Integrating soil monitoring in forest and other semi-natural land uses in the Nordic and Baltic region (MoniForSoil)
Coordinator: Helena Marta Stefánsdóttir, Land and Forest Iceland, helena.stefansdottir(a)landogskogur.is
Photo: Helena Marta Stefánsdóttir
MoniForSoil in short: This network is an important platform for researchers working on soil monitoring in the Nordic and Baltic countries, as well as a platform for a conversational ground for other countries located on the Northern hemisphere, like Canada and Japan. The network will aim to address the EU Soil Monitoring Law and to assess which indicators are meaningful of soil health assessment for ecosystems in boreal and Northern temperate forests. Another aim of the network is to encourage knowledge sharing and data harmonization among soil monitoring teams as well as to increase student projects working on projects with data from more than one country.
The long-term goal: MoniForSoil is to enhance collaboration and information exchange among researchers, students, and stakeholders involved in the development, integration, and harmonization of data collection and analysis across Nordic-Baltic soil monitoring systems. This effort will contribute to broader EU and international perspectives, addressing land use and land use change in a global context.
For 2025, MoniForSoil will focus on four key goals organized under four themes. These efforts aim to support the future production of maps and datasets linking soil properties, management, soil health, and ecosystem services in the Nordic-Baltic region.
Networks activities: The network will mainly be driven by online meetings, with one physical meeting held in Iceland. Each meeting will focus on different topic and between there will be some organizing meetings as well as work meetings to on deliverables.
Network Themes:
- Soil monitoring law. One of the aims of the network is to evaluate the consequences of the EU soil monitoring law in the Nordic and Baltic forests, as well as in other semi-natural land uses. Also to engage in the use of indicators that are meaningful for the assessment of soil health in boreal and northern temperate forests.
- C – monitoring. Another aim is to review the current approaches to document changes in soil carbon in the carbon markets. Also to assess the potentials for the use of soil monitoring data in soil carbon projects.
- Land use, methods and data comparison. We aim to identify problematic differences between monitoring systems in different land uses and to enhance the methodological alignment across land uses, particularly regarding soil health monitoring following land use changes.
- Knowledge sharing and data harmonization. The network is also meant to strengthen the support of knowledge sharing and harmonization among soil monitoring teams across borders, on aspects regarding logistics, field training, laboratory and DNA analyses as well as to data sharing policies, data analyses, uncertainty analyses as well as new technologies. Including countries from other continents, like Canada and Japan, we strengthen the worldwide network of knowledge sharing and data harmonization even further.
Participants: This network consists of scientists from all of the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, but it also collaborates with scientists from Canada and Japan which will broaden the perspective of soil monitoring from North Europe to North hemisphere.
