Fourth Working Session of the International Network of Soil Information Institutions (INSII) 6-8 November 2018 | FAO HQ – German Room, Rome, Italy

1. ITEM 2.
CountrySIS

2. GloSIS – Participation Levels
The GSP will support and encourage the
participation of countries and other data providers
in GloSIS through a ‘CountrySIS’ framework.
CountrySIS Guidelines will define the technical
specifications for such systems, as well as an
implementation manual (cookbook), will be
developed for this purpose.

3. CountrySIS
• Country Soil Information System (CountrySIS) is a SIS that
contains the soil data and information representative for
the whole country, which can be used on local, national or
international level.
• The purpose of a CountrySIS is to give access to the reliable
and consistent soil information to all the relevant
stakeholders including governments, policy makers,
agricultural producers, NGOs, researchers, educational
institutions, and to provide informational support for
evidence-based decision making in such spheres as land and
soil management, agricultural production, environment
protection activities, climate change adaptation, etc.

4. A CountrySIS Framework includes the following components: hardware,
software, data, procedures, and personnel.
• The hardware and software components should suffice the
requirements of the SIS functionality and resource availability. Using
cloud services and open source software can potentially minimize the
resource requirements.
• The data component consists of soil data and related supplementary
data. Soil data has to be reliable, geographically and temporally
referenced, and have a standardized format, including sufficient
metadata description.
• The procedures include efficient methods of data input and storage in
a relational database, data updating, data quality check and data
sharing through protocols.
• The personnel needs have the capacity for maintaining and regularly
updating the SIS.
CountrySIS

5. CountrySIS Implementation
A survey assessing the current status of soil databases and information systems
in the countries;
Preparation of Guidelines for establishing a Soil Information System;
The implementation of the Guidelines by member countries and other
interested data providers according to their capacity:
 Data providers that already possess a SIS can implement an exchange application
schema to guarantee full interoperability with the GloSIS federation (Ad hoc
Implementation).
 Data providers that do not have the SIS yet can establish one according the
CountrySIS guidelines. The GSP Pillar 4 will provide a technical bundle with a
deployable SDI to implement a SIS with minimal effort and investment from their
side (Reference Implementation).
Countries that do not have a SIS yet and lack resources to setup and
maintain one, can store and share their data through the GloSIS support
Implementation.

6. CountrySIS -Work Plan Timeline
• Conduct a survey of the soil information in the
countries, including available soil databases,
existing soil information systems (2018)
• GSP Secretariat sends the survey to the countries: June
2018.
• Receiving and processing answers: July-October 2018.
• GSP Secretariat shares the results of the survey
with the P4WG: November 2018

12. s

15. CountrySIS -Work Plan Timeline
• Development of the technical documentation of
GloSIS (2018)
• Specifications of the GloSIS domain model and
application schema (for data exchange)
• Development of the data model for the T1/2
soil profile databases
• CountrySIS guidelines

16. CountrySIS -Work Plan Timeline
• Implementation of GLOSIS (2019)
• SDF develops the tools for implementing a GloSIS node ( and the
deployable package and tool for connecting an existing SIS to GloSIS):
January - April 2019.
• GSP Secretariat develops a beta-version of the GloSIS discovery hub in
collaboration with SDF. Discovery Hub will be hosted by FAO under a top-
level domain (glosis.org): January - June 2019
• GSP Secretariat and SDF start preparation of a GloSIS implementation
pilot phase (e.g. identify eligible pilot countries or organizations): April-
June 2019.
• Present progress with GloSIS implementation during the GSP Plenary:
June 2019.
• Pilot phase to test GloSIS implementation tools: July - December 2019.
• Develop the CountrySIS cookbook: July - December 2019.
• Present results of the GloSIS pilot implementation (proof-of-concept) and
CountrySIS cookbook and the launch of GloSIS global implementation
during World Soil Day 2019: December 2019.

17. Thank You