1. WELCOME Soil Atlas of Europe Launch Prof. Manfred Grasserbauer
The Institute for Environment and Sustainability
Ispra, Italy
a Research Based Policy Support Provider
Lord Bach and representatives from the Department for Environment, Food, Rural Affairs.
Distinguished guests.
Members of the European Soil Bureau Network.
Colleagues from other EU Institutions and the National Soil Res.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the public launch of the first ever soil atlas of Europe.

2. Policy Context Sustainable use of natural resources
Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection

3. Primary School Discussion!
The importance of soil
“Man…despite his artistic pretensions and many accomplishments, owes his existence to a thin layer of topsoil …and the fact that it rains”.
Old Chinese Proverb
“Gardens need fertile soil for plants to grow. Logically, in order for the garden of Eden to exist, soil must have been a higher priority during Creation.”
Primary School Discussion!

4. How can the JRC/IES help?
JRC’s Mission is to provide customer-driven scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of EU policies …
…the JRC functions as a centre of science and technology reference for the EU, independent of special interests, private and national

5. The Organisation of the JRC
7 Institutes in 5 Member States  2300 staff  300 M€/y budget + 40 M€ income
IE - Petten The Netherlands
Institute for Energy
IRMM - Geel Belgium
- Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements
ITU - Karlsruhe Germany
- Institute for Transuranium Elements
IPSC - IHCP - IES - Ispra Italy
- Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen
- Institute for Health and Consumer Protection
- Institute for Environment and Sustainability
IPTS - Seville Spain
- Institute for Prospective Technological Studies
1000 partners in networks partners in indirect actions

6. Institute for Environment and Sustainability
The IES aims...
to provide Scientific & Technical support to EU policies for the Protection of the Environment, and
to contribute to the EU Strategy on Sustainable Development

7. EUROPEAN SOIL BUREAU NETWORK
Soil data
NSRI

8. Raising awareness of soil issues

9. Making soil data available
Concerning the future, as we have seen, there is an urgent need to improve our knowledge on European soils both in space and in time. This means more accurate and precise soil databases, like the 1:250,000 scale Georeferenced Soil Database for Europe, but, more importantly, our knowledge of the evolution over time of the major soil degradation processes currently present in Europe. In order to gain such a time dimension in our flow of information we need to develop a coherent approach to soil monitoring at EU level. Both information layers, the spatial dimension and the time dimension, should form the future European System of Soil Data as outlined in the soil communication. Such a system should provide reliable and policy relevant soil information in support of the future EU Thematic Strategy on Soil Protection.
European Soil Information System
Users

10. Thank you for your interest!
Remember to collect your copy of the atlas during lunch.