The ISMC chairs and coordination invited for an ISMC workshop at Wageningen University for 24th and 25th of March 2025. In total 18 people attended either onsite or online for discussion but also to join in the presentations given on running EU projects. Major points discussed were the ISMC activities since its foundation and future plans. Additionally, the integration of the EU SOILPROM project was one discussion point and we decided to open up a new working group on Soil Pollution Modelling. Call for this working group will be open soon. We also had 4 presentations from running EU projects (SOILPROM, FARMWISE, OPTAIN, WUNDER), which have been recorded and are now available at our ISMC YouTube Channel.

Minutes of the ISMC meeting at Wageningen University

24^th and 25 of March 2025

Venue

Wageningen University Lumen Building, Droevendaalsesteeg 3a, 6708 PB Wageningen
 

Agenda

• Revisit ISMC activities since its foundation
• ISMC paper how to proceed and whom to contract
• Joint ISMC-GEWEX meeting in Reading July 2025
• ISMC Summer school
• Presentation of selected EU projects
• ISMC Conference 2026
• Revive of SOPHIE?
• Discussion of Cost Action
• IUSS working group
• IUSS conference in China 2026
• Integration SoilProm into ISMC activities
   

Participants

Lutz Weihermüller, Jan Vanderborght, Yijian Zeng, Martine van der Ploeg, Attila Nemes, Quirijn de Jong van Lier, Marta Ottoni, Wenhao Shi, Nick Jarvis, Chavez Luciana Rodriguez. Hazrat Amin, Muhammad Riaz, Moritz Shore, Jelte de Bruin, Csilla Farkas, Gerben Bakker, Tobias Weber; Yonggen Zhang

Photos of the ISMC meeting at Wageningen

Revisit ISMC activities since its foundation

Since the full paid coordinator dropped of ISMC activities have still be supported by chairs and coordinator. Nevertheless, it is still hard to follow all planned activities such as fund raising as all support is since on volunteer basis. Additionally, there is no pressure the chairs can act on WG and Science panel leads. The question has been raised what the aim of the Science Panels (SP) are as the SP are not active compared to the Working Groups (WG). The SP have been installed prior WGs and WG have been setup after full paid coordinator dropped out. So the question arises what work can be done which is not done by WGs. In general WG are at low entrance to members and non-members as well as newcomers who show interested in the scientific questions solved or to be discussed in the WGs. We should therefore redefine the work and aims of the SPs. What should be their aim and how should they work together with the WGs. How should they link up? Martine pointed out that some SP such as cross-connect are still active such as the link to the IUSS working group, where session are held at the IUSS meetings and where ISMC reports to IUSS (where ISMC is a WG also). We agreed to contact the SP leads and check if they are still willing to contribute to any ISMC activities and how they can be better interlinked with the WGs and the executive board. Lutz will send out an invitation for a SP lead meeting to clarify if the SPs leads are willing to be still active or if we have to find new people. Additionally, SPs leads should become automatic executive board members. This would need changes in the ISMC bylaws but would also help to limit the number of executive board members. Idea is to limit the executive board to the SP leads plus too positions for early career members (less than 40 years). Lutz will draft changes for the by-laws and circulate them amongst chairs. After it can be circulated amongst current executive board before sending out to members.

IDEA: We should assign WGs along the SPs and discuss with the SP leads and WG leads how to proceed and how to ensure activity. We should also define goals such as how to enroll the WGs and SPs in the ISMC conferences (session planning s done in the past).

To attract volunteers for the ISMC activities we should organize regular side events at conferences such as EGU/AGU. These events can be used for discussion and advertising ISMC activities. Therefore, we need to define person to be in charge (chairs ??) to define the aims of those kind of meetings and to organize them.

Jan pointed out that at the ISMC conferences the WGs have not been visible as the program does not mirror the WGs.

Working groups

Some working groups (WG) are quite active, whereas others are not active or even at hold. To increase visibility for the working groups the homepage will be updated to ensure easy access to the WGs. Lutz has changed the title from Science panels to Science panels and working groups at the main page. Lutz will send out emails to the WG leads to send input to update the WG pages. We propose that the individual WGs should present their current work from time to time in the Newsletter. Additionally, all featured papers should be linked to the WGs. Therefore, Lutz will modify the form for the submission of the featured paper and include a tick-box where the associated WG can be selected. We will also inform all WG leads that support for publication costs for publications from the WGs can be provided from ISMC budget.

Teaching and Dissemination WG. Idea is to announce via the newsletter a possibility to provide information on teachig materials, which can be also featured in the newsletters

NEWSLETTER

Introduce a FAQ. If you have any questions where you do not find an answer and want to ask the community. We should add a section FAQ, where people can add to a form questions to be answered by the community. The question can be put into the next newsletter along with the answer if there is an appropriate one. Lutz will check how this can be technically solved.

ISMC paper how to proceed and whom to contract

Yijian agreed to take action for the first paper skeleton draft. After, we will invite potential authors to contribute to the paper. We should have the skeleton draft ready before the joint GEWEX/ISMC meeting in July to invite potential authors also there. Jan suggested to review the papers citing the ISMC 2016 paper to analyze in which context the 2016 ISMC paper has been cited.

Joint ISMC-GEWEX meeting in Reading July 2025

Yijian reported on the joint GEWEX/ISMC meeting. Detailed program is not yet out. ISMC Chairs and coordinator will join the meeting. Nick Jarvis asked for invitation and Yijian will ask AnneVerhoef.

ISMC Summer school

There will be 1 Summer School supported in 2025, namely the one on Modeling Water Fluxes in the Soil Plant System. There is technical support and also financial support from ISMC for travel grants. A second Summer School organized by Nunzio Romano and Paolo Nasta is currently on hold and is expected to be in early 2026.

Presentation of selected EU projects

During the meeting 4 presentations on currently running EU project have been given.

SoilProm Project (Louise Wipfler)

Farmwise Project (Jelte de Bruin)

OPTAIN Project (Csilla Farkas)

Wunder Project (Yijian Zeng)

All presentations have been recorded and the videos will be posted on the ISMC YouTube channel

ISMC Conference 2026

Marta and Quirin presented a nice overview of the conference planning. Conference location has been identified and also an excursion is under planning. Based on previous discussion we had with the local organization committee but also executive board members, we decided not to propose session titles as we did for the conference in China rather than proposing different session topics which should provide more room for submissions. After abstract submission the abstracts will then be allocated to topical sessions by the organization team of the local organizers, chairs and executive board members. Finally, conveners will be allocated to the session, whereby local conveners need to be included. Next step will be the definition of keynote speakers for selected topics already identified. To facilitate, Lutz will generate an online document in the shared conference preparation folder, where everyone can add in potential keynote speaker names and topics. The online document can be found here.

Revive of SOPHIE?

Attila presented some ideas how to revive SOPHIE. Idea is to analyze the pretreatment effects on soil textural results. Attila will contact the colleagues from the Agrophysics group in Lublin if they will take over.

Discussion of Cost Action

A potential submission for a cost action has been discusses. Tobias Weber reported that the deadline for the submission is in October 2026. Therefore action is needed. We agreed to start the writing process asap and Tobias will therefore setup a first draft until beginning of April. After, we will add in ideas and prepare the background. This should be finalized until the ISMC/GEWEX workshop in July, where we will meet either the day before or after the meeting. The joint ISMC/GEWEX meeting is also a possibility to reach out to potential other collaborators.

IUSS working group

Currently the IUSS working group is lead by Martine van der Ploeg and Teamrat Ghezzehei. Martine will be still available as contact person for the IUSS WG but Teamrat will be substitutes by Yijian, Attila or Lutz. Martine will contact IUSS to do so. Martine will also further report to IUSS on ISMC activities using either the ISMC newsletters or the annual ISMC reports. Lutz will assists in reporting.

IUSS conference in China 2026

A potential session proposal was discussed and Yonggen Zhang agreed to be included in the organization as local contact point. Martine will send out the information from last IUSS conference to build on and to submit the session. As convener team Yonggen Zhang, Martine van der Ploeg, Yijian Zeng, Attila Nemes, Lutz Weihermüller, and Wenhao Shi were identified. The submission deadline is 31 of March

Integration SoilProm into ISMC activities

In the SOILPROM project proposal ISMC is given a roll as deliverer of expert knowledge and as a hub. SOILPROM modelling activities will be implemented through the creation of a working group (WG) within the International Soil Modelling Consortium (ISMC). The WG will be composed by researchers from SOILPROM beneficiaries together with external experts. Collaboration with these external experts will consist of regular meetings to provide feedback and test of the project models and tools. A special budget will be dedicated to this working group for conference organization, whereby the budget is currently hold by the Forschungszentrum Jülich team within SOILPROM. The ISMC working group that needs to be created will represent one of the end user groups.

For the short term the deliverable T1.4 within SOILPROM needs to be reviewed by experts from the advisory board. Nick Jarvis already indicated that he is willing to review the document. Another name is Diederick Jacques, who may be willing to review. In the longer-term the working group needs to be established and a few people should take the lead in this. This working group can organise exchange meetings (online) as well as workshops. ISMC can reach out to invite external experts to join these meetings and workshops through their website and newsletter.

Any other business

The chairs and coordinator agreed to held annual ISMC steering meetings as the meeting held was extremely successful.