10.08.2022
The 22nd World Congress of Soil Science (WCSS) took place between 31st July and 5th August in Glasgow, Scotland. Several ZALF scientists participated. One of them was offered a grant of £5,000 by the British Society of Soil Science to develop a feasible and low-cost approach for the environmentally sustainable analysis of soils in agriculture.
The WCSS is held every four years in different countries. This year’s congress was organized by the British Society of Soil Science with the theme “Soil Science, crossing boundaries, changing society”. The ZALF scientist Prof. Sonoko Bellingrath-Kimura took part in a session about sustainable land use, presenting the topic “New land use arrangement that harmonize various ecosystem services of agricultural landscape”.
Dr. Wanderson de Sousa Mendes attended the WCSS representing the ZALF working group “Landscape Pedology”. In one session, he talked about the importance of German peatlands for modelling soil organic carbon and total nitrogen through visible-near-infrared spectroscopy. In a poster session, he presented a novelty approach to map and model the soil apparent electrical conductivity using high resolution remote sensing data and machine learning to improve modelling power of soil organic carbon stocks in peatlands. For his idea to develop a feasible and low-cost approach through machine learning, a near-infrared sensor, and an open-access dataset for the environmentally sustainable analysis of soils in agriculture, Dr. Mendes won a grant by the British Society of Soil Science of £5,000.
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