State of the art report on global and regional soil information: Where we are? Where to go?

Under the current challenges of food security, climate change adaptation and mitigation, further provision of ecosystem services and sustainable intensification of agriculture, soil information becomes fundamental to guide wise policies and decisions. This document reviews the present availability of soil information from legacy maps and reports and from
ongoing Digital Soil Mapping reports. Currently, the soil science community is limited in its capacity to provide accurate and updated information to the different soil users. It concludes that there is an urgent need for traditional soil survey/mapping and Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) communities to join forces and fill the gap with the user’s expectations for soil information in space and time.

Keywordssoil information systems, digital mapping, soil mapping, soil atlas