Friday, March 21, 2025
An important project funded by the Sustainable Agriculture Research Initiative of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) aims to establish the Canadian Soil Data Portal (CSDP)—a centralized platform to modernize Canada’s soil data infrastructure for greenhouse gas reduction and climate change mitigation.
Led by Dr. Brandon Heung at Dalhousie University, the CSDP will address critical data gaps and improve accessibility to essential soil data across Canada. The CSDP will equip Canada with up-to-date, comprehensive soil data to support climate initiatives and net-zero emissions goals. Integrating recent data from public and private sources, this platform will overcome issues of fragmented data, limited access, and high analysis costs.
The CSDP will facilitate efficient soil carbon monitoring through advanced soil spectroscopy and high-resolution mapping for accurate, cost-effective assessments. This unified resource will empower stakeholders to adopt sustainable practices, making climate mitigation more scalable and cost-effective across Canada.
Survey on current use of soil data portals
As part of the CSDP initiative, Drs. Maja Krzic (University of British Columbia) and Margaret Schmidt (Simon Fraser University) are leading an educational subproject focused on developing tools for post-secondary soil science education.
To ensure these tools are relevant and effective, we are conducting a survey to understand how location-based soil data—soil information tied to geographic coordinates, maps, addresses, or site labels—is accessed and used across Canada. The insights gathered will also shape future educational resources within the CSDP.
Survey objectives
- Understand how location-based soil data is used across various sectors in Canada.
- Evaluate accessibility, frequency of use, and satisfaction with current soil data systems.
- Identify gaps and opportunities to inform the development of the CSDP, including its applications in education and soil science.
Complete the survey at survey link. The deadline is February 28, 2025.
Featured image credit: Getty Images
