21^st Eco-gen Ambassador Program- Theme Report, December 2018

‘Soil"

Austria relies significantly on agriculture and soil is an important and protected part of the local environment.

Types of soil in Austria

There are 6 different types of soils in Austria:

1. Spodic Soils

2. Wetland Soils

3. Sandy Soils

4. Low Activity Clay Soils

5. Organic Soils

6. High Activity Clay Soils

Soil contamination and pollution is a matter of grave concern world over. Contaminated sites are old deposits, which can cause harmful soil changes or other hazards for the general public. The reasons for this may be improper treatment, storage or deposition of waste or the improper use of environmentally hazardous substances. The accumulation of pollutants in the soil can lead to considerable effects on human health and on the vitality of the animal and plant world. 

As an environmentally conscious nation, Austrian government takes serious measures for assessment, evaluation and protection of soil as a resource. Boris Soil Information System is one such important measure in Austria that I want to introduce to this forum.

BORIS Soil Information System

The BORIS Soil Information System in Austria holds Austria-wide information on soil characteristics, sites and contamination with pollutants. Data has been made comparable to other parts of the world and has been merged to be provided online.

The system revolves around the importance of providing information on the current state and impacts on the soil as well as on the pollution load capacity of our soils at any time.

BORIS consists of large and manifold data sets of Austrian soil investigations and surveys that have been harmonized to gain a new comparable data set for soil assessment in Austria.

BORIS contains information on sites, soil profiles and analytical values.  Particularly data on potential pollutants like heavy metals (e.g. Mercury), or organic pollutants (e.g. PAH, Dioxin).

Currently BORIS provides online nearly 1.5 Mio. data sets linked to more than 10 000 sites

This comprehensive data pool offers great possibilities for soil assessment in Austria. Thus BORIS can be considered an efficient instrument for finding solutions to soil related issues and for soil protection in Austria and in the European Union.

Advantages of BORIS

Data sets are made comparable (Austria-wide), data is checked for completeness (missing information is added) and plausibility (implausible values are verified)

Data sets of different investigations are available at the same time in the same quality and the same (chosen) format - this facilitates intended treatment (statistics, geographical information systems etc.)

The system is available online and is developed in a way that can be updated as more and more research is done on the topic.

Investigation data integrated in BORIS

- Soil inventories of all Austrian federal provinces

- Austria-wide Forest Soil Inventory

- Austria-wide cesium inventory

BORIS covers

- Sites (e.g. land use, soil type, geology, water conditions)

- Soil profiles (soil horizon characters like soil texture)

- Analytical data (e.g. heavy metals, organic pollutants, physical and microbiological characteristics)

Conclusion

The BORIS Soil Information System is an amazing way to map out the condition of the soil in different environments that have gone through different changes. While the system gives us a clear view on the state of the land, it is an ongoing system, which means that even today, new data can be integrated and new technical improvements are developed.

Sources and References

http://www.umweltbundesamt.at/en/services/services_resources/services_soil_spatial/en_ref_boris/en_boris/

forest.jrc.ec.europa.eu/media/cms_page_media/123/AUT_Soil.pdf