ECHO is a Horizon Europe project that engages European citizens in soil protection and restoration by increasing their knowledge of soil health and involving them directly in soil science through data collection across all EU countries. Between 2024 and 2027 citizen scientists in ECHO collect data on the eight soil health indicators outlined in the Mission Soil Implementation Plan. These data are uploaded to the ECHOREPO (https://echorepo.echosoil.eu), a long-term open access repository. This ensures that citizen science data is accessible to scientists, citizens, farmers, stakeholders and other end-users, while complementing existing European datasets.
In this study, we aimed to validate citizen science-generated data (CSGD) from approximately 100 soil samples selected to be representative of the main land-uses and soil types covered by Italian citizens. For these samples, we then compared on-site assessments of pH, SOC and texture with results from laboratory methods.
While soil pH, SOC and texture were measured on-site by citizens using pH strip method, soil colour estimation, and the feel method, laboratory analyses followed standard ISO methods.
Comparing CSGD with laboratory analyses enabled us to assess variability between the approaches and inform CSGD integration with European soil health monitoring programmes. Additionally, these results were compared with existing soil and environmental datasets, such as LUCAS 2018 campaign and LUCAS-derived raster, to better understand where variability and complementarities occur, using the dataset from the ECHOREPO.