LUCASSA II: LUCAS Soil Austria II

The objective of the LUCASSA project was to va lidate the results of the European LUCAS topsoil survey. lt has been shown that one substantial shortcoming of the LUCAS programme is the low spatial representativeness of some of its sites. For a reliable conclusion and interpretation based on the survey results representative sites are crucial. Amending the LUCAS points by a llo­ cating further sites that are both, regularly evaluated and highly representative for spec ific regions, could improve the basis for a national soil monitoring programme. Such sites are the so called "Musterstücke" of the Austrian soi ltaxation survey and the reference profiles of the agricultural soil map of Austria, respectively. Besides a double analysis of soil samples gathered by the forthcoming LUCAS samp ling campaign we want to investigate all"Bundesmusterstücke " and seventy reference profiles of the Austrian soil map that are influenced by groundwater as weil. The insights of this invest igation are of high relevance with regard to both, practical and political issues. Agriculturally used hydromorphic soils are important potential carbon sinks and thus gather a lot of attention concerning existing CAP measures and those to come. Basically, an amendment of the LUCAS results through additiona l analysis of regularly investigated and highly representative sites could improve the data basis for a national so il monitoring programme.