Rik van den Bosch Seventh session of the GSP Plenary Assembly | 5 - 7 June 2019 | FAO HQ, Rome, Italy

1. The Global Soil Information System (GLOSIS):
progress and plans
Rik van den Bosch, Director ISRIC -World Soil Information
GSP Plenary Assembly, 7 June 2019

2. Main tasks:
Establishment of an enduring and authoritative global system to monitor
forecast the condition of the Earth’s soil resources.
• To inform Status of the World Soil Resources Report
• To inform country reporting to UN bodies
• To support development of thematic map products
• To facilitate national decision making
• Capacity building through joint development
The Pillar 4 Implementation Plan

3. GLOSIS products
GloSIS:
• Soil profile databases (Tier 1,Tier 2)
• Global polygon coverage, as replacement of FAO/UNESCO SMotW, 1:5M
• Global Grids:
• Harmonized World Soil Database, version 2
• Fine-resolution grid of soil properties, version 0 (collation of grids, 1km)
• Fine resolution grid of soil properties, version 1 (harmonized, <1km)
Guidelines and capacity development for implementation.
SoilSTAT:
• Foreseen system for monitoring, forecasting and status reporting of the soil resource.
• Addition to the FAOSTAT family of reporting systems.

4. • Infrastructure bringing together soil information collected by (national)
institutions in a de-centralized way.
• GLOSIS is to be a federation of soil information systems.
• Source institutions retain their data and control access; data sharing
according to data policy of data providers.
• Implementation that is lightweight, easy to deploy, based on open source
• Should empower data providers to develop and maintain their own soil
information system.
• Soil data needs to be easily findable, accessible, and available in formats
that can be readily used for a wide range of purposes.
Key concepts

5. The challenge
Standardisation and harmonisation in collection, storage and exchange is needed
Slide courtesy: Peter Wilson (CSIRO)

6. GLOSIS: connecting users with providers

7. Harmonisation

8. Participation levels

9. GLOSIS Implementation
Implementation period: 2017 – 2020.
Coordinated by GSP Secretariat (FAO) and GSP Soil Data Facility (ISRIC –
World Soil Information), with contributions from Pillar 4Working Group, Pillar
5, soil information experts.
General timeline GloSIS:
• 2017: SDF appointed, general work plan presented during INSII 3 for implementing
GloSIS.
• 2018: development technical specifications of GLOSIS and its data products
• 2019: implementation and testing
• 2020: population and capacity building

10. Progress 2018-2019
• Developing technical specification documents (finalizing):
• GLOSIS design (approved by INSII, Nov 2018)
• Tier 1 andTier 2 soil profile databases (approved by INSII, Nov 2018)
• Implementation (ongoing):
• GLOSIS data exchange/interoperability: developing a web service from a
(dummy) soil database based on state-of-the-art standards (WFS 3.0, linked
data) from the Open Geospatial Consortium.
• Developing a GLOSIS reference node prototype
• Establishing a ‘specialist workgroup’:Wageningen Environmental Research,
Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research (NZ), CSIRO (AU), BGR (DE), ISRIC, FAO
(Technical development workshop 17-18 June).
• Pilot implementation: test phase

11. Building the GLOSIS community
• Technical developers:
• Possibility to influence development
• Forefront of technology
• Pilot with software – parallel development
• Early adopters / interested parties:
• Development costs own SIS greatly reduced
• Interoperable system with other countries and institutes
• Facilitates harmonisation within country
• Complements current initiatives

12. Why participate in GloSIS?
• Soil information system components are developed that are ready for use,
open source, easy to implement -> this is a big efficiency gain
• Flexible system for all development levels
• Comes with capacity building
• Basis for national derived products (SOC, erosion, etc..)
• Useful for informing policy and decisions within country and between
countries (borders and international studies)
• Standardisation of data is a one time investment with big efficiency returns
in future analyses/reporting
• Supports global efforts

13. Concerns
• Continuity /sustainability
• Funding
• ISRIC/Soil Data Facility
• Adopters (countries) have limited capacity for all GSP activities
• Link developments in countries to GLOSIS (technical) development

14. Thank you for listening
rik.vandenbosch@isric.org
Acknowledgements:
Bas Kempen, Luis de Sousa,YusufYigini,
Konstantin Viatkin, Jorge Mendes de Jesus,
David Medyckyj-Scott, Alistair Ritchie, Peter
Wilson, Fenny van Egmond, Jandirk Bulens,
Eline van Elburg