Fwd: News from IUSS WRB working group (2026/1)
Alessandro Samuel-Rosa
Dear colleagues,
members and
co-workers of the IUSS Working Group WRB
Topic
1. Your support is needed: WRB Documentation Centre.
The first
stage of the ‘WRB Documentation Centre’ has been
finished! Characteristics of all Reference Soil Groups
(as new ‘Lecture Notes’),
consistent with WRB 2022, have been completed, in line
with reviews of
historical changes in the classification criteria and
the documentation of soil
profiles. All materials are available here:
https://ees.kuleuven.be/soil-monoliths/wrb-documentation-centre/
Great thanks
to Seppe Deckers and Freddy Nachtergaele for their
governance and commitment!
It is worth
noting that 85 experts from 36 countries on all
continents have
participated in writing and editing the new Lecture
Notes. Great job, thank
you!
But our
challenge is to collect example profile/monolith
descriptions
for all Principal Qualifiers listed currently for
respective Soil Reference
Groups. As you can see, many cases are still missing!
Does this mean that these
soils do not exist and some of our solutions are only
theoretical? Help us to
check it. Help us complete the documentation for Soil
Reference Groups and
illustrate the global diversity of soils, by providing
examples from your country!
Promote your research and your team😊
This project
has great scientific and educational importance.
Please find
the attached list of undocumented Principal Qualifiers
(ordered
by RSG). If you could provide a description and photo of
the missing case,
please write to us. It may be a soil profile/pedon taken
from both your published
or unpublished work or a monolith from a museum/university
collection (if at
least some analytical data are available). The
‘Typifying pedon’ files show you
how the documentation can be formatted, but we will help
you with formatting
and classification, if needed.
Topic 2.
WRB trip 2026
There is
still a possibility to register for the '2026 WRB
Cryosol Workshop Trip'. Please find the attached
preliminary agenda of the tips, from Fairbanks to
Prudhoe Bay
(Arctic Ocean), July, 15-23, 2026. Please note that
students will start
the classes in Anchorage (July, 10), but the WRB
participants will start the
trip in Fairbanks (July, 15).
The agenda
is excellent as many landscape phenomena and ecosystems
are
involved, typical of arctic areas impacted by
permafrost. Please note, in
particular, the famous permafrost research tunnel! Of
course, a set of
permafrost-affected, cryoturbated, mineral and organic
soils, at various stages
of their development, as well as natural and human
affected, are planned.
If you are
ready for this challenge, please register using the link
or
QR code displayed in the attached flyer. The deadline
for registration is January 30,
2026.
Topic
3. Urgent – abstracts to WCSS 2026.
Please note
that the deadline for abstract submission for the 23rd
World Congress of Soil Science in China has been
extended to January
15,
2026.
We
suggest the following sessions:
- 113001
Towards improved criteria, diagnostics, and
classification of
human-constructed and human-transformed soils in the
World Reference Base (WRB)
system
- 104001 The
Role of Soil Classification in the Shared Future of
Humanity
- 102004 Open
discussion session on observed phenomena in
soils and their underlying pedogenic processes: Bring
and share photos of your
macro- and micromorphological observations and join the
discussion on debated
phenomena!
All details
are available here: https://www.23wcss.org.cn/topic/index.html
Abstract
Submission--The 23rd World
Congress of Soil Science (23wcss.org.cn)
Follow us on
X: https://x.com/wrb2022
All the
best,
Cezary
Kabala and Stephan Mantel
--
Prof. Dr. Cezary Kabala
Wroclaw University of Life and Environmental Sciences
Head of Institute of Soil Science, Plant Nutrition and Environmental Protection
Vice-chair of the Soil Science Society of Poland
Chair of the IUSS Working Group WRB
CATENA Editor-in-Chief
https://ingos.upwr.edu.pl/kabala