An important aspect of WOSSAC is the range of projects and activities that are conducted focussed upon the holdings in the collection. Here we provide an overview of these projects.

Certain of these projects relate to improving and developing the means by which the archive holdings are referenced, accessed and inter-operated with other archives. Other projects relate to more fundamental research issues.

Research work to date in the WOSSAC archive has been centred around a strategy of 're-purposing' the enormous stocks of legacy information held. From a contemporary soil resources viewpoint this is likely to mean the preparation of materials for ultimate use within a computerised environmental information system. To achieve this, a work-flow progression has been followed as the illustration here shows.

The figure identifies how successive work-flow stages can build on the solid foundation of 'making items safe', towards the development of an integrated natural resource information management system. Having collated, scanned and collected legacy materials from WOSSAC pertaining to soil and the natural environment, work now continues to put in place materials to support contemporary information system development to hold and manipulate these and other data, compliant with emergent international standards for soil data specifications, metadata and data discovery, web services and reporting tools supporting a broad range of application thematic areas. Again, these tasks are contingent on supportive funding becoming available.

Research publications and books

The following papers mention WOSSAC:

Borden, R.W., Brammer, H., Baillie, I.C., Hallett, S.H. (2021) The contributions of C. F. Charter to tropical soil survey and classification. 197. Catena. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2020.104957. Accessed at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0341816220305075.

Borden, R.W., Baillie, I.C., Hallett, S.H. (2019) The East African contribution to the formalisation of the soil catena concept. Catena. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2019.104291. Accessed at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0341816219304333?via%3Dihub

Hallett, S.H., Sakrabani, R., Keay, C.A. and Hannam, J.A. (2017) Developments in land information systems: examples demonstrating land resource management capabilities and options. Soil Use and Management. Volume 33, Issue 4, December 2017, Pages 514-529 doi: 10.1111/sum.12380. Accessed at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sum.12380/full.

Hallett, S.H. (2017) Smart cities need smart farms. Environmental Scientist. 26, 1, 10-17. ISSN 09668411. Accessed at https://www.the-ies.org/resources/feeding-nine-billion.

Jones, A., Breuning-Madsen, H., Brossard, M., Dampha, A., Deckers, J., Dewitte, O., Gallali, T., Hallett, S.H., Jones, R., Kilasara, M., Le Roux, P., Michéli, E., Montanarella, L., Spaargaren, O., Thiombiano, L., Van Ranst, E., Yemefack, M. , Zougmoré R., (eds.), 2015, Atlas Des Sols D’Afrique. French language edition. European Commission, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. 176 pp.

DeWitte, O., Jones, A., Spaargaren, O., Breuning-Madsen, H., Brossard, M., Dampha, A., Deckers, J., Gallali, T., Hallett, S.H., Jones, R.J.A., Kilasara, M., Le Roux, P., Michéli, E., Montanarella, L., Thiombiano, L., Van Ranst, E., Yemefack, M. and Zougmoré, R. (2013) Harmonisation of the soil map of Africa at the continental scale. Geoderma. Vol 211-212, Dec 2013, pp138-153. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2013.07.007.

Jones, A., Breuning-Madsen, H., Brossard, M., Dampha, A., Deckers, J., Dewitte, O., Gallali, T., Hallett, S.H., Jones, R., Kilasara, M., Le Roux, P., Michéli, E., Montanarella, L., Spaargaren, O., Thiombiano, L., Van Ranst, E., Yemefack, M. , Zougmoré R., (eds.), 2013, Soil Atlas of Africa. European Commission, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. 176 pp. Accessed at https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/soil-map-soil-atlas-africa.

Hallett, S.H., Baillie, I.C., Kerr, B. and Truckell, I.G. (2011) Development of the World Soil Survey Archive and Catalogue (WOSSAC) Commission on the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Soil Science, 18, pp14-17.

Hallett, S.H., Bullock, P. and Baillie, I. (2006) Towards a World Soil Survey Archive and Catalogue, Soil Use and Management, 22 (2) 227-228. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-2743.2006.00030.x

MSc research projects

Apart from the uses of WOSSAC materials exemplified here, WOSSAC has also formed the subject of several Postgraduate research projects at Cranfield University. Links to relevant Masters degree theses are provided below:

Buhari, U. (2014) Sugar Cane Modelling Using GIS and Remote Sensing Techniques . MSc Thesis, Cranfield University, 2014.71pp.

Okude, A. S. (2013) Estimating cultivation area of Côte d’Ivoire based on the stratification of remote sensing imagery. MSc Thesis, Cranfield University, 2013.69pp.  Poster

Algasim, Mohammed. (2009) Development of a Spatial Data Validation Toolkit for Map Archive Catalogues

Owonibi, Michael. (2007) The Development of a Prototype Soils Archive Information System to Publish World Soil Data and Metadata (WOSSAC) Holdings, Using Proprietary and Open (Public) Standards

Alias, Guillermo. (2006) Investigation into the use of the Google Earth mapping platform for presenting a World Soil Survey Archive and Catalogue (WOSSAC)

Koyanagi, Yuki. (2005) Proposal for a new metadata schema for world soils survey archive and catalogue (WOSSAC)

Hunt, James. (2003) Design of the World Soil Survey Archive and Catalogue (WOSSAC).

Further research projects are planned for the future.

As well as the physical WOSSAC archive based at Cranfield University, WOSSAC has also started to investigate ways of recording and virtually distributing some of our soil samples via this website. Using extremely high precision 3D laser scanning hardware we are able to present a selection of our sample soil monoliths here for you to explore in three dimensions. A monolith is a sample of soil, taken from a soil profile pit, preserved in resin. These are often used as teaching aids - so scanning these to an electronic form brings this medium up to date.

Click the central play button on the windows below to start the 3D viewer for each soil sample. The sample will take a few seconds to load, you can then explore the sample in three dimensions using your left mouse button to rotate the model, your right mouse button to move the model around and your scroll wheel to zoom in and out.

Users of touch screen devices can drag one finger on the screen to rotate the model, drag two fingers on the screen to move the model and use pinch-gestures to zoom in and out.

To document and catalogue the items in WOSSAC, various standards are adhered to, for consistency within the archive, and for interoperability with wider archiving initiatives. The catalogue metadata schema is based upon the internationally-recognised Machine Readable Cataloguing (MARC) standard MARC21. This system allows for documents and artifacts to be recorded using a series of structured metadata tags, optimized for storage and retrieval of documentary records. Spatial data within the archive is described using standards based upon the UK Gemini standard. Derived from the ISO19115 standard, this defines an element set for describing geo-spatial discovery-level metadata, consistent with the principles of the EU INSPIRE Directive, 2007/2/EC.

The specific metadata schema adopted is as follows:

Field	Completion advice
Item ID	Unique item identifier - UID
ISBN	ISBN number [e.g. ISBN 0-905442-49-0] {MARC 020$a}
UDC class number	UDC class number [e.g. 631.41:626.8] {MARC 084$a}
Collection Reference	Collection reference [e.g. 604PE_INDUS] - the internal item reference of sub-collections held in WOSSAC {MARC 084$a}
Title	Item Title {MARC 245$a}
Subtitle	Item Subtitle {MARC 245$b}
Language	Language(s) of item [e.g. En for English, Ar for Arabic etc.] {MARC 041$a}
Subjects	Subject topics & keywords {MARC 650$a}
Series Title	Series title {MARC 440$a}
Series Section No.	Series part/section number {MARC 440$n}
Series Series Name	Series part/section name {MARC 440$p}
Publication Year	Publication created (full year only) [e.g. 1966] {MARC 260$c}
Publisher Name	Publication publishers name [e.g. An Foras Taluntais] {MARC 260$b}
Publication Place	Publication publishers place [e.g. Dublin] {MARC 260$a}
Project Sponsor	Original project sponsor [e.g. UNDP] {MARC 710$a}
Corporate Author Series	Corporate author series [e.g. An Foras Taluntais] {MARC 110$a}
Personal Author	Personal author [e.g. Smith, D] {MARC 100$a}
Material Extent	The number of pages, volumes etc., of the described item {MARC 300$a}
Material Characteristic	Other physical characteristics such as illustrative matter {MARC 300$b}
Material Accompanying	Accompanying material, may include a parenthetical physical description of the accompanying material {MARC 300$e}
Material Type	Type of unit, terms such as page, volumes, boxes, cu. ft., linear ft., etc. that identify the configuration of the material and how it is stored {MARC 300$f}
Summary Abstract	Abstract description summary {MARC 520$a}
Country Then	Country name when surveyed [e.g. Ceylon] {MARC 534$n}
Country Now	Contemporary country name [e.g. Sri Lanka] {MARC 043$a}
Region	Contemporary region/province {MARC 052$b}
Major City	Nearest major city (if on map) [e.g. Mogadishu] {MARC 052$d}
Northernmost Latitude	Northernmost Latitude (decimal degrees) [e.g. 2] {MARC 034$f}
Southernmost Latitude	Southernmost Latitude (decimal degrees) [e.g. 1.5] {MARC 034$g}
Easternmost Longitude	Easternmost Longitude (decimal degrees) [e.g. 44.833] {MARC 034$e}
Westernmost Longitude	Westernmost Longitude (decimal degrees) [e.g. 44.4156] {MARC 034$d}
Map Scale	Map Scale (1:x) [e.g. 50000] {MARC 034$b}
PDF URL	File-name of PDF scanned file [e.g. '0001.pdf'] {MARC 530$u}
Access Terms	Comments on stated item access terms

Note that some of these elements are catalogue database fields not revealed on the website.

Another popular archive standard format is the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES). This is a very simple descriptive metadata schema, designed to support the discovery of resources from across a range of domains. It defines fifteen elements to support simple cross-domain resource discovery:

The mapping of the WOSSAC schema to DCMES in its simple/unqualified form is as follows:

DCMES Element	WOSSAC Element Mapping
Title	Title + Subtitle
Creator	Corporate Author Series + Personal Author
Subject	Subjects
Description	Summary Abstract
Publisher	Publisher name
Contributor	Acquisition Source
Date	Publication year
Type	Material type
Format	Material extent
Identifier	ISBN
Source	http://www.wossac.com
Language	Language
Relation	Item Id
Coverage	Region + Major City + lat/lon
Rights	Access terms

Note that some of these elements are catalogue database fields not revealed on the website. Others are shown in composite in the unqualified form.

Within the WOSSAC Archive is an enormous collection of over 10,000 open reel satellite tapes holding data stretching back to the early days of planetary imaging. These datasets are being processed and copied onto the Cranfield file-servers in modern image processing format such that they can be made available, respecting Copyright, to researchers and other interested parties along with other WOSSAC materials. Our intention is to develop a searchable catalogue of this imagery here online.

The satellite data held in WOSSAC originates from a number of sources. The data would have often been used to create other thematic datasets and soil property interpretations. In turn, the WOSSAC materials can also play a role as ground truthing resources for contemporary imaging, as well as the basis for longitudinal environmental studies.

Here is a taster of the data we hold, click each image below to see more detail.