Soil Information Systems (SISs):
making soil data accessible

Discover how CABI and ISRIC applied activities from the FAIR Process Framework to support SIS developers to create sustainable and FAIR-compliant national soil information systems.

What is the context?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has made great progress in the past ten years in exploring new and innovative digital soil mapping technologies and national soil information systems (SISs) in Africa and South Asia, to help organize new and existing soil information. However, constraints within countries stop the SISs from being sustainable and adaptable. The foundation sought to explore ways to make the SISs more responsive to local demand, leading to the SIS Review project which was a collaborative effort between CABI and ISRIC — World Soil Information to identify what intervention approaches have worked, which have not, which solutions work best and where to take innovation to scale for SIS development.

Working together in Zambia

We found that there were common data problems experienced between the global soil data community.

Melissa Allan, Project Coordinator, Data Policy & Practice, CABI

After a comprehensive review and analysis of existing and past SISs, CABI identified patterns of success factors and common limitations across SIS development and maintenance. Accompanied by ISRIC’s findings on best practice methods, standards and tools for SIS development, both technological and socio-institutional considerations were integrated to develop the publicly available framework for sustainable national soil information systems.

Using a participative approach, the CABI-ISRIC project team included feedback from the global soil data community at each round of iteration and applied the SIS framework in roadmap development workshops to support development plans for nationals SISs in Zambia and Ghana.

An important aspect of this framework is that it seeks to adopt the FAIR data principles. This means that soil data will be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. FAIR data is important for soil information systems because it ensures the highest value and usability of data. Therefore, the FAIR Process Framework steps have been embedded into the SIS framework to ensure the FAIR-compliance of national SISs.