ISRIC pedometrician and senior researcher Gerard Heuvelink recently gave a talk on what he considers to be the gold standard of soil map accuracy assessments: design-based probability sampling.

Soil spectroscopy is a rapidly growing field of research used to measure soil properties and generate soil data. Along with the increased use of soil spectroscopy, sound and standardised procedures are needed for soil spectral measurements, analysis, storage, exchange and prediction of soil properties.

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

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.

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.

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.