Global Soil Partnership Plenary Assembly – Sixth Session 11 – 13 June 2018 FAO HQ

1. Presenter name
Title presentation
Status of the North American Soil Partnership
David Lee

2. Strong Relationships
• Canada and the US work closely on a wide range of
projects, including the sharing of soils knowledge
and data
• North American Drought Monitoring
(US/Canada/Mexico)
• Shared ecosystem management to promote migratory
habitats (US/Canada/Mexico)
• 2019 Soils Across Latitudes – International Soils
Conference- San Diego
• Soil Science Society of America
• Canadian Society of Soil Science
• Mexican Society of Soil Science

3. • GSP Focal Points: David Lindbo, USA
Allan Howard, Canada
• ITPS Representatives: Gary Pierzynski, USA
Dan Pennock, Canada
(David Lobb, Canada)
• Pillar 1 Chair: David Lobb, Canada
• Pillar 2 Chair: Maja Krzic, Canada
• Pillar 3 Chair: Jerry Hatfield, USA
• Pillar 4 Chair: Bert Vandenbygaart, Canada
• Pillar 5 Chair: Curtis Monger, USA
North America Soil Partnership (NSP)

4. Major Accomplishments – Pillar 1
• Draft of Pillar 1 Implementation Plan completed
and under review
• David Lobb played key role as chair
• Once approved, RIP for pillar 1 will be developed
• There are many activities to promote sustainable
soil management which are led a variety of
agencies at local, state/prov/ and national levels.
• Multiplicity of partners and diversity of ongoing
activities makes them hard to capture and list
• Impacts can be enhanced through the coordination
under the GSP.

5. Major Accomplishments – Pillar 2
Pillar 2
• Representatives actively participated in the Pillar 2
working group to develop the Pillar 2
implementation plan. The final version was
completed in December, 2016 and is available at
http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/c5ecccd
4-bf37-4de2-8f3d-9361342067ad/

6. Education and Awareness
#SoilYourUndies
• Soil Conservation
Council of Canada
• http://www.soilcc.ca/s
oilyourundies/2017/so
il-your-undies.php

7. Major Accomplishments – Pillar 3
• Representatives actively participated in the Pillar 3
working group to develop the Pillar 3
implementation plan.
• Upon approval development of Regional
Implementation Plan will commence
• Awaiting approval of implementation plan

8. Major Accomplishments – Pillar 4
• Canadian Digital Soil Working group established
• Federal /Provincial/Academia
• Training session in Vancouver, January 2017
• Iteration 1 of Canadian contribution to GSOC
completed in Oct 2017
• US Global Soil Map Version 0.1 (STATSGO02) and
0.5 released (SSURGO filled in with STATSGO2)
• Includes Organic Carbon and may other attributes
• pH, clay, silt, sand, coarse fragments, effective cation exchange
capacity, bulk density, available water holding capacity, and soil
depth

9. Canadian GSOC Map

11. Major Accomplishments – Pillar 5
• Chairperson in place for NSP and is contributing to GSP Pillar 5
implementation plan
• Meetings took place on harmonization of soil characterization,
classification, and mapping
• National Cooperative Soil Survey Conference in June 2017
• Soil Science Society of America meetings in October 2017.
• Additional harmonization involving international horizons
nomenclature will be presented at World Congress of Soil Science in
August 2018.
• Canadian pedological sub group of the CSSS meets regularly
• The 2017 edition of the USDA Soil Survey Manual was published
and distributed to international colleagues for contributing
technical material to Pillar 5.
• Training webinars and YouTube videos on profile descriptions and
soil classification continue to be produced and are available for
international viewing.

12. Thank you