State of the Art Report on Global and Regional Soil Information: Where are we? Where to go?

Abstract

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 efforts. Currently, the soil science community is limited in its capacity to provide accurate and up dated information to the different soil users. It concludes that there is an urgent need for traditional soil survey mapping and DSM communities to join forces and fill the gap with the user's expectations for soil information in space and time.