The 21st World Congress of Soil Science Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | 12 - 17 August 2018

1. GSOCmap
Y. Yigini, G.F. Olmedo

2. What do we know about SOC?
Soil organic carbon (SOC)
represents the largest carbon
(C) pool contained in
terrestrial ecosystems

3. What do we know about SOC?
Several efforts have
been made to
precisely quantify
this global SOC pool.
Available estimates
report values
between 504 and
1267 Pg of topsoil
(0-30cm) SOC.

4. What do we know about SOC?
There is a pressing need for the Earth system modeling community in order to improve
our understanding of feedbacks between global C cycling and climate change. With this
information we can make evidence-based decisions to mitigate and adapt to climate
change and to boost sustainable agricultural production.

5. ▪ The GSP tasked to provide support on soil carbon issues
▪ Request from the SPI-UNCCD to ITPS to prepare a Global Soil
Organic Carbon map as a contribution to the SDG indicator 15.3.1.
▪ It’s part of the ongoing activities to establish the Global Soil
Information System under the Pillar 4.
▪ Need to empower member countries to develop their own
national soil information using state of the art techniques.
▪ It’s crucial to make a SOC Baseline available considering the
dynamic nature of soils.
Why GSOCmap?

7. GSOCMap
CapacityDevelopment
ToolBox Technical
Documents
Data
Supply
Online
Support
Trainings

8. GSP CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT:

9. GSP CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME…
…IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE GSP AND
PLAYING AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE
PROCESS OF BUILDING GLOSIS AND ITS
COMPONENTS.
1. THE AIM IS TO INTRODUCE RECENT
CONCEPTS AND TECHNIQUES OF
HANDLING AND ANALYSING SOIL DATA,
INCLUDING DIGITAL SOIL MAPPING.
2. THE IMPACT SHOULD BE REFLECTED ON
DEVELOPING AND UPDATING NATIONAL
AND REGIONAL SOIL INFORMATION
SYSTEMS.
Focus

10. GSP CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT TRAININGS:
..IN 2017, THE TRAINING WORKSHOPS FOCUSED MORE ON SUPPORTING
NATIONAL CAPACITIES ON DIGITAL SOIL ORGANIC CARBON MAPPING.
GLOBAL SYMPOSIUM
ON SOIL ORGANIC
CARBON
21 – 23 MARCH 2017
FAO HQ, ROME

11. GSP CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT TRAININGS:
•IT STARTED WITH SOIL LEGACY DATABASES TRAINING
IN CALI, COLOMBIA IN 2012;
•SINCE THEN, THE PROGRAMME HAS BEEN ABLE TO
REACH 60% OF THE AREA COVERAGE;
•THE PROGRAMME REACHED TO MORE THAN 110
COUNTRIES AND 250+ SOIL EXPERTS;
•GSP WILL CONTINUE IMPROVING AND BUILDING
CAPACITIES ON SOIL DATA MANAGEMENT.
Training
Sessions

12. GSOCmap Guidelines
• ...provides definitions and
specifications for the GSOCMap
products.
• This document provides background
and detailed specifications about the
required data sources and
methodologies.
• The specifications were jointly
prepared with International Network
of Soil information Institutions .
Technical
Documents

13. THE SOIL ORGANIC CARBON MAPPING COOKBOOK
PROVIDES GENERIC METHODOLOGIES AND
THE TECHNICAL GUIDANCE FOR:
• SETTING UP THE NEEDED SOFTWARE
ENVIRONMENT;
• PREPARING GROUND DATA FOR SOIL ORGANIC
CARBON MODELLING;
• CALCULATING SOC STOCKS FROM LOCAL SAMPLES
TO A TARGET DEPTH OF 30 CM;
• PREPARING SPATIAL COVARIATES FOR MAPPING;
• CHOOSING AND APPLYING THE BEST SUITABLE
MAPPING METHODOLOGY;
• EVALUATING THE RESULTS AND THE OUTPUTS
AND PROVIDING GUIDANCE ON VALIDATION AND
UNCERTAINTY ASSESSMENTS.
Technical
Documents

14. THE CONTENTS OF THE WORKSHOPS
1. INTRODUCTION TO R - A LANGUAGE AND
ENVIRONMENT FOR STATISTICAL COMPUTING
WITH FLEXIBLE CAPABILITIES FOR ANALYSING SOIL
DATA;
2. PREPARATION OF SOIL PROFILE DATA FOR
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USING R
3. PREPARATION OF SPATIAL COVARIATES FOR
MODELLING SOIL PROPERTIES USING SAGA GIS;
4. BASICS OF CORRELATION ANALYSIS;
5. DIGITAL SOIL MAPPING TECHNIQUES BASED ON
DATA MINING AND MACHINE LEARNING;
6. UNCERTAINTIES AND VALIDATION OF SOIL DATA
PRODUCTS.
Content

15. BY THE END OF THE TRAINING COURSES…
…PARTICIPANTS ARE ABLE TO:
1. COLLECT AND RESCUE SOIL LEGACY
DATA;
2. COMPILE AND HARMONIZE SOIL DATA
FOR DSM APPLICATIONS;
3. IMPLEMENT DSM;
4. PRODUCE SOIL PROPERTY MAPS AND
THEIR UNCERTAINTIES;
5. DEVELOP ACCURATE DIGITAL SOIL
MAPS FOR UPDATING THEIR NATIONAL
SOIL INFORMATION SYSTEMS.
Sucess

16. 9 - 13 JULY 2012 –
CALÍ, COLOMBIA
July
2012
SEPTEMBER 2012 –
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
September
2013
18 - 22 MARCH 2013 –
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
March
2013
March
2015
29 NOV - 7 DEC 2015 –
AMMAN, JORDAN
December
2015
10 – 14 OCTOBER 2016 –
RABAT, MOROCCO
October
2016
16 - 27 MARCH 2015 –
ACCRA, GHANA
South American Soil Partnership
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Ecuador,
Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican
Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El
Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama,
Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela
Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde,
Tchad, Djibuti, DRC, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea
Bissau, Guinea, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritius,
Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal,
South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia
Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya,
Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi
Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen
Algeria, Egypt, Jordan,
Lebanon, Morocco,
Palestine, Tunisia

17. 31 OCT – 4 NOV 2016 –
ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN
November
2016
24 – 29 APRIL 2017 –
BANGKOK, THAILAND
April
2017
6 – 23 JUNE 2017 –
WAGENINGEN, THE NETHERLANDS
June
2017
July
2017
26 – 30 JUNE 2017 –
AGUSCALIENTES, MEXICO
June
2017
21 – 25 AUGUST 2017 –
IZMIR, TURKEY
August
2017
3 – 7 JULY 2017 –
NAIROBI, KENYA
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russian Federation,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos , PDR, Malaysia,
Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam
Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Iraq,
Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Paraguay, Ukraine,
Uzbekistan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zambia
Burkina Faso, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria,
Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Benin, Rwanda, Gambia, Ghana,
Ethiopia, Niger, Kenya, Cameroon, South Africa, Mozambique,
Cabo Verde, Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Tchad, DRC,
Swaziland, Djibouti, Guinea, Botswana, Eritrea, Senegal, Togo
Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El
Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras,
Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Saint
Lucia, Suriname, The Bahamas, Trinidad
and Tobago
Turkey

18. 28 AGO – 1 SEP 2017 –
MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY
August
2017
20 – 24 JANUARY 2018 –
TEHRAN, IRAN
January
2018
FEBRUARY 2018 –
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA
February
2018
March
2018
28 MAY – 1 JUN 2018 –
CHILE
May
2018
3 – 7 JULY 2018 –
COLOMBIA
July
2018
MARCH 2018 –
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela
Iran
Cambodia
São Tomé and Príncipe
Argentina, Chile, Uruguay
Colombia, Ecuador,
Venezuela

22. ~1 Million
Global SOC Stocks
~680 Pg1Pg = 1 Billion Tonnes
Ground Data Measurements

23. Montanarella L, Olmedo GF, Yigini Y, Guevara M et al. Solving the Large Discrepancies of the Soil Organic Carbon
Pool: The United-Nations GSOCmap under review - Nature

25. Country Submissions: 75 countries which
represent 68% of world area have contributed their
data to the GSOCmap before its public release on
5th December 2017.
GSP Gap Filling: For the countries which were
unable to contribute within the timeframe, GSP
Secretariat created the maps using publically
available soil data.

26. SOC – Climate Zones

27. SOC – Land Cover

28. SOC – Soil Types / Mean Stocks

29. SOC – Soil Types /Total Stocks

30. Validation
• We ran a comparison with available data
• The final database contains 312122 soil observations
• Three different subsets were prepared from the full
database. One including all the soil samples (’all data’), a
second one only including samples with less than 150 Mg ·
ha, (’mineral soils’), and the last one including samples with
more than 150 Mg · ha, (’carbon-rich soils’).

31. Validation

32. GSOCmap and other global data

35. GSOCmap - Dissemination

36. GSOCmap - Dissemination

37. Versioning
• The GSOCmap is a living product and is being updated as soon as
more and better information is available (current version 1.2.0).
• The GSP uses semantic versioning at certain level so that there is a
standard pattern to data releases.
• Semantic versioning is widely used in the software development
world and helps developers having a standardized way of
versioning software releases.
• It follows the format of MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH - 1.2.0