatial extents, known as Variance Sites. At these sites a range of commonly applied indicator measurements are tested to assess their spatial sensitivity
Assessing Urban Fragmentation – in the 6 urban case studies we have moved from the concept of one site per city to 20 sites per city.
Support the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and EU Soil Observatory in development of a Soil Health Dashboard.
The BENCHMARKS consortium visited the JRC in April 2024 to discuss how it can support the JRC and EUSO in the development of the Soil Health Dashboard.
Workshops were held with over 500 stakeholders from 24 Case Studies across Europe. These took place in 21 workshops that were scheduled between July 2023 and January 2024. The workshops were extremely successful and based around 3 key objectives:
Establishing Stakeholder Networks: To foster an environment of mutual learning and collaboration, creating quality relationships that will spearhead long-term enhancement of soil health within and beyond individual case studies.
Exploring Soil Health Objectives and Challenges: To delve into specific soil health objectives pertinent to various contexts and work areas, identifying the challenges that impede these goals.
Identifying Management Practices and Solutions: To collaboratively explore and articulate effective soil health management practices and solutions, tailored to the unique challenges and objectives identified.
Test and validate the SH&F mission indicators as well as the alternative/additional indicators proposed by BENCHMARKS
The testing phase is implemented in WP4 and involves an amalgamation of SH&F mission indicators, indicators for the proposed Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive and indicators proposed by the BENCHMARKS project which are not considered in the other two initiatives.
The first step was an assessment of current monitoring programmes conducted across the Member States of the project partners and at a pan-European scale. This identified which indicators have been commonly applied to date and the associated sampling/analysis protocols. This helped to formulate the indicator selection and sampling/analyses protocols applied in Benchmarks. Indicator selection is also based on the spatial extent of the assessment. To achieve this, soil function models are being developed which describe the relationships between soil property attributes, soil processes and soil functions. The four soil functions (Nutrient Cycling, Carbon and Climate Regulation, Habitat for Biodiversity and Water Regulation and Purification) are then adapted to the context of the land use(agricultural, forestry and urban), resulting in 12 cognitive models.
Develop a European broad sampling framework, methodology and protocols, which can serve to support relevant EU policy (and global initiatives including; LULUCF), regulation and monitoring needs.
To achieve the testing and validation of indicators, the BENCHMARKS team has increased the number of case studies sites defined in the proposal from 24 to 29 sites. The original 24 sites have all been characterized. Testing is conducted in 3 formats:
Assessing management practices at Long Term Experimental Sites (LTEs) for specific combinations of practices commonly applied in Agricultural and Forest systems.
Assessing the sensitivity of indicator measurements across spatial extents, known as Variance Sites. At these sites a range of commonly applied indicator measurements are tested to assess their spatial sensitivity
Assessing Urban Fragmentation – in the 6 urban case studies we have moved from the concept of one site per city to 20 sites per city.
Support the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and EU Soil Observatory in development of a Soil Health Dashboard.
The BENCHMARKS consortium visited the JRC in April 2024 to discuss how it can support the JRC and EUSO in the development of the Soil Health Dashboard.
In the agricultural context, an inventory of management practices and associated quantitative meta-data analysis of the effect of agricultural management practices on soil biological indicators has been conducted. In addition, a review on the impact of agronomic practices on soil health was published.
With respect to the soil sampling and indicator measurements, BENCHMARKS has decided to go above and beyond the usual topsoil (0-25 cm) sampling, which is commonly applied in LTE experimental sites under agricultural land use. BENCHMARKS will sample and measure a wide range of parameters in relation to tillage down to 50 cm, at 10 cm increments to 30 cm, plus 30 – 50 cm, thus including the often neglected subsoil which is known to contribute substantially to most soil functions. A similar approach is being applied in the C amendment trials which are often only sampled 0-30 cm. In variance sites, the spatial variability of indicator measurements is assessed to determine the sensitivity of a range of soil parameters.
With respect to the soil sampling and indicator measurements, BENCHMARKS has decided to go above and beyond the usual topsoil (0-25 cm) sampling, which is commonly applied in LTE experimental sites under agricultural land use. BENCHMARKS will sample and measure a wide range of parameters in relation to tillage down to 50 cm, at 10 cm increments to 30 cm, plus 30 – 50 cm, thus including the often neglected subsoil which is known to contribute substantially to most soil functions. A similar approach is being applied in the C amendment trials which are often only sampled 0-30 cm. In variance sites, the spatial variability of indicator measurements is assessed to determine the sensitivity of a range of soil parameters.