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Project Topic
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The general objective of SHARInG-MeD is building an open and concerted soil monitoring scheme to integrate physico-chemical, biological (microbes, nematodes, invertebrates, plants), agronomic, economic and environmental indicators of the Mediterranean croplands; build models of the soil properties at the wide scale; changes of soil properties at the fine scale; relationship between land or crop (especially soil) management practices with environmental and economic performances of the agricultural systems or crops; models of harmonization of soil data among various public databases; and foster the diffusion of the soil improving practices (conservation agriculture, application of organic materials, use of beneficial microbes) in the Mediterranean drylands, with special emphasis to the West Asia and Nord Africa (WANA). An active promotion of the advantages and limitations of these strategies (land use and land use change, conservation practices, organic amendments and beneficial microbes) and of the Horizon Europe Soil Mission will be pursued by website, mass and social media activities, magazine and scientific publications, photos, videos, congress, high school lessons, farmers’ school, and a Massive Open Online Course on the project activities. These data and models will increase the agriculture sustainability by informing stakeholders on the use of and relationships among these indicators for Mediterranean landscape and crop sustainable managements and will provide a tool to modulate the contribution of agriculture on the mitigation of the climate change. To achieve SHARInG-MeD aim, the soil sampling campaigns from two wide land collection strategies in Europe (LUCAS soil module) and Africa (H2020 Soil4Africa) and the Soil Atlas of the Mediterranean Region will be derived, along with data from the literature on the methodologies of soil and crop analyses. A SHARInG-MeD sampling campaign will be established by collecting samples complying at the one time with Soil4Africa H2020 “topsoil” and LUCAS soil module. The sampling scheme of SHARInG-MeD will include both new sites and resampling of known sites in LUCAS soil module, Soil4Africa, and Soil Atlas and covering their lack of sampling. Sampling will be conducted in paired land uses (including a cropland, and considering areas affected by salinity and/or overgrazing) or field experiments dealing with soil improving management practices. The above-mentioned soil properties (including soil life indicators) and potential GHG emissions will be measured. In the field experiments, economic fluxes and Life Cycle Assessment will be measured. Models will be built to harmonize these sampling schemes. The models produced in SHARInG-MeD will undergo both an internal and an external validation against published data in national, EU, and non-EU research repositories, infrastructures, and living labs. These aims and expected results cover all requirements of the specific topic by providing a tool for the measurement of the soil degradation process, and crop profitability and environmental impact, thus enabling an environment for the protection, restoration and improvement of soil health in the Mediterranean drylands; providing harmonization models and indicators of agricultural health from both environmental and human needs; by validating these models in actual conditions; by performing an evidence synthesis of the state of monitoring and existing soil data in the Mediterranean area and providing models for the existing physico-chemical, biological, agronomic, economic and other environmental indicators for region-wide assessment of soil ecosystem health; by identifying and establishing synergies with other H2020, PRIMA, national projects and initiatives, research infrastructures and living labs; by providing a tool for the harmonization of the National Soil Surveys in the Soil Atlas; by engaging general public and stakeholders in fruitful dissemination and communication activities.
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