Near East and North Africa Soil Partnership - NENASP

Capacity Development on Digital Soil Mapping:

Soils under Climate Change Challenge

Concept Note

Soil is the essential component of land and production systems and performs important ecosystem functions. Land degradation and loss of soil quality are widespread in many cropping systems in the dry areas, such as the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region, which lead to a decline in soil fertility and productivity, hydrological disturbance, and loss of biological diversity. This is aggravated by climate change, which contributes to the changes in soil productive capacity and the reduction of soil organic matter (and soil carbon).

Information about the distribution, characteristics and dynamic changes in soil attributes form the basis to make decisions about soil use and management and to prevent further degradation. For example. Knowledge about the changes in soil carbon content is very important to assess the impact of climate change on soil productivity.

In fact, sparse soil information in NENA region requires carrying an extensive soil survey and digital mapping for better management of lands and therefore satisfies the increasingly diverse expectations of NENA societies from soils.

Following the approval of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) by FAO Conference in 2012, the Near East and North Africa (NENA) Soil Partnership was established among interested and active stakeholders representing national soils entities (soil survey and soil management institutions, scientific soil societies, universities and soils scientists) working on soil functions and processes.

Strengthening the soil institutions through capacity development was highlighted as an important gap across the region and is required to enable the national partners to contribute to the GSP pillars of action http://www.fao.org/global-soil-partnership/en/. Digital Soil Mapping techniques facilitate the establishment of soil spatial information at different levels and details required by the end-users. It is used to convert the available and legacy data from analogue into digital forms, which allows the users to use the data for many applications and foster the dissemination and sharing of soil data. This enables the use of soil data and information for more analysis and to support decisions in environmental related disciplines.

An introductory capacity development workshop was organized in Amman, Jordan during the period 29^th November to 7^th December 2015. The workshop introduced the recent concepts and techniques of DSM to soil scientists/staff who work at national soil science institutes in soil mapping related activities. The participants were trained to compile and harmonize legacy data and other input data for DSM applications, implementing DSM, and develop accurate digital soil maps for updating their national soil information systems.

The introductory training aimed at enabling the participants to develop and update soil information in their countries and eventually in the NENA region. This coming capacity development workshop is designed as on-the-job training to apply the principles learned in the first training but using data from the participant’s own countries. Therefore, the same participants to the first workshop should participate and as a prerequisite for the participation is that the participants bring with them data from their countries. The data will be used by each participant to derive digital soil maps, using different techniques, for their countries. This should enable the participants to directly benefit their institutions and countries by building a soil information system.

Soil carbon content, and subject to availability of data at different time periods, changes in soil carbon will be determined using digital soil mapping techniques. The linkages between soil carbon content (and changes) and climate change can be assessed thereafter. This information is useful to assess the impact of climate change on soil productivity and to support decisions on sustainable soil management. This should also support the development and updating national and regional soil information systems.

The training workshop will be held in Rabat, Morocco during the period (Sept. 25-29; 2016).

Main topics of the training workshop:

1.    Introduction to workshop objectives and design

2.    Data from countries

3.    Data preparation for DSM (hands-on training using individual data from the participant’s country)

4.    DSM and production of digital soil maps for each country

5.    Predicting soil attributes using soil-landscape models

6.    Practical application to predict soil attribute using data from the countries – example soil organic carbon content

Data that participants must bring from their countries:

·         Available soil maps and soil observations (profiles data).

·         Land use / land cover (or any available multi spectral remote sensing images)

·         Relief (Digital Elevation Models or electronic topographic data)

·         Climate data (rainfall and temperature)

·         Parent material (geologic maps and surveys)