Editoriale

The workshop has been organised by SISS (Italian Society of Soil Science), with the sponsorship of the European Union, D.G. JRC - Space Research Institute - European Soil Bureau (ESB), and was hosted by the Regional Government of the Regione Toscana. The collaboration of Progetto Finalizzato PANDA of the Ministry of Agricultural Policies, and the auspices of the Osservatorio Nazionale Pedologico e per la Qualità del Suolo are acknowledged. The purpose was to stimulate the debate about the experiences and the future tasks of the European administrative regions and staffs working on soils. The invited speakers tried to emphasise arguments concerning soil databases, applications of soil information, organisation of permanent focal points at regional and local level.

The addresses of Winfried Blum, Secretary General of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS), Luca Montanarella, Secretary of the ESB, and Vannino Chiti, President of Regione Toscana, opened the workshop. The German experiences and problems, showing the organisation and responsibilities at regional (Land) and national level, were presented during the morning, thanks to Wolf Eckelmann, Hans Heineke and J. Kues, Rainer Schweizer, Dieter Kühn, Reinhard Hartwich. Fiorenzo Mancini, the father of the Italian Pedology, chaired the session.

In the afternoon two presentations dealt with the international level: ESB strategies were presented by Luca Montanarella, and the FAO World Reference Base for local soil surveys by Freddy Nachtergaele. The following six presentations were devoted to the Italian regions and the national issues, with contributions from Romano Rasio, Nicola Filippi and Andrea Giapponesi, Mario Toteda, Luciano Lulli, Edoardo Costantini, Ghislaine Urbano. Winfried Blum chaired the session.

Jaume Boixadera from the Region Cataluña (Spain) shortly commented the general outline of the workshop and the President of the SISS hold the closing remarks.

Over 150 participants attended the workshop. They received one copy of the "Manual of Procedures of the georeferenced soil database for Europe", edited by the ESB, and the freshly published document "Guidelines for establishing regional soil services in Italy", edited by the Scientific Committee of the Soil National Observatory, established by the Ministry of Agricultural Policies.

The participation was very satisfactory, and encourages in going ahead with this kind of meetings; this should stimulate all the European regions for a co-operative work, in a network co-ordinated by the European Soil Bureau.

Following the workshop, on November 6th, two ateliers hosted by the ISSDS (The Experimental Institute for Soil Study and Conservation), have been organised; the topics were "The soil map of Italy at scale 1:250,000", and "Toward a database for Alpine Regions".

The initiatives of the Italian Society of Soil Science are going on embracing a wide range of topics to increase the knowledge of soil and the environment at different levels. Some examples are a national advisory board on fertilizers, soil vulnerability and sensitivity, the evaluation of agri-environmental resources through geostatistics and computer applications, a committee for education in soil science. We invite all of you to attend our meetings, and to read the Bollettino where all the proceedings will be published.

We wish to thank the invited speakers and their collaborators for their valuable scientific contributions; Manuela de Pace and Barbara De Rosa from the staff of the Experimental Institute for Plant Nutrition of Rome for supporting the organization of the Workshop. We are very grateful to Marcello Pagliai, Director of the Experimental Institute for Soil Study and Conservation for hosting the ateliers, as well as Olga Grasselli and Miranda Morandi from the same Institute for their contribution. A particular thanks to Marina Natalini for her support also in the collection and the editing of the manuscripts during the review.

Rosa Francaviglia, Romano Rasio and Paolo Sequi