GODAN launches the Soil Data Working Group

The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN), has launched a new working group on Soil Data Working Group, in cooperation with the Research Data Alliance and the Global Soil Partnership.

The working group was initially conceptualized during GODAN Summit 2016.The working group will closely interact with other initiatives related to the development of open soil standards promoting the exchange of digital soil data (OGC, ISO), and support and utilize these.

This Soil Data Working Group joins other existing working groups within the GODAN.

The objectives of the Soil Data Working Group

The Soil Data Working Group will pursue the following overarching objectives:

1. to agree on a set of global soil data ontologies, thus supporting the provision of findable, well described, interoperable and re-usable soil data, and
2. to define use cases so that data providers can better identify targeted key data sets and information products to support user needs,
3. to support the development and implementation of shared open soil data through capacity building and training.

Soil data is gaining more and more interest among practitioners, but the main obstacle to its dissemination is the poor harmonization of data across the world. The Soil Data Working Group will work to achieve a stadarized language for open soil data. Many countries already have implemented a training for a common open soil data vocabulary, but the objective of the Soil Data WG is to have an easy-applicable exchange standard for this kind of data.

Planned activities of the group

Time frame:

• Launch of the working group by the GODAN Secretariat: February 2017
• First meeting: 3-4 April 2017, Barcelona: RDA-IGAD pre-meeting (RDA: Research Data Alliance, IGAD: Interest Group on Agricultural Data)
• Development of a ToR for the Soil Data Working Group (interested members not participating will be asked for statements of expectation, and can join per video)

Contact 

Rainer Baritz /Global Soil Partnership /FAO Rome [email protected]

Ben Schaap / GODAN Secretariat / Wageningen, The Netherlands [email protected]

READ the full announcement here