Browsing by Author "Jones, Robert J. A."
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Item Open Access Climate change and land suitability for potato production in England and Wales: impacts and adaptation(Cambridge University Press, 2012-04-01T00:00:00Z) Daccache, Andre; Keay, Caroline A.; Jones, Robert J. A.; Weatherhead, E. K.; Stalham, M. A.; Knox, Jerry W.The viability of commercial potato production is influenced by spatial and temporal variability in soils and agroclimate, and the availability of water resources where supplemental irrigation is required. Soil characteristics and agroclimatic conditions greatly influence the cultivar choice, agronomic husbandry practices and the economics of production. Using the latest (UKCP09) scenarios of climate change for the UK, this paper describes a methodology using pedo-climatic functions and a GIS to model and map current and future land suitability for potato production in England and Wales. The outputs identify regions where rainfed production is likely to become limiting and where future irrigated production would be constrained due to shortages in water availability. The results suggest that by the 2050s, the area of land that is currently well or moderately suited for rainfed production would decline by 74 and 95% under the "most likely" climate projections for the low and high emissions scenario respectively, owing to increased droughtiness. In many areas, rainfed production would become increasingly risky. However, with supplemental irrigation, around 85% of the total arable land in central and eastern England would remain suitable for production, although most of this is in catchments where water resources are already over-licensed and/or over-abstracted; the expansion of irrigated cropping is thus likely to be constrained by water availability. The increase in volumetric water demand due to the switch from rainfed to irrigated potato cropping is likely to be much greater than the incremental increase in water demand solely on irrigated potatoes. The implications of climate change on the potato industry, the adaptation options and responses available, and the uncertainty associated with the land suitability projections, are discussed.Item Open Access The distribution of peatland in Europe.(Jointly by International Mire Conservation Group and International Peat Society, 2006) Montanarella, Luca; Jones, Robert J. A.; Hiederer, RolandThis paper derives the distribution of peatland in Europe as the extent of peat and peat-topped soils indicated by soil databases. The data sources were the 1:1,000,000 European Soil Database (v1.0) and a data set of organic carbon content (%) for the topsoils of Europe at 1km x 1km resolution that was recently published in map form. The strong influences of vegetation and land use on soil organic carbon (OC) content were taken into account in computing the 1km (OC) data set, as was the influence of temperature. The areas of peat and peat-topped soils estimated from the European Soil Database are generally in close agreement with those obtained using the Map of OC in Topsoils of Europe. The results reveal a strong northern bias in the distribution of organic soils across Europe. Almost one-third of the peatland resource of Europe is in Finland, and more than a quarter is in Sweden. The remainder is in Poland, the UK, Norway, Germany, Ireland, Estonia, Latvia, The Netherlands and France. Small areas of peat and peat-topped soils also occur in Lithuania, Hungary, Denmark and the Czech Republic. For most European countries, the distribution of peat and peat-topped soils is probably more accurately portrayed by the Map of OC in Topsoils of Europe than by the European Soil Map and Database. Such baseline data are important for the conservation of peat and for making much more precise estimates of carbon stocks in topsoil than have been possible hitherto. The results are also relevant to the planning of effective soil protection measures at European level.Item Open Access Estimating organic carbon in the soils of Europe for policy support.(Blackwell, 2005-10) Jones, Robert J. A.; Hiederer, Roland; Rusco, E.; Montanarella, LucaThe estimation of soil carbon content is of pressing concern for soil protection and in mitigation strategies for global warming. This paper describes the methodology developed and the results obtained in a study aimed at estimating organic carbon contents (%) in topsoils across Europe. The information presented in map form provides policy-makers with estimates of current topsoil organic carbon contents for developing strategies for soil protection at regional level. Such baseline data are also of importance in global change modelling and may be used to estimate regional differences in soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks and projected changes therein, as required for example under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, after having taken into account regional differences in bulk density.Item Open Access The implications of a changing climate on agricultural land classification in England and Wales(Cambridge University Press, 2012-10-30) Keay, C. A.; Jones, Robert J. A.; Hannam, Jacqueline A.; Barrie, I. A.The agricultural land classification (ALC) of England and Wales is a formal method of assessing the quality of agricultural land and guiding future land use. It assesses several soil, site and climate criteria and classifies land according to whichever is the most limiting. A common approach is required for calculating the necessary agroclimatic parameters over time in order to determine the effects of changes in the climate on land grading. In the present paper, climatic parameters required by the ALC classification have been re-calculated from a range of primary climate data, available from the Meteorological Office's UKCP09 historical dataset, provided as 5 km rasters for every month from 1914 to 2000. Thirty-year averages of the various agroclimatic properties were created for 1921–50, 1931–60, 1941–70, 1951–80, 1961–90 and 1971–2000. Soil records from the National Soil Inventory on a 5 km grid across England and Wales were used to determine the required soil and site parameters for determining ALC grade. Over the 80-year period it was shown that the overall climate was coolest during 1951–80. However, the area of land estimated in retrospect as ‘best and most versatile (BMV) land’ (Grades 1, 2 and 3a) probably peaked in the 1951–80 period as the cooler climate resulted in fewer droughty soils, more than offsetting the land which was downgraded by the climate being too cold. Overall there has been little change in the proportions of ALC grades among the six periods once all 10 factors (climate, gradient, flooding, texture, depth, stoniness, chemical, soil wetness, droughtiness and erosion) are taken into account. This is because it is rare for changes in climate variables all to point in the same direction in terms of ALC. Thus, a reduction in rainfall could result in higher grades in wetter areas but lead to lower classification in drier areas.Item Open Access Modeling sediment yields in Italian catchments.(Elsevier, 2005-02-01) van Rompaey, Anton; Bazzoffi, Paolo; Jones, Robert J. A.; Montanarella, LucaSediment yield observations, derived from 40 long-term sedimentation records in Italian reservoirs, were used to calibrate and validate the spatially distributed sediment delivery model WaTEM/SEDEM using the best data available at national scale. The sediment yield data set includes records from semi-natural catchments in northern Italy as well as agricultural and semi-natural basins in central and southern Italy. The average size of the catchments is 150 km2 with mean annual sediment yields ranging from 0.20 to 20 t ha−1 year−1. WaTEM/SEDEM estimates mean annual sediment fluxes to permanent river channels. Depending on the local transport capacity, the sediment flux is detachment-limited or transport-limited. The optimal transport capacity parameters for Italian conditions were derived via automatic calibration procedures. A global model calibration procedure taking into account all catchments in the dataset led to an overestimation of the sediment yield for the mountain catchments and an underestimation for the non-mountain catchments. Sediment yield estimates are more reliable when calibration procedures are applied separately for mountain and non-mountain catchments. The model performance of WaTEM/SEDEM is rather poor in the mountain catchments (R=0.25), which suggests that the model structure is too simplified to come to an adequate description of the sediment fluxes. The model performance for the non-mountain catchments, which are more important from a management point of view, is significantly better (R=0.51). Considering the fact that data layers with a 75×75 m resolution were used, the results are encouraging the further development and application of spatially distributed sediment yield models at regional and national scale levels.Item Open Access The PESERA coarse scale erosion model for Europe: I – Model rationale and implementation.(Wiley-Blackwell, 2008-12) Kirkby, M. J.; Irvine, B.; Jones, Robert J. A.; Govers, G.; team, PESERAThe principles and theoretical background are presented for a new process-based model (PESERA) that is designed to estimate long-term average erosion rates at 1 km resolution and has, to date, been applied to most of Europe. The model is built around a partition of precipitation into components for overland flow (infiltration excess, saturation excess and snowmelt), evapo-transpiration and changes in soil moisture storage. Transpiration is used to drive a generic plant growth model for biomass, constrained as necessary by land use decisions, primarily on a monthly time step. Leaf fall, with corrections for cropping, grazing, etc., also drives a simple model for soil organic matter. The runoff threshold for infiltration excess overland flow depends dynamically on vegetation cover, organic matter and soil properties, varying over the year. The distribution of daily rainfall totals has been fitted to a Gamma distribution for each month, and drives overland flow and sediment transport (proportional to the sum of overland flow squared) by summing over this distribution. Total erosion is driven by erodibility, derived from soil properties, squared overland flow discharge and gradient; it is assessed at the slope base to estimate total loss from the land, and delivered to stream channels.Item Open Access Projected changes in mineral soil carbon of European forests, 1990–2100(Agricultural Institute of Canada, 2006) Smith, Pete; Smith, Jo; Wattenbach, Martin; Meyer, Jeannette; Lindner, Marcus; Zaehle, Sönke; Hiederer, Roland; Jones, Robert J. A.; Montanarella, Luca; Rounsevell, Mark; Reginster, Isabelle; Kankaanpää, SusannaForests are a major land use in Europe, and European forest soils contain about the same amount of carbon as is found in tree biomass. Changes in the size of the forest soil carbon pool could have significant impacts on the European carbon budget. We present the first assessment of future changes in European forest soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks using a dedicated process-based SOC model and state-of-the-art databases of driving variables. Soil carbon change was calculated for Europe using the Rothamsted Carbon model using climate data from four climate models, forced by four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions scenarios (SRES). Changes in litter input to the soil due to forest management, projected changes in net primary production (NPP), forest age-class structure, and changes in forest area were taken into account. Results are presented for mineral soil only. Under some climate scenarios carbon in forest soils will increase slightly (0.1 to 4.6 Pg) in Europe over the 21st Century, whilst for one scenario, forest SOC stocks are predicted to decrease by 0.3 Pg. Different trends are seen in different regions. Climate change will tend to speed decomposition, whereas increases in litter input due to increasing NPP and changing age-class structure will slow the loss of SOC. Increases in forest area could further enhance the total soil carbon stock of European forests. Whilst climate change will be a key driver of change in forest soil carbon, changes in ageclass structure and land-use change are estimated to have greater effects.Item Open Access Soil Profile Analytical Database for Europe (SPADE): Reconstruction and Validation of the Measured Data (SPADE/M)(Royal Danish Geographical Society, 2006) Hiederer, Roland; Jones, Robert J. A.; Daroussin, J.The Soil Profile Analytical Database of Europe of Measured profiles (SPADE/M) was created to provide a common structure for storing harmonized information on typical soil profile properties of European soils. The main difficulty encountered in constructing the database was the transfer of the source data from individual electronic spreadsheet pages to the more rigid structure of a relational database. The data in spreadsheet format had been collected more than 12 years earlier but pressure was mounting for the capability to link these data to the Soil Map of Europe. A semi-automatic process was implemented to transfer data from nominal positions on the spreadsheet page to an intermediate structure highlighting any deviations from expected values. Conflicting situations were solved by manual intervention and expert judgement. Data in the intermediate structure were subjected to a validation procedure with the aim of storing uniform data in the database. The validation checks cover format authentication, restricting entries to permissible values and those passing plausibility tests. In cases where a horizon property could not be represented consistently following the field specifications, the database structure was adapted to accommodate those conditions. The database model was extended to allow data from multiple samples taken at the same plot and from the analysis of samples from different laboratories to be stored.Item Open Access Subsoil Compaction: A hidden form of Soil Sealing in Europe(Joint Research Centre, 2001-06) Jones, Robert J. A.; Montanarella, LucaThere are two definitions of ‘soil sealing’: (I) ‘covering (sealing) the soil surface by impervious materials, e.g. concrete, metal, glass, tarmac and plastic’; and (II) ‘changing the nature of the soil such that it behaves as an impermeable medium, e.g. by compaction’. The main causes of soil sealing according to the first definition (I) are building development (e.g. industrial and residential premises) and transport (e.g. roads). Changing the nature of the soil such that it behaves as an impermeable medium (definition II) is an extension to include the potential effects of the passage of machinery (mostly agricultural) and the effects of heavy rainfall. Intensification of agriculture is now recognised as often having a detrimental effect on soils, not least the widespread development of compaction. The worst effects of compaction at the surface can be rectified relatively easily by cultivation but once subsoil compaction occurs, it can be extremely difficult and expensive to alleviate. It is now clear that the detrimental effects of subsoil compaction go far beyond agricultural concerns of a decrease in yield and increase in management costs. Environmental impacts include increased erosion risk, accelerated runoff and increased pollution. A preliminary attempt to assess the susceptibility of subsoils in Europe to compaction is presented here in the context of soil sealing. The resulting distribution is only the first stage in assessing the vulnerability of subsoils in Europe to compaction. The biggest problem with soil sealing as an environmental indicator is the difficulty of establishing the true extent at the regional and larger scales. However, subsoil compaction should not be ignored because it probably affects a larger area in Europe than urbanisation (land consumption) and in this respect it must be regarded as an important process of soil sealing.Item Open Access Tolerable versus actual soil erosion rates in Europe(Elsevier, 2009-05) Verheijen, Frank G. A.; Jones, Robert J. A.; Rickson, R. Jane; Smith, C. J.Erosion is a major threat to soil resources in Europe, and may impair their ability to deliver a range of ecosystem goods and services. This is reflected by the European Commission's Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection, which recommends an indicator-based approach for monitoring soil erosion. Defined baseline and threshold values are essential for the evaluation of soil monitoring data. Therefore, accurate spatial data on both soil loss and soil genesis are required, especially in the light of predicted changes in climate patterns, notably frequency, seasonal distribution and intensity of precipitation. Rates of soil loss are reported that have been measured, modelled or inferred for most types of soil erosion in a variety of landscapes, by studies across the spectrum of the Earth sciences. Natural rates of soil formation can be used as a basis for setting tolerable soil erosion rates, with soil formation consisting of mineral weathering as well as dust deposition. This paper reviews the concept of tolerable soil erosion and summarises current knowledge on rates of soil formation, which are then compared to rates of soil erosion by known erosion types, for assessment of soil erosion monitoring at the European scale.Item Open Access Towards a harmonisation of the soil map of Africa at the continental scale(Elsevier, 2013-12-31T00:00:00Z) Dewitte, Olivier; Jones, Arwyn; Spaargaren, Otto; Breuning-Madsen, Henrik; Brossard, Michel; Dampha, Almami; Deckers, Jozef; Gallali, Tahar; Hallett, Stephen H.; Jones, Robert J. A.; Kilasara, Method; LeRoux, Pieter; Michéli, Erika; Montanarella, Luca; Thiombiano, Lamourdia; van Ranst, Eric; Yemefack, Martin; Zougmore, RobertIn the context of major global environmental challenges such as food security, climate change, fresh water scarcity and biodiversity loss, the protection and the sustainable management of soil resources in Africa are of paramount importance. To raise the awareness of the general public, stakeholders, policy makers and the science community to the importance of soil in Africa, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has produced the Soil Atlas of Africa. To that end, a new harmonised soil map at the continental scale has been produced. The steps of the construction of the new area-class map are presented, the basic information being derived from the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). We show how the original data were updated and modified according to the World Reference Base for Soil Resources classification system. The corrections concerned boundary issues, areas with no information, soil patterns, river and drainage networks, and dynamic features such as sand dunes, water bodies and coastlines. In comparison to the initial map derived from HWSD, the new map represents a correction of 13% of the soil data for the continent. The map is available for downloading.Item Open Access Use of soil and climate data to assess the risk of agricultural drought for policy support in Europe.(INRA / EDP Sciences, 2001-01) Zdruli, Pandi; Jones, Robert J. A.; Montanarella, LucaThis paper describes the use of soil and climatic data for assessing the risk of drought in Europe. Soil moisture regimes are defined for soil classification purposes and these can be used to delineate areas with the same type of soil climate. Maps showing the distribution of arid soils in USA and dry areas in Southern Europe are presented. In the case of agricultural drought, it is the soil water available to plants (SWAP) that is the most important soil factor in assessing this risk and a simple model for estimating this is described. This model can be linked to spatial and point data from the European Soil Database. In the absence of sufficient soil water retention measurements, preliminary maps of SWAP in Europe have been produced using pedotransfer rules. The study concludes that basic soil maps can be used to identify some areas where agricultural drought is likely to be a problem. However more precise modelling of droughtiness, based on interactions of soil available water with the average soil moisture deficit, estimated from meteorological data, is needed, to support policy making today.Item Open Access Vulnerability of subsoils in Europe to compaction: a preliminary analysis.(Elsevier, 2003-10) Jones, Robert J. A.; Spoor, G.; Thomasson, A. J.Identifying the vulnerability of subsoils to compaction damage is an increasingly important issue both in the planning and execution of farming operations and in planning environmental protection measures. Ideally, subsoil vulnerability to compaction should be assessed by direct measurement of soil bearing capacity but currently no direct practical tests are available. Similarly, soil mechanics principles are not suitably far enough advanced to allow extrapolation of likely compaction damage from experimental sites to situations in general. This paper, therefore, proposes a simple classification system for subsoil vulnerability to compaction based for field use on local soil and wetness data at the time of critical trafficking, and, at European level, on related soil and climatic information. Soil data are readily available ‘in Country’ or from the European Soil Database and climatic data are stored in the agrometeorological database of the MARS Project. The vulnerability to compaction is assessed using a two-stage process. First, the inherent susceptibility of the soil to compaction is estimated on the basis of the relatively stable soil properties of texture and packing density. Second, the susceptibility class is then converted into a vulnerability class through consideration of the likely soil moisture status at the time of critical loadings. For use at local level, adjustments are suggested to take account of possible differences in the support strength of the topsoil and specific subsoil structural conditions. The vulnerability classes proposed are based on profile pit observations, on a wide range of soils examined mainly in intensively farmed areas where large-scale field equipment is employed. A map of soil susceptibility to compaction in Europe has been produced, as the first stage in developing a more rigorous quantitative approach to assessing overall vulnerability than has been possible hitherto.Item Open Access Will European soil-monitoring networks be able to detect changes in topsoil organic carbon content?(Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2008-10-31T00:00:00Z) Saby, N. P. A.; Bellamy, Patricia H.; Morvan, X.; Arrouays, D.; Jones, Robert J. A.; Verheijen, Frank G. A.; Kibblewhite, Mark G.; Verdoodt, A.; Üveges, J.; Freudenschuß, A.; Simota, C.Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, articles 3.3 and 3.4 stipulate that some voluntary activities leading to an additional carbon (C) sequestration in soils could be accounted as C sinks in national greenhouse gas inventories. These additional C stocks should be verifiable. In this work, we assess the feasibility of verifying the effects of changes in land use or management practice on soil organic carbon (SOC), by comparing minimum detectable changes in SOC concentration for existing European networks suitable for soil monitoring. Among the tested scenarios, the minimum detectable changes differed considerably among the soil-monitoring networks (SMNs). Considerable effort would be necessary for some member states to reach acceptable levels of minimum detectable change for C sequestration accounting. For SOC, a time interval of about 10 years would enable the detection of some simulated large changes in most European countries. In almost all cases, the minimum detectable change in SOC stocks remains greater than annual greenhouse gases emissions. Therefore, it is unlikely that SMNs could be used for annual national C accounting. However, the importance of organic C in soil functions, and as an indicator of soil condition and trends, underlines the importance of establishing effective national SMNs.