I know is less than 10 degrees, however more accuracy would be ideal.
Interesting question. I do not know the data, but I would also like to know it.
http://www.geomapapp.org would allow you to look at a number of different transects using the distance/profile tool and it calculates average slope along each line you create.
To the extent that the Earth's surface is fractal, the exact answer of this question depends on the resolution of your mapping data (low resolution topography maps will miss smaller hills, and thus return a lower average slope estimate than higher resolution maps). What is your source for the 10°? And what do you need this number for?
The estimate of a lower average of 10° was found in a European Soil Database Map. I am calculating agricultural impacts on ecosystem services in Europe, for some of which I need to know if the average slope of Europe is 15°.
Thanks. Theoretically you could download SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Data) and calculate the slopes from that (I would use GMT - Generic Mapping Tools grdgradient + grd2xyz, then sum z column for that, but I presume arcGIS or similar offer similar functionality - the trickiest part will be to fillter out those values that belong to Europe, or to EU. But I doubt this is the right approach - the average slope will be heavily skewed by mountaineous regions which will be just the regions without agricultural activities. So you would somehow need to also include information on land use (e.g. using CORINE database on land use). You can see it gets complicated and really this would require a chunk of solid research. I seriously doubt you will be able plug some number you found on the internet or a ResearchGate colleague might give you on this thread into some formula and expect to get a meaningful answer (I should point out that I am not a geographer, though)
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