The aims of this work are i) to review two important soil databases
that are available to study the Iberian Peninsula, a transnational region
consisting of Spain and Portugal — these two sources are the Harmonized
World Soil Database (HWSD) elaborated by the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) and the soil database provided by the Land
Management and Natural Hazards Unit (embedded in the Research
Centres of the European Commission); ii) to identify, from information
gathered from the soil databases, the main key factors that should be
taken into account in regulatory decisions; and iii) to introduce a new
measuring concept to develop integrated and coordinated policies on
the Iberian Peninsula regardless of national and regional borders
because the resource soil cannot be managed on the basis of artificial
boundaries.