For the Horizon 2020-funded “Holistic management practices, modelling and monitoring for European forest soils,” (HoliSoils) project, ISRIC – World Soil Information recently published an explainer blog on the topic of how harmonised datasets of forest soil properties can support mapping and modelling in Europe.

On 31 May 2023, ISRIC – World Soil Information hosted a first meeting of a new community of practice for national-level soil information producers across Africa. The focus of the meeting was sharing results from a community survey, filled out by more than 120 soil information producers across Africa, about what professional development gaps this type of program could fill.

_{Ashenafi Ali A. (third from right) supervising fieldwork in Libo Kemikem wereda, South Gondar, Ethiopia with colleagues from ISRIC, Ministry of Agriculture, and BENEFIT-REALISE soil surveyors in 2020.}

Figure showing average uncertainty for an aggregation over different geographical areas indicating standard deviation (Mg ha1) of above-ground biomass in the Congo basin.

At global and continental scales, natural resource maps provide a basis for checking on how ecosystems are responding to human impact. However, how accurate are those maps, and how certain can we be that they are reliable to guide our actions on climate change, biodiversity preservation and other big issues?

Field surveyors completing a Soils4Africa training in Zambia in March 2023.

Soils4Africa, a continent-wide effort in Africa to generate 20,000 new soil data points using standardized methods, is now in the fieldwork stage. Through coordinated soil sample collection, lab analysis and data infrastructures, the project aims to deliver the open-data soil information system (SIS) for Africa.

IFDC President and CEO Henk van Duijn sits next to ISRIC Director Rik van den Bosch while signing the new partnership agreement

The WORLDSOILS project consortium is building an Earth observation-based soil organic carbon monitoring system. WORLDSOILS successfully completed phase two in 2022 and is now working on the next phase.

Three key steps were achieved throughout 2022:

The World Reference Base (WRB) is an international soil classification system that evolved from the FAO-UNESCO Legend of the Soil Map of the World. It is now in its 4th edition, which was published in 2022.

Wageningen University and Research Executive Board President Dr Sjoukje Heimovaara met with ISRIC – World Soil Information director and staff on 27th February, 2023 at the World Soil Museum. In a highly interactive session, Dr Heimovaara was introduced to the programmes and projects of ISRIC.

A new open access paper from ISRIC-supported PhD researcher Stephan van der Westhuizen and co-authors demonstrates the use of multivariate random forest modelling in digital soil mapping.