Einar Eberhardt
Head of Working Group
Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources
Germany

Biography
Dr. Einar Eberhardt is head of a working group at the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), Hannover, in the sub-department ‘Basic Information - Groundwater and Soil’. He is sub-facilitator for the theme ‘soil’ in the earth science cluster of the INSPIRE Thematic Clusters and member of working groups of ISO and the International Union of Soil Science (IUSS) for soil information and data exchange standards. He was also part of the Thematic Working Group that designed the INSPIRE Data Specification Soil.

Abstract
Revised ISO 28258 Soil Data Exchange Model - Consequences for INSPIRE

Co-Authors:
Bruce Simons, CSIRO
Gerard Doornbos, Grontmij
Jorge Mendes de Jesus, ISRIC
Rainer Baritz, BGR
Peter Wilson, CSIRO

The work on the INSPIRE Data Specification Soil was initially based on the then emerging International Standard ISO 28258 and the ideas about features (objects) and their relations in the soil universe of interest. Because ISO 28258 had a somewhat differing scope and a more direct link to other environmentally important themes than INSPIRE, and because of ongoing discussions within the ISO and the IUSS Working Group on Soil Information Standards regarding how to use O&M in a correct and reasonable manner, INSPIRE DS SO somewhat deviates from the current ISO 28258. Now ISO 28258 is under revision. Both the ISO Technical Committee 190 (Soil Quality) and the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS; working group Soil Information Standards) have been liaising to conduct tests and interoperability exercises of the current ISO 28258. This includes comparisons to other data specifications such as the INSPIRE theme soil. The current draft of ISO 28258 shows in some way more similarities with the INSPIRE DS SO model, especially regarding terms. Nonetheless, some relations to O&M feature types are more explicit in the revised ISO model, and definitions were partly changed. The differences between both data models will be analyzed, and improvements for the INSPIRE model are proposed.