Germany - Type of contract: Service Title of the contract: Soil function assessment

Description

Type of contract:
Service

Title of the contract:
Soil function assessment Methodical comparison of the soil function assessment procedures of Lower Saxony & Hesse\/Rhineland-Palatinate & examination of their transferability to Saxony-Anhalt

Brief description:
Assessment of soils with their natural functions
The precautionary principle enshrined in the Federal Soil Protection Act (BBodSchG) aims to prevent the occurrence of harmful soil changes and thus protect natural resources and livelihoods. Accordingly, the natural soil functions and its function as an archive of natural and cultural history must be given equal consideration alongside other protected goods in planning and approval procedures. Due to the lack of (national) uniform standards, the individual federal states have developed various assessment procedures for this purpose in order to assess the soil functions described in Section 2 BBodSchG on the basis of soil maps, differentiated by area.
By integrating the assessment procedures into state, regional and urban land-use planning, they enable the identification and adequate consideration of soils that are particularly worthy of protection in terms of precautionary soil protection.
Occasion and objective
In Saxony-Anhalt, a soil function assessment procedure (BFBV LAU) was published as early as 1998 on behalf of the then Ministry of the Environment. This procedure is available to authorities and other users for state-wide soil evaluation in updated versions and can be used independently of scale.
In addition to the BFBV LAU, there is the computer-aided soil evaluation according to the Methods Management System (MeMaS) of the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Geology and Mining on the basis of the digitally available preliminary soil map (VBK 50) for Saxony-Anhalt at a scale of 1:50,000.
In order to strengthen the interests of preventive soil protection, a joint soil function assessment procedure based on uniform data with maximum area coverage is to be used in future.
One of the main points of criticism of the BFBV LAU was and is the methodical consideration of the function of the soil in the water cycle, which has so far been limited to the assessment of groundwater recharge. This does not take into account the fact that the regulatory function of soils in the water and nutrient balance is decisively determined by the water retention capacity of a soil in the landscape.
An important parameter for the water balance potential of a soil is the field capacity (FK) (BVB 2001).
Based on the results of a detailed method research, the methods of the soil function assessment procedures of the federal states of Hesse\/Rhineland-Palatinate and Lower Saxony are to be tested within the framework of the project with regard to their transferability to Saxony-Anhalt.
Task definition
The task of the project is the methodical redesign of the evaluation of the water balance function within the framework of a uniform soil function evaluation procedure for Saxony-Anhalt.
Based on the assessment methods of the federal states of Hesse\/Rhineland-Palatinate and Lower Saxony, the well-documented methods used there (see annex to the specifications) are to be tested on a large scale for the lower planning level in Saxony-Anhalt with the help of soil estimation data and the plausibility of the assessment results obtained is to be examined by experts. For this purpose, the results of the method comparison were to be used to derive basic parameters and characteristic values relevant to soil function. (See also Appendix 1 to the specifications!)
The differences in the results are to be analyzed and explained by the contractor and the advantages and disadvantages of the methods are to be presented for the soil science and technical validation of the method results. The evaluation results should be meaningfully divided into five value levels (very low, low, medium, high, very... (The text has been cut off. You can find the entire text in the PDF file)

Opportunity closing date

23 September 2024

Value of contract

to be confirmed