The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) joined forces in 2019, leveraging a combined 65 years’ experience in research on the role of forests and trees in solving critical global challenges.
New library and service will help improve the health of the planet’s soils and our food supply
The Global Soil Spectral Calibration Library and Estimation Service, recently established by the Global Soil Partnership and implemented by the Global Soil Laboratory Network, will generate enormous efficiencies and constitute an important global public good to help the world address the climate crisis through better understanding of soils for improving productivity and reversing land degradation.
Soil spectroscopy is a fast, cost-effective and environmental-friendly technique that uses the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with soils to estimate soil properties, such as the levels of acidity, organic carbon, nitrogen and water retention. These determine the health and usability of soils.
Through the new library and service, soil laboratories throughout the world will have access to high-quality soil reference data and benefit from the global soil spectral library, which contains similar soils from other regions. Developing countries with limited laboratory resources stand to gain the most from the service. The coverage and value of the global calibration library will increase over time with smart selection and addition of new samples.
The capacity and competitiveness of national soil laboratories on spectroscopy will be enhanced through participation in the initiative. Since inherent limitations in the reproducibility of laboratory reference measurements currently affect reliability everywhere, this centralized effort will result in more reliable spectral estimations and prevent enormous wastage of resources spent on sub-optimal calibrations in laboratories across the world. Access to the high-quality spectral calibration library and estimation service will support an unprecedented high quality and quantity of soil data collection, which in turn will improve evidence-based decision-making in many fields, including sustainable soil management, food security and nutrition, and climate adaptation and mitigation.
Soil spectral analysis estimates soil properties by calibrating conventional reference measurements, like wet chemistry soil tests, to the spectral signatures. The potential of spectral technology in soil mapping and monitoring is tremendous because it is fast, cost-effective, environmentally friendly, non-destructive, reproducible and repeatable. Numerous soil properties can be directly calibrated to near- and mid-infrared spectra owing to spectral signatures’ response to soils’ mineral and organic composition.
Major constraints for the wider uptake of soil spectroscopy have included a lack of standards and protocols to ensure compatible spectral measurements across laboratories; a lack of calibrated spectral libraries for different soil types and geographies; and a lack of capacity of conventional soil laboratories in spectral methods.
The new library and service will help overcome these blockages, building on the work of the Charles E. Kellogg Soil Survey Laboratory of the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Soil Survey Center, which has demonstrated excellent mid-infrared spectral calibrations for key soil properties across a very wide range of soil types across the continental USA.
The foundation for the high performance of the calibrations is the excellence in reference analytical quality of the laboratory sustained over many years. In addition, the existing calibration library of over 80 000 soil samples represents a significant coverage, perhaps more than 60%, of global soil variation, including 292 globally distributed samples from the International Soil Reference and Information Centre. The Kellogg Laboratory has more than 200 000 additional characterized samples, including international samples, still to be scanned using the mid-infrared technology.
The Global Soil Laboratory Network’s library and accompanying soil-property reference data with freely available and easy-to-use soil-property estimation service supports countries and laboratories to harmonize and build capacity in soil spectroscopy methods (including soil sample preparation, spectral measurement and quality assurance of data analysis), including through developing standards and protocols.
The library and service are under the Global Soil Partnership and implemented by the Global Soil Laboratory Network. The Partnership is made up of individual experts and institutions: World Agroforestry (ICRAF); Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Woods Hole Research Center; United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service; Innovative Solutions for Decision Agriculture; International Soil Reference and Information Centre; University of Nebraska, Lincoln; and the Institute of Agriculture, University of Sydney. Institutions and individuals can become a partner or member of the initiative by sending an email to GSP-Secretariat@fao.org and Lucrezia.Caon@fao.org.
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World Agroforestry (ICRAF) is a centre of scientific and development excellence that harnesses the benefits of trees for people and the environment. Knowledge produced by ICRAF enables governments, development agencies and farmers to utilize the power of trees to make farming and livelihoods more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable at multiple scales. ICRAF is one of the 15 members of the CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. Its contribution to this initiative has been under the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land & Ecosystems. We thank all donors who support research in development through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund.