Jones, A. et al. (eds): An introduction to the „Soil Atlas of the Northern Circumpolar Region"


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Jones, A. et al. (eds): An introduction to the „Soil Atlas of the Northern Circumpolar 
Region”. European Commission, Publication Offi  ce of the European Union, Luxemburg. 
2010. 

The Joint Research Center of the European Commission has recently published a new 
atlas summarizing the soil resources of the Northern Circumpolar region. This atlas is the 
second in the Soil Atlas series, which was launched three years ago with the Soil Atlas of 
Europe and will continue soon with the Atlas on Soil biodiversity, and the Soil Atlas of 
Africa. Both of them are in the fi nal stage of editing and will be published very soon. The 
work is ongoing, the organization of the scientifi c and editorial team for the Soil Atlas of 
Southern America has just recently started.
 The initiative of publishing this Atlas series has been started with the compi-
lation of the 1:1 million scale harmonized European Soil database, which was the fi rst 
harmonized thematic database for the EU member states. The Atlas on the European soils 
is one of the presentation forms of this database with two major aims behind it. The fi rst 
one is to provide a comprehensive view on the soil resources of Europe for teaching and 
educational purposes, while the second one is to raise awareness of soil protection over 
Europe. 

The topic of the most recent Atlas on the soils of the Northern Circumpolar region 
was decided in 2007, as an EU contribution to the international polar year 2007–2008. Soil 

plays a critical role in the global 
carbon cycle processes thus being 
one of the most important factors 
in global warming. The thawing 
of soils in the arctic regions will 
result in the thawing of the cur-
rently frozen organic matt er of the 
peat and meadow soils formed 
in this temporarily wet environ-
ment. 

The reactivation of the 
surface and the soil forming proc-
esses can impact the global carbon 
cycle in two opposite ways. The 
warming and drying scenario 
may increase the decomposition 
rate of the soil organic matt er and 
thus produce signifi cant amount 
of extra carbon load to the atmos-
phere. 

On the other hand, the 
warming and wett ing scenario is 
bound to increase the hydromor-
phic impact and to decrease the 
decomposition rate of the fresh 
biomass and therefore to increase 
the carbon sequestration ratio in 
the soil. It is very likely, that both 
scenarios will happen in the same 



435

time depending on the environmental conditions. The important thing in forecasting the 
impact of the soil systems on global warming is to know the spatial extent of the two proc-
esses. Any modeling eff ort requires hard and harmonized data on soil for the potentially 
aff ected regions, which did not exist till recently. This gap was fi lled by this atlas. 

More than 20 soil specialists of the arctic regions were involved into the project 
from each of the corresponding countries of Europe, Asia and North America, which en-
sured the high scientifi c quality of the work. Besides being a traditional atlas with 28 A/2 
sized soil map plates classifi ed in accordance with the World Reference Base 2006, the book 
is an att empt to describe the physical endowments and human environment of the Arctic 
and their impact on soil formation and the soil types. It summarizes the major soil types 
and soil properties of the regions and their role in the global processes, like the carbon cycle 
and global warming/climate change issues, and the local perspectives/uses of the soils in 
the contributing areas and countries. 

The book is rich in illustrating photos, fi gures and maps, and provides a unique 
opportunity to obtain an insight into the Arctic environment. It is very useful for teaching 
or self educating purposes and provides a pleasant reading for the interested audience. 

Endre Dobos