Hands-on Digital Soil Mapping 2020

Important annoucement

In light of the coronavirus outbreak, the Spring School for 2020 has been definitely cancelled.

We took into consideration the health and well-being of our international participants as well as the uncertainty about the end of the corona crisis, and the international and local measures that may still be in place in the coming months.

This decision was difficult for us to take because the Spring School is an important event that keeps us connected with our soil science and user community. The only thing we can do now is looking forward to the next edition in 2021! Dates will be announced in September 2020.

Overview

This course introduces methods and software for management, analysis and mapping of soil type and soil properties within the R environment for statistical computing. The course alternates between lectures and computer exercises and covers a variety of subjects, such as geostatistics, machine learning for soil mapping, soil functional mapping, proximal soil sensing, quantification of uncertainty, sampling for mapping and soil map validation. The course aims at soil geographers and environmental scientists who want to learn more about the theory and practice of digital soil mapping. After this course, participants will be able to apply the methods learnt to their own datasets. Lecturers are experienced pedometricians and soil data analysis specialists.

Gerard Heuvelink, course coordinator (geostatistics, uncertainty propagation)
Fenny van Egmond (remote and proximal soil sensing)
Bas Kempen (data preparation, machine learning)
Johan Leenaars (mapping soil water and nutrient properties)
Laura Poggio (data preparation, machine learning)
Eloi Ribeiro (WOSIS soil database)
Maria Ruiperez Gonzalez (mapping soil water and nutrient properties)
Stephan Mantel (visit World Soil Museum)
David Rossiter (accessing WOSIS data in R, sampling for mapping and validation, guest lecture)
Titia Mulder, guest lecturer (remote and proximal soil sensing)
Dick Brus, guest lecturer (sampling for mapping and validation)

Who is it for?

This course is intended for soil and environmental professionals, researchers and PhD-students interested in producing soil maps and/or using local, regional and global soil datasets for digital soil mapping. Participants must have a basic level of statistics, geo-information science and soil/environmental science. Experience with computer programming in R is advantageous but not required. Those not familiar with R will be asked to run a self-study tutorial prior to the course. A number of recorded sessions from a previous Spring School can be accessed via the ISRIC YouTube channel at: http://youtube.com/c/ISRICorg.

Registration

We have reached the maximum capacity of participants to the course Hands-on Digital Soil Mapping (DSM). Your details can be added to a waiting list. We will contact you by email in case there is a place available. To register in the waiting list:

Hands-on Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) course, waiting list!

Note that when registering in the waiting list, you will be redirected to a Wageningen University & Research page in a new window to process your registration.

Software installation

Please note that to participate in the DSM course you have to bring your own laptop computer, with R and RStudio software installed. Also, do not forget a power plug (travel) adapter if you need one. In the Netherlands the power sockets are of type C and F. We will not be able to provide you with these.

Software installation instructions can be found here, and the associated R code to test your installation here. Please read and follow these carefully to ensure you come fully prepared to the Spring School.

Preliminary programme

DAY 1 (Monday, 11 May 2020)

Time	Topic	Room/ type	Lecturer
8.30 – 9.00	Registration and Coffee	Hall Gaia building
9.00 – 9.45	Official opening of the ISRIC Spring School Group photo	Gaia 1	Rik van den Bosch (ISRIC director), Maria Ruiperez Gonzalez
9.45 – 10.15	Course introduction and overview	Lumen 1&2	Gerard Heuvelink
10.15 – 10.45	Geostatistics for soil mapping	Lumen 1&2 lecture	Gerard Heuvelink
10.45 – 11.15	Coffee break
11.15 – 12.30	Geostatistics for soil mapping	Lumen 1&2 lecture	Gerard Heuvelink
12.30 – 13.30	Lunch	GAIA first floor
13.30 – 15.00	Geostatistics for soil mapping	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	Gerard Heuvelink David Rossiter
15.00 – 15.30	Coffee break
15.30 – 17.30	Geostatistics for soil mapping	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	Gerard Heuvelink David Rossiter

DAY 2 (Tuesday, 12 May 2020)

Block	Topic	Room/ type	Lecturer
9.00 – 10.00	Soil and covariate data preparation	Lumen 1&2 lecture	Bas Kempen
10.00 – 10.30	Soil and covariate data preparation	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	Bas Kempen Laura Poggio David Rossiter
10.30 – 11.00	Coffee break
11.00 – 12.30	Soil and covariate data preparation	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	Bas Kempen Laura Poggio David Rossiter
12.30 – 13.30	Lunch
13.30 - 14.30	Accessing the WOSIS soil database in R	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	David Rossiter Eloi Ribeiro
14.30 – 15.00	Coffee break
15.00 – 15.45	Remote and proximal soil sensing	Lumen 1&2 lecture	Titia Mulder
15.45 – 16.45	Remote and proximal soil sensing	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	Titia Mulder Fenny van Egmond
16.45 – 17.30	Field and lab demonstration proximal soil sensing	lab and field visit	Fenny van Egmond Titia Mulder
19.00 – 22.00	Dinner in town

DAY 3 (Wednesday, 13 May 2020)

Block	Topic	Room/ type	Lecturer
9.00 – 10.30	Machine learning for soil mapping	Lumen 1&2 lecture	Bas Kempen
10.30 – 11.00	Coffee break
11.00 – 12.30	Machine learning for soil mapping	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	Bas Kempen Laura Poggio
12.30 – 13.30	Lunch
13.30 – 15.00	Uncertainty quantification and propagation	Lumen 1&2 lecture	Gerard Heuvelink
15:00 – 15:30	Coffee Break
15.30 – 17:30	Uncertainty quantification and propagation	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	Gerard Heuvelink Laura Poggio

DAY 4 (Thursday, 14 May 2020)

Block	Topic	Room/ type	Lecturer
9.00 – 10.30	Sampling for mapping and statistical validation	Lumen 1&2 lecture	Dick Brus
10.30 – 11.00	Coffee break
11.00 – 12.30	Sampling for mapping and statistical validation	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	Dick Brus David Rossiter
12.30 – 13.30	Lunch
13.30 – 14.30	Mapping soil water and nutrient properties	Lumen 1&2 lecture	Johan Leenaars
14.30 – 15.00	Coffee break
15.00 – 17.00	Mapping soil water and nutrient properties	Lumen 1&2 computer practical	Johan Leenaars Maria Ruiperez Gonzalez Gerard Heuvelink
17.00 – 18.30	Meet the Experts

DAY 5 (Friday, 15 May 2020)

Block	Topic	Room/ type	Lecturer
9.00 – 10.30	Visit to World Soil Museum	WSM	Stephan Mantel
10.30 – 11.00	Coffee break
11.00 – 12.30	Interactive Workshop Opportunity for participants to present their work and receive feedback	Lumen 1+2	Gerard Heuvelink
12.30 – 13.30	Lunch
13.30 – 14.00	Interactive Workshop continued	Lumen 1+2	Gerard Heuvelink
14.40 – 14.30	Course evaluation and certificates	Lumen 1+2	Gerard Heuvelink
14.30 – 15.30	Valuing the soil resource	Gaia 1 invited lecture	David Rossiter
15.30 – 16.00	Closing words	Gaia 1	Rik van den Bosch

Materials

You must bring your own laptop and have recent releases of R and RStudio installed (see above). Participants receive all workshop materials (test datasets, R scripts, lecture slides, tutorials) during the workshop.

Contact:

ISRIC Spring School