A new soil map to be worked out at the beginning of the 20’s. Global Soil Map 2017 international conference at RUDN

RUDN Agrarian and Technological Institute hosted Global Soil Map 2017 international conference where experts from the USA, Australia, Brazil, France, Holland, China and Russia proposed various solutions to the problems of global digital soil mapping and shared their elaborations in the theory and methods of soil mapping.

Nur Kirabaev, RUDN Vice-Rector for research noted the topicality of the conference in the digital era. The last soil map was made in 1985. New technologies and data allow elaborating a new one and to this end the Global Soil Map consortium has been set up.

Methods and approaches to making a new map have been discussed at international conferences and seminars – in Orleans (France) in 2013, Ottawa (Canada) in 2015 and Moscow, RUDN in 2017.

«The latest soil map is pretty outdated. We have been working on the new one for 6 years and are planning to finish in the early 20’s. The map will be available free on the Internet for everyone», says Igor Savin, RUDN professor and academician of RAS.

One of the challenges of soil mapping is lack of specialists who know digital technologies and speak foreign languages, and the problem is yet to be solved.

Participants of the conference- experts from the University of Sydney, (ТОP-50 QS), University of New South Wales, (TOP-50 QS), University of Wisconsin, (TOP-60 QS), Wageningen University, (TOP-150 QS) and ISRIC – World Soil Information foundation, MSU, RUDN, Timiryazev Academy and Dokuchaev Soil Institute worked in four sections.