On November 17, the Nigeria Institute of Soil Science and the Soil Science Society of Nigeria hosted ISRIC – World Soil information senior researcher Gerard Heuvelink as a guest lecturer in their professional development speaker series.  

Healthy soils are crucial for productive agriculture and a thriving environment. Around the world, soils face pressure from practices that result in land degradation. On December 5, 2020 the Soil Quality Mobile App (SQAPP) officially launches, bringing soil quality analysis to your smartphone SQAPP provides insight about threats to regional soil health and recommends agricultural management practices for improvement.

The global potential of soil to store more carbon is a “natural solution” to help mitigate climate change. But where does the most potential exist, and how have those soils performed at carbon storage in the last 20 years? Today, a new interactive global soil organic carbon mapping platform called Soils Revealed launches, making it easier to answer these and other important questions.

In celebration of World Soils Day, the Global Soil Museum Network will offer free virtual museum tours to the public at 12:00 Central European Time on Friday, December 4. Register online in advance here.

We are pleased to inform you that we have a vacancy for a Database/IT expert at ISRIC - World Soil Information.

About the job

Within its regular programme, ISRIC- World Soil Information is updating the functionality of the World Soil Information Service (WoSIS), a large PostgreSQL database designed to provide the world community with quality-assessed, standardised soil data to support modelling at (sub)regional and global scales.

Tasks as Database Developer / IT expert

Landscape in Ethiopia. Photo credit: Rod Waddington

On November 2, several projects funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 “Sustainable Intensification in Africa” topic met to share information about their work and benefit from each other’s expertise.

The online education platform edX chose the course offered by the university of Leuven (KU Leuven) in collaboration with the ISRIC - World Soil Museum as one of ten finalists for their 2020 Prize for Exceptional Contributions in Online Teaching and Learning.