The need to maintain the health of the soil resource base as an imperative for sustainable development is increasingly being recognized. Science and technological developments in remote sensing are providing new opportunities for low cost and efficient applications for characterizing and monitoring the health of the soil resource base. We are pleased to introduce this spectral library of world soils, which will provide a valuable resource for research and applications for sensing soil quality both in the laboratory and from space.

Major project activities include:

--Developing norms and standards, with consistent case definitions and evaluation criteria for evaluating soil degradation and recovery processes, as well as soil functional properties (nutrient supplying capacity, carbon density, water holding capacity etc.) that will be consistently applied in Africa and the rest of the world.

One of the key challenges for AfSIS is how to measure soil functional properties on tens of thousands of georeferenced soil samples. Spectral diagnostics – the use of low cost, high throughput analytical techniques based on light reflectance – solves this problem. Infrared and x-ray spectroscopic analytical techniques that required minimal sample preparation are used as a front line screening tool. More expensive and time-consuming measurements of soil functional properties are then calibrated to the spectral measurements on a subset of samples.

We view human and institutional capacity strengthening as the key to building ownership of the project by national institutions and consequently ensuring sustainability of not only AfSIS, but also the science and technology behind it.