The African Soil Information Service will be producing a digital map of 42 African countries revealing soil type and its component nutrients.
This information will guide farmers and policymakers on efforts to improve the fertility of African soils, some of which are the most depleted in the world. The project will be coordinated by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.
The project, funded with a US$18 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, will gather existing local soil maps and combine them with new measurements to produce the digital map, which will be freely accessible on the web in a user-friendly format. The new measurements will include those derived from remote sensing, which involves analysing the features of satellite images - such as colour and radiation - to infer the characteristics of the soil. These calculations are then calibrated against actual soil samples from the particular region.
The African map is the first stage of an initiative, GlobalSoilMap.net, to map all the globe's soils to help informed decisions not only about agriculture, but also to monitor the effects of climate change, environmental pollution and deforestation. Over 50 soil scientists will be involved in the mapping effort.
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