From April 9-11, ISRIC – World Soil Information hosted the 4th Modelling Working Group Workshop and the Mid-term Extraordinary Partnership Meeting of the WATDEV project in Wageningen, the Netherlands. The events marked a crucial moment in reaffirming the consortium’s commitment to promoting climate-smart soil, water, and crop management solutions in East Africa during the project's final implementation phase.

On 17-20 March, the ISRIC mapping team conducted a four-day training on DSM for the Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia in Wageningen, the Netherlands. Tailored specifically to support ICGC’s soil mapping programme, the comprehensive training covered theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and hands-on experience.

Based on a GIS-overlay with the EU Corine Land Cover dataset (for 2018), some 28,000 profiles under forest were identified. These training data were used to map soil properties at a resolution of 100 m. This was done using a digital soil mapping approach featuring model tuning, environmental covariate selection and regression random forest.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) of Kenya, the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO), ISRIC – World Soil Information, and CABI, hosted a two-day workshop titled "Kenya Soil Information System (KenSIS) Roadmap Development Workshop" at the KALRO Headquarters in Loresho, Nairobi, on 5-6 March 2025.

The Soil Information System framework, developed by CABI and ISRIC, with contributions from the soil data community, has been included in the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) e-catalogue for development partners. TAAT is an African Development Bank initiative aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity in Africa.

The hackathon "Digging deep: Innovating soil education through augmented and mixed reality (AR-MR) in a mobile app" invites educators, soil specialists, developers, designers, and technologists to revolutionise the way people learn about soils. The hackathon is organised by ISRIC, a partner in the CURIOSOIL project.

In 2022, we began collaborating with our African partners to establish a Soil Information Community of Practice (CoP). In an article on Frankwatching, we discuss the process of building the CoP, highlighting lessons learned, challenges overcome, and the broader role of CoPs as engines of sustainable change and innovation.

Consistent soil data are required to underpin a wide range of environmental and societal issues. Metadata from the ISRIC – World Soil Information GeoNetwork catalogue are now discoverable and accessible from DataONE. DataONE is a community driven programme providing access to data across multiple member repositories, supporting enhanced search and discovery of Earth and environmental data.

ISRIC is thrilled to present the "World of Soils" Lecture Series! Join us as we explore the fascinating and diverse world of soils, delving into topics that reveal the important role soils play in our environment, art, agriculture, daily lives and more. The lectures take place every four months at the World Soil Museum. After the lecture, attendees are welcome to visit the museum.

Workshop activities include, amongst others, painting and drawing with soil material (sight), smelling soil (smell), blindfolded touching and feeling soil (touch), soil tasting and soil toothpaste brushing (taste), and listening to soil sounds (hearing). Participants will ultimately select the soil type with which they most closely identify (anthropomorphism).