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?

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

On 13 April 2023, ISRIC signed a partnership agreement with IFDC focused on activities to improve soil fertility and soil health in support of sustainable intensification of agricultural production, predominantly in Africa.

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.

As of March 2023, a new publication explaining the background and application of the WRB system is available as a reference module in Elsevier’s new Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences Reference Collection.

Wageningen University and Research Executive Board President Dr Sjoukje Heimovaara met with ISRIC – World Soil Information director and staff on 27 February 2023 at the World Soil Museum.

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.

In January 2023, the “Land, Soil, Crop Information Services for Climate-smart Agriculture in East Africa” (LSC Hubs) project held three stakeholder engagement workshops in Ethiopia.

At the 2nd joint workshop of IUSS working groups for “Digital Soil Mapping” and “Global Soil Map” from February 7-9, 2023, six ISRIC staff made presentations. The theme for the workshop was “Soil Mapping for a Sustainable Future”, and it took place in Orleans, France.

With growing population pressure abd global food supply chains, efforts to maintain soil quality are more important than ever. This will entail a range of efforts from soil carbon management to maintaining nutrient balance; from preserving soil biodiversity to ensuring adequate storage and circulation of air and water through the soil.