21st World Congress Soil Science 2018 - IUSS
Under the topic Soil science: beyond food and fuel and the twitter hashtag #wcssBrazil2018 scientists from all countries met to push the topic of soil science on the inter-national agenda.
The International Union of Soil Science (IUSS) is the international arm and financed by the national Soil Science Societies all over the world. Their congress takes place every four years with strong international partners and initiatives such as Food and Agricultural Organization, the IPBES, 4 per 1000 initiative, BONARES, JRC, Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, ISMC, and many booths. It is one venue to create new global outreach and alliances.
The IUSS is structured in 4 Divisions, each of those with up to 6 Commissions and a total of 19 Working Groups of which ISMC is one. 21WCSS stats: 4234 registered participants; 2896 abstracts; 644 oral sessions
The ISMC session was well received and we heard talks from Robson André Armindo on physical soil structure evaluation, Jan Vanderborght on the soil model development and intercomparison panel, Roland Baatz on status and perspectives of ISMC, Ulrich Weller on the BonaRes knowledge portal, and Wilfred Otten (BSSS) on modeling below ground fungal communities
Below some impressions of the WCSS
Jan Vanderborght, Harry Vereecken, Umakant Mishra and Roland Baatz (from left to right) on first day at the IUSS
Ute Wollschläger (ISMC DO-LINK Panel, UFZ) on work in BonaRes "From process understanding via soil functions to sustainable soil management - a systemic approach"
Pasquale Borelli on soil erosion modelling and global land use impacts
Outreach and communicating the importance of soil
Key theme throughout the congress, here the Global Soil Partnership
Sponsors of WCSS
Colors of soil, colors of the World, WCSS participants draw their countries in colors made of soil
Soil monoliths of Brazilian soil
Award ceremony and Dinner at IUSS conference
See you in 2022 when British Society of Soil Science will host the 22WCSS in Glasgow, Scotland, Europe : )