This Sunday, September 12, the World Soil Museum is open for tours as part of Open Monumentendag, a celebration of cultural heritage across the Netherlands and Europe.

Come enjoy this special opportunity to see more than 100 soils from around the world and hear stories from a guide relating the importance and diversity of soil.

On Sunday, guided tours begin at 1:00 PM, 1:45 PM, 2:30 PM, 3:15 PM and 4:00 PM. There is a maximum 10 visitors per tour and face masks are mandatory.

Two articles co-authored by ISRIC – World Soil Information scientists were recently selected for the European Journal of Soil Science Editor’s Choice 2021 list. The articles address important and timely digital soil mapping topics related to machine learning:

We were saddened to hear of the passing of our former colleague, Mr Wout Bomer. While at ISRIC (1979 – 2010), he worked with great dedication in various capacities providing support with respect to documenting our soil monolith collection, digitization of the slide collection, as well as being our graphic designer and photographer. Wout also ensured that records documenting ISRIC events were properly archived, thereby preserving the institutional ‘memory’ of our institute.

At the June board meeting, ISRIC – World Soil Information’s leadership and managing board had a bittersweet moment congratulating Machteld Roos and also bidding her farewell from the ISRIC – World Soil Information managing board. Machteld has been a valuable member of the managing board for four years.

Forests cover approximately 35 percent of Europe, provide employment for 3.5 million people, generate € 500 billion revenue annually and absorb about 10 percent of Europe's annual greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainably managing forest soils, which underpin these key forest benefits, is key to caring for these important ecosystems.

High quality soil data are in demand, but eliminating sources of error in soil measurements is difficult. In a newly published European Journal of Soil Science paper, lead author and ISRIC PhD candidate Cynthia van Leeuwen analyzes the measurement error in wet chemistry soil data.

After many months of limited access due to the coronavirus restrictions, we are happy to announce that the World Soil Museum will re-open on Wednesday, June 16 with its regular hours.

From June 16, 2021 onwards, the museum's opening hours for the general public are: Wednesday afternoons (13.30-17.00 h) and for groups by appointment Monday-Friday between 9.00-18.00.

On June 16 and 17, the scientific community engaged with digital soil mapping will come together for a webinar focussing on two of the International Union of Soil Scientists’ Pedometrics Commission working groups: Digital Soil Mapping and Global Soil Map.

A newly released paper, SoilGrids 2.0: producing soil information for the globe with quantified spatial uncertainty, provides a peer-reviewed scientific publication describing the production of SoilGrids, ISRIC – World Soil Information’s flagship system for global digital soil mapping.