The portal offers different functionalities as

• map viewer via WMS
• metadata-editor
• advanced search
• GS SOIL services
• semantic services
• etc.

It should offer soil and soil related information provided by different administrational levels (European, national, regional) for all users and stakeholders (experts or other interested persons).

The information provided is of different kind:

• Web sites
• Metadata
• Maps
• Documents
• Other data (e.g. observation data)

There is a continuous integration of data by the GS SOIL project partners. Currently, the portal interface is available in 13 languages.

The portal software InGrid®

Technically the portal is based on the software InGrid® of the German Environmental Information Portal (PortalU® - http://www.portalu.de). Several open tools were implemented to develop an integrated network as e.g. geonetworks, InGrid®-Editor etc. for data provision.

InGrid® is a modular software to realise a central access to digital, online available information and is based on free and open source technology.

The main features of InGrid® are search features like full-text search, ranked result lists and display of latest news (RSS-feeds). In order to visualize digital maps an OGC compliant web map service (WMS) should be used. For the involvement of external geo data catalogues and for the transfer of information to other spatial data infrastructure (SDI) InGrid® provides OGC compliant catalogue interfaces like the OGC-CSW 2.0.