A Strategy for Taking Soil Carbon into the Policy Arena - Soil Carbon: Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits - page 71

(Easter et al ., 2007; Milne et al ., 2007). This
tool links two models (RothC and Century)
to a geographical information system (GIS),
which contains layers of soils, climate and
land-use information. The tool has been
used to estimate SOC stocks and changes in
several countries (Bhattacharyya et al ., 2007;
Kamoni et al ., 2007) but does require expert-
ise in modelling and GIS. Development is
needed of more user-friendly, national-scale
tools with applicability to tropical areas and
areas of rapid land-use change.

services including C storage in soils ( http://
globalsoilbiodiversity.org/ ) .
Issues of data sharing and governmen-
tal restrictions on exchanging soils informa-
tion remain a problem in many regions of
the globe, and actions to facilitate data ex-
change are needed. This issue is currently
seen as important within the International
Council for Science (ICSU) World Data Sys-
tem and also in the data policy of ISRIC
World Soils Information (Batjes et al ., 2013).
ISRIC have developed and made available
many resources related to global informa-
tion on SOC. This includes contributions
to the Harmonized World Soil Database
(HWSD) (FAO, 2013). ISRIC has provided a
set of derived soil properties including SOC
content and bulk density. For areas of the
world covered by SOTER, the soil proper-
ties are 'best estimates' based on information
from ISRIC's database of soil profile infor-
mation (World Inventory of Soil Emission
Potentials, WISE). Profile information is under-
represented for many areas of the globe, not-
ably the global south, and is needed urgently.
Online facilities for collecting such profiles,
through crowd sourcing, have recently been
launched (see: http://worldsoilproiles.org/ ) .
In conjunction with this, a suite of tools for
analysing and mapping the data, at various
resolutions, are being developed to help
address a range of global issues, including
SOC management (see Batjes et al ., 2013).
Other programmes such as the United Na-
tions Environment Programme's World Con-
servation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)
have used the HWSD to generate an im-
proved global map of SOC values to a 1 m
depth at 1 km spatial resolution (Scharla-
man et al ., 2104).
In terms of tools to make global assess-
ments of SOC stock changes, there are ex-
amples of General Circulation Models (GCMs)
such as HadCM3LC that represent SOC us-
ing a single pool (Cox et al ., 2000). The
benefits of coupling such models to more
complex multicompartmental models such
as RothC for global assessments have been
demonstrated; however, the main barrier to
this approach is the availability of suitable
data to initialize the different pools represented
by the model. Global efforts are needed to

International

Globally, there are many regional and con-
tinental programmes considering SOC. Ex-
amples include the European Soil Portal of
the EC Joint Research Centre ( http://eusoils.
jrc.ec.europa.eu/ ) , which provides (among
many things) online maps of organic carbon
content in the surface horizon of soils in
Europe (Jones et al ., 2005a,b) and links to
information and networks for other areas
of the globe, including the GSP (see http://
www.fao.org/globalsoilpartnership/en/
and action plan for Pillar 4 that was en-
dorsed by the Plenary). Within the GSP, the
ITPS was established and is fully oper-
ational (Montanarella and Vargas, 2012).
The GSP is a major international initiative
that has recently produced an analysis of
the state of the art of soil information, in-
cluding information on SOC (Omuto et al .,
2012; Chapter 29, this volume). Another ex-
ample is a new network for francophone
Africa, 'Carbone des Sols', which aims to
exchange information on the estimation of
SOC storage and methods to achieve this
( http://www. reseau- carbone-sol-afrique.
org) . A global consortium has been formed
that aims to make a new digital soil map of
the world using state-of-the-art and emer-
ging technologies for soil mapping and pre-
dicting soil properties at fine resolution: http://
www.globalsoilmap.net . Finally, the Global
Soil Biodiversity Initiative aims at devel-
oping a coherent platform for promoting the
translation of expert knowledge on soil
biodiversity into environmental policy
and sustainable land management for the
protection and enhancement of ecosystem