The basic soil inventory in most countries is to produce large scale soil maps serving “official” administrative (e.g. cadastre, suitability for management, land evaluation) and ecological purposes (e.g. ground water, sensitive areas). For political, research and planning purposes, overview maps covering larger geographical areas are needed. Among different countries, the existing soil maps vary greatly in methodology and applied classifications. Recently, political measures to protect soils, increasing awareness regarding soil degradation, and environmental reporting needs (e.g. C sequestration, desertification) require small-scale overview maps. In many cases the relationship between field-based mapping units and those in overview maps is rather uncertain so that the bottom-up (field) and the top-down (derived based on auxiliary data) are disconnected. Some of the disadvantages are the lack of fit to continuously refined topographies, and the total lack to provide uncertainties for thematic applications (abundance of soil associations in mapping units). In this context, the European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN) has developed a mapping guideline for overview maps 1:250,000 (Finke et al. 1998; Manual of Procedures of the Georeferenced Soil Database for Europe). Mapping campaigns are already ongoing in many countries. In order to (a) help comparing soil data from different sources, (b) evaluate the cross-border distribution of soils in Europe, and (c) provide a comparison of soils in different climate areas, the concept of soil regions 1:5,000,000 has been introduced (version 1.0). The revision of that version, which is presented here, became necessary because of new developments in international soil classification, the availability of improved auxiliary mapping data such as topography, and progressed evaluations of national soil inventory data. The version 2.0 is again a joint venture between the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) and the European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN). The proposed poster will present the structure of the map, the soil inventory data utilized, and the position and meaning within the hierarchical concept of soil associations, soil landscapes and soil regions.

FINKE, P.A., HARTWICH, R., DUDAL, R., IBÀÑEZ, J.J., JAMAGNE, M., KING, D., MONTANARELLA, L. & N. YASSOGLOU (1998): Georeferenced Soil Database for Europe, Manual of Procedures, Version 1.0. – European Soil Bureau Research report No. 5, Office for Official Publications of the EC (EUR 18092 EN), Luxembourg.