At ISRIC – World Soil Information, the last two years have been unusual. Like everyone, we have experienced unprecedented changes in our working environment as we shifted to working from home during the coronavirus. At the same time, our staff has grown and we’ve taken on new and different types of projects. We’ve expanded our portfolio in the areas of global soil information provisioning, sustainable land management decision making and capacity building.
At the 2022 World Congress of Soil Science in Glasgow, Scotland (31 July - 4 Aug), there are many places you will be able to find ISRIC – World Soil Information. Please stop by our exhibit booth any day of the conference, located in the exhibition hall (Hall 4), and look for ISRIC people on the scientific sessions schedule.
Browse below to see when and where ISRIC staff will make presentations at the conference. We hope to see you there!
ISRIC – World Soil Information is seeking experts who can assist with the soil sampling for 2 countries in Europe: Poland and Italy. This work is part of the Horizon 2020 InnoVar project, next-generation plant variety testing for improved cropping on European farmland. InnoVar is a cooperation between 21 partners led by the Agrifood and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) from Belfast.
In June 2022, a new release of the World Soil Information Service (WoSIS) is available from ISRIC – World Soil Information. WoSIS is a compilation of cleansed and standardised soil profile data for the world that is free and open access.
The first day of UNCCD COP 15 opened in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Photo by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth
From May 9-20, 2022, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) took place in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Nearly 7,000 participants attended the gathering included delegations from 196 countries.
As of June 1, the special professor at Wageningen University in Pedometrics and Digital Soil Mapping was renewed for five more years. The position, held by Gerard Heuvelink (pictured above), is funded by ISRIC – World Soil Information and positioned within the Soil Geography and Landscape Group at the university.
ISRIC – World Soil Information is seeking experts who can assist with the soil sampling and site description for 2 countries in Europe. This work is part of the Horizon 2020 InnoVar project, next-generation plant variety testing for improved cropping on European farmland. InnoVar is a cooperation between 21 partners led by the Agrifood and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) from Belfast.
Eating soil is an old and established culturally important practice in many places around the world. In many countries the action of eating earth and soil-like substances (geophagy) is a means of spiritual cleansing amongst other benefits (cf. Pan de Dios in Guatemala). There are even restaurants that serve soil as food, such as in Japan. The practice of eating earth and soil-like substances is also promoted by influencers. Will soil consumption become more widely accepted or even develop into a ‘superfood’ practice? What would be the implications of this?
SoilGrids v2.0 predictive map of soil pH in the 30-60 cm layer for central and southern Africa
In a recent issue of the journal Agriculture for Development, ISRIC – World Soil Information guest researcher David G. Rossiter published the article “Soil mapping today: computer-generated predictive soil maps – their role in soil survey and land evaluation.”
