Soil experts from 11 institutes, including the ISRIC, are producing a digital soil map of the entire world. It is an important project, because the availability of reliable soil information is essential both for the world food supply and for climate management. That is why news of the effort not only appeared in Science, but The New York Times also devoted extensive attention to it.
Mapping the soils of the world is an gigantic task, because for large parts of the planet, such as Africa and the south of Asia, only limited soil science information is available, and the only soil maps at hand are old and hardly reliable. “The scientific disciplines are crying for this information,” said project coordinator Alfred Hartemink of the ISRIC in The New York Times. Climate scientists, hydrologists, agronomists ecologists all have need of this data for their models. “People are realizing that food comes from the land,” Hartemink went on to say, “And if you want to end hunger then you need to know your soil and the soil needs to be in good condition.”
The GlobalSoilMap.net project has received a million dollars in support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “It’s a map,” said Hartemink in the The New York Times, “and Bill Gates likes maps. “And it is digital, and Bill Gates likes digital.” The map will have a resolution of two football fields, some 100 square meters. Australia is the most advanced with the project. The first results are already here online.
Click here for the article in Science.
And here for the story in The New York Times.