This project aims to provide an open-access soil information system that uses a sound sampling framework, uniform methodologies for data gathering, accompanied with thorough documentation of the methodologies across the African continent. The soil information system will be hosted by an African institute to be selected by the project. The project will develop a methodology that can also be used for continental scale soil quality monitoring in the future, as well as for national level data collection and soil monitoring.

Activities

In this project, ICRAF will:

• Train the Agricultural Resource Council staff on soil processing and spectral analysis supported by quality control services.
• Develop detailed laboratory protocols based on AfSIS standard operating procedures.
• Analyse all reference samples on high-throughput spectral instruments.
• Supply standards and specialised software for monitoring quality of spectra acquired.
• Provide input to machine learning approaches, and test local versus global calibration approaches, leveraging on the Africa spectral library, and contribute to interpretation of results.

 Project Webpage - https://www.soils4africa-h2020.eu/the-project