Session on digital soil mapping and assessment at EGU 2014 conference in Vienna
Andreas Papritz
Dear colleagues,
I'd like to draw your attention to a symposium on digital soil mapping and soil assessment that will be held at the coming annual meeting of the European Geoscience Union:
SSS11.4 Digital soil sensing, assesment and mapping: novel approaches for spatial prediction of key soil properties and for spatial assessment of soil functions
Statistical approaches for mapping soil properties (DSM) and - based on such spatial information - digital assessment of soil functions (DSA) is gaining acceptance and is increasingly used in spatial planning and for (more) sustainable management of the soil resource. Nonetheless, DSM and DSA still pose unresolved problems and hence offer research opportunities in various areas. Examples are:
- Use of proximal and remote sensing techniques to generate cost-effectively both quantitative data and spatially contiguous covariate information on soils to be merged by inverse methods and statistical modelling.
- Use of nonlinear statistical regression techniques such as novel machine learning approaches for soil property mapping.
- Use of Monte-Carlo approaches to propagate uncertainty arising from spatial soil data generation and modelling into spatial soil function assessment.
One important problem is how remotely sensed soil-related information can be best combined with proximally sensed and traditionally measured soil property data at larger spatial scales. Another challenging problem is parametrization and honest quantification of uncertainties inherent in inverse procedures and in statistical DSM approaches and adequate inclusion of uncertainty in DSA.
In this session we aim to bring together scientists working on all aspects of DSM and DSA. In particular we invite contributions from the field of proximal and remote sensing of soil properties; merging remotely sensed soil-related information by inverse methods; novel approaches for spatial statistical modelling of soil properties; parametrization, quantification and propagation of uncertainties in the workflow from soil-related covariate generation and soil data gathering over merging of soil information for spatial mapping to spatial soil function assessment; and novel ideas and approaches for conveying spatial soil information to stakeholders to serve best their purpose for spatial planning and managing the soil resource.
The conference will take place from 27 April to 2 May 2014 in Vienna. Abstract submission is open until 16 January 2013, 13 CET
Best wishes
Andreas Papritz
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ETH Zurich
Andreas Papritz
Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems
Soil and Terrestrial Environmental Physics
CHN E 35.2
Universitaetstrasse 16
8092 Zurich, Switzerland