GlobalSoilMap.net – a new digital soil map of the world

Abstract

Knowledge of the world soil resources is fragmented and dated. There is a need for accurate, up-to-date and spatially referenced soil information as frequently expressed by the modelling community, farmers and land users, and policy and decision makers. This need coincides with an enormous leap in technologies that allow for accurately collecting and predicting soil properties. We work on a new digital soil map of the world using state-of-the-art and emerging technologies for soil mapping and predicting soil properties. The global land surface will be mapped in 5 years and the map consists of the primary functional soil properties at a grid resolution of 90 by 90 m. It will be freely available, web-accessible and widely distributed and used. The maps will be produced by a global consortium with centres in each of the continents: NRCS for North America, Embrapa for Latin America, JRC for Europe, TSBF-CIAT for Africa, ISSAS for parts of Asia and CSIRO for Oceania. This new global soil map will be supplemented by interpretation and functionality options that aim to assist better decisions in a range of global issues like food production and hunger eradication, climate change, and environmental degradation. In November 2008, a grant has of US$ 18 million has been obtained from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation to map most parts in Sub-Sahara Africa, and make all Sub-Saharan Africa data available. From this grant there are funds for coordinating efforts in the global consortiu