The European Union Joint Research Centre (EUJRC): The English language version of the Soil Map of South America

European Soil Portal: http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu        European Soil Data Centre Newsletter No 78 (June 2015)

Atlas of Latin America and the Caribbean (English version available) On 10-11 June 2015, the EU is holding a high level summit with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) under the title "Shaping our common future: working for prosperous, cohesive and sustainable societies for our citizens". On this occa­sion, the English and Portuguese versions of the JRC Soil Atlas of Latin America and the Caribbean were launched. This publication was offered by the Commission President to the 61 heads of delegation, including more than 40 heads of state or government from CELAC and EU Member States taking part in the summit.  The Soil Atlas of Latin American and the Caribbean is an initiative funded by the EUROCLIMA programme, which aims to promote cooperation between Latin America and the European Union (EU) in the field of climate change. The aim of the atlas is to support sustainable soil management, and to help pro­mote an understanding of the state of and importance of soil in order to encourage its preservation . Produced by the JRC, this  Atlas sets out to improve communication and raise the awareness of the general public, politicians and scientists about the importance of the soil in Latin America. English version is available (Portuguese in draft) from: http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/library/maps/LatinAmerica_Atlas/ Cover Management (C-factor) for soil erosion modelling The C-factor (USLE/RUSLE erosion modelling) accounts for how land cover, crops and crop man­agement cause soil loss to vary from those losses occurring in bare fallow areas. The C-factor is perhaps the most important factor with regard to policy and land use decisions, as it represents conditions that can be most easily managed to reduce erosion. The Cover Management high res­olution dataset (100 m) is based on the hybrid C-factor Land Use and Management (LANDUM) model. The LANDUM model for C-factor estimation is differentiated between a) arable lands and b) all other land uses (non-arable). In arable lands, the C-factor is estimated using crop statis­tics (% of arable land per crop type) and data on management practices such as reduced tillage (no till), plant residues and winter cover crops. The C-factor in non-arable lands is modelled by weighting the range of values found in literature according to fractional vegetation cover, which was estimated based on the COPERNICUS Remote Sensing dataset Fcover. Data for C-factor and management practices are available from: http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/library/themes/erosion/CoverManagement/ Landform classification (Data available) The landform classification following Meybeck et al. (2001) presents relief classes, which are cal­culated based on the relief roughness. Roughness and elevation are classified based on a DEM according to static thresholds, with a given window size. The landform classification following Iwahashi and Pike (2007) present relief classes which are classified using an unsupervised nest­ed-means algorithm and a three part geometric signature. Slope gradient, surface texture and local convexity are calculated based on the SRTM30 DEM, within a given window size. Data are available for download:  http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/projects/landform/