Soil protection shock (soil & sediment retention)
Horizon-resolved projection of the degradation of soil and sediment retention, on absolute water erosion against the natural cover of each biome, at ~2.8 km. This layer family backs the Soil and sediment retention ecosystem service in Resilience's nature family.
Source: RUSLE2016 and the EU C-factor (ESDAC) in the EU, a calibrated R × K × LS × C model elsewhere · WWF Terrestrial Ecoregions (biomes) · GloREDa and ESDAC rainfall erosivity · GloSEM land-use trend Year: today → 2035 / 2050 / 2080 Category: Scenario · Ecosystem service (ES-direct, Tier-2) Coverage: Global Resolution: ~2.8 km (1/40°) Format: Raster grid (COG) Used in risk analysis: Yes — supplies the Soil and sediment retention service shock in the Resilience — nature risks, and flags sites on the Enabling services dimension.
What it shows
This layer family projects how much the soil and sediment retention service degrades under climate-and-land-use scenarios, as a change since today. Its level counterpart, Soil Retention Degradation, gives the degradation today on the same scale.
It is an ES-direct (Tier-2) layer: it carries an ecosystem service shock, not an ecosystem component shock. When it resolves for the requested scenario and horizon, Resilience reads the Soil and sediment retention degradation straight from the layer and bypasses the ENCORE projection from natural assets.
Note the naming: the layer is called Soil protection, and the ENCORE ecosystem service it feeds is Soil and sediment retention. They are the same thing.
How it is built
1. The erosion rate
E is the gross water erosion, in t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹. In the EU it is RUSLE2016 (JRC/ESDAC). Elsewhere it is the RUSLE product R × K × LS × C, calibrated on RUSLE2016, with the cover factor C taken from ESA CCI Land Cover 2020 and the ESDAC C value of each class.
2. From erosion to degradation, on an absolute scale
The degradation is measured between two anchors: the erosion the cell would have under the natural cover of its WWF biome, with today's climate, and 11 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹, the OECD severe-erosion class.
D = clip( (E − E_pristine) / (11 − E_pristine), 0, 1 ) × 100
shock (points) = D(horizon) − D(today)
D is 0 where the soil erodes no faster than under its natural cover, and 100 where it erodes 11 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ or more. Where the pristine erosion itself reaches 11 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹, the scale is empty and the cell reads no data, never 0 (1.25 % of cells, almost all outside the EU).
3. The trend
The erosion moves with the rainfall erosivity (GloREDa observed, ESDAC projections, 19 GCMs) and with GloSEM's land-use trend. The pristine reference keeps today's climate.
Horizons and scenarios
| Horizon | Provenance |
|---|---|
| 2035 | Interpolated: erosivity on the observed-2010 to modelled-2050 leg, land use on the 2015 to 2070 GloSEM line |
| 2050 | Modelled erosivity slice; the land-use half is interpolated on the 2015 to 2070 GloSEM line |
| 2080 | Extrapolated past 2070: the least anchored of the three horizons. Read it as a direction rather than a level |
| Scenario | GloSEM run |
|---|---|
| SSP1 (optimistic) | RCP2.6, IMAGE land use |
| SSP2 (intermediate) | RCP4.5, MESSAGE land use, the SSP2 marker model |
| SSP3 (pessimistic) | RCP8.5, MAgPIE land use. GloSEM has no RCP7.0 run, so the pessimistic axis reads RCP8.5 |
GloSEM pairs a different land-use model with each RCP, so a cross-scenario comparison is not a pure climate contrast.
How to read it
Values are points of retention degradation, as a change since today. More negative = more of the service lost at that location. Zero means no projected change.
Because this service is often the dominant one under the Max aggregation used in Resilience, a site's whole projected loss can end up attributed to Soil and sediment retention. Switch the explorer to the Sum aggregation, or group by ecosystem component, to see the other services behind it.
Limits
- Outside the EU, the world method overestimates Scandinavia by a factor of 2 to 3 and underestimates Central Europe.
- The tropics and the deserts lie outside its calibration. GloSEM, at 25 km, is the only check there.
- RUSLE models sheet and rill water erosion only. Gully erosion, bank collapse and mass movement are out of its scope.
Class thresholds
Rendered as a continuous symlog diverging gradient, not discrete risk classes:
| Gradient endpoint | Soil & sediment retention shock (points) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Dark red (#800026) | −25 | Strong projected degradation |
| White (#ffffff) | 0 | No projected change |
| Green (#1a9850) | +25 | Projected recovery |
A site is flagged on the Enabling services dimension when it loses more than 15 points at the scenario and horizon read. The gradient endpoints and the proximity break are in-house choices, not published thresholds.
Sources
- RUSLE2016 and the EU C-factor — Panagos, P. et al. (2015, 2020), JRC/ESDAC.
- Global soil erodibility — Panagos, P. et al. (2024), JRC/ESDAC.
- Land cover — ESA CCI Land Cover 2020 (C3S).
- Biomes — WWF Terrestrial Ecoregions, Olson, D.M. et al. (2001).
- Elevation — GMTED2010 (USGS).
- Rainfall erosivity — Panagos, P. et al. (2017), Scientific Reports 7:4175, GloREDa; Panagos, P. et al. (2022), Journal of Hydrology 610:127865, projections from 19 GCMs.
- Land-use trend — GloSEM, Borrelli, P. et al. (2020), PNAS 117:21994.
What changed, and why. The previous version measured integrity against a tolerable erosion rate of 1 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ (D = 1 / E above it), at ~1 km from GloSEM and the Borrelli sediment-export pattern. A site whose soil was already mined far beyond that rate read near 0, because there was almost nothing left to lose. The layer now reads absolute erosion against the natural cover of the cell's biome, on a 0–100 scale capped at the OECD severe class, so a badly eroded site reads high rather than near 0. The LUH3 land-use projection is not used.
Comparison with the WWF Risk Filter Suite
This is a forward-looking, horizon-resolved scenario layer and has no equivalent in the WWF Risk Filter Suite, which publishes present-day indicators only. Treat it as a Darwin extension.
Legend
Symbolised field: Soil & sediment retention shock (points)
Generated from darwin/layers/layer-soil-protection-shock-ssp{1,2,3}-{2035,2050,2080}.toml (develop).