New co-authored publication by Budiman et al, 'Digital mapping of peatlands – A critical review', with contributions from our colleague Bas Kempen and Laura Poggio (at the time, The James Hutton Institute, Scotland).

Earth-Science Reviews, In Press

The ISRIC - World Soil Reference Collection forms a valuable and unique resource for research.

Recently, materials from the collection were used by Arthur et al. (2019) for an 'Improved estimation of clay content from water content for soils rich in smectite and kaolinite'.

ISRIC colleague Johan Leenaars will be in St. Louis, Sénégal, from June 9-12 to contribute to the start of an experimental campaign to validate newly developed site-specific, multi-nutrient fertiliser products on 360 farms. These new fertilisers, containing N, P, K, S, Zn, Cu and B, have been produced by OCP Africa for irrigated rice farming in the Senegal river valley and delta in Senegal, and the Office du Niger in Mali.

ISRIC colleague Dr Bas Kempen will visit CIMMYT in India from 3 to 7 June to further develop the Soil Intelligence System and its soil information products for the State of Andhra Pradesh (AP). This will be done through a co-creation process with key stakeholders, such as the AP Government and the AP Space Application Centre.   

ISRIC – World Soil Information, host institute of the Soil Data Facility (SDF), will attend the seventh session of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) Plenary Assembly in Rome (5 – 7 June, 2019). The Plenary is the main decision body of the GSP. Representatives from FAO member countries and GSP partners will review the progress made and discuss the work plan for the coming year.

Fifty four participants (28 nationalities) are now attending the 7th edition of the ISRIC - Spring School on 'Mapping, classification and assessment of soils'. We wish them a fruitful week.

From May 13, the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Tropical Soil Science will be accessible online. The course, ‘An introduction to soils ecosystems and livelihoods in the tropics’, is a production of KU Leuven in collaboration with ISRIC - World Soil Information. The course, supported by JRC and FAO, teaches about how soil properties vary across tropical ecosystems and landscapes and their impact on biodiversity and livelihoods. The MOOC introduces subscribers to basic concepts of soil and soils in the tropics.

Royal Eijkelkamp will be sponsoring the World Soil Museum in Wageningen for the next three years. Fons Eijkelkamp and Stephan Mantel signed the sponsorship agreement recently. The World Soil Museum, hosted by ISRIC – World Soil Information, exhibits a wide range of soil types from all over the world.

Yuri Gelsleichter from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Bertin Takoutsing from the World Agroforestry Centre (Cameroon) have come to support ISRIC and work on their PhD-research during a six month stay in Wageningen.

ISRIC - World Soil Information will attend the European Space Agency's (ESA) World Soils User Consultation Meeting (2-3 July 2019, Frascati, Italy). We have a special interest in Earth Observation (EO) data as an important source of co-variates for our space-time digital mapping of soil properties (SoilGrids), aimed at supporting monitoring and early warning of land degradation episodes and processes. Our colleague Dr Luís Moreira de Sousa is member of the Scientific Committee.