2025-2034 – Decade of Soil Sciences for Sustainable Development. Healthy Soils for Humanity
The IUSS has successfully concluded the Decade of Soils 2015-2024, culminating in the celebration of its Centennial. This period has led to various initiatives and publications, including those made in collaboration with the FAO and other international organizations and societies. The primary objective of the decade was to increase awareness regarding the significant roles that soils play in addressing contemporary environmental, health, and social challenges faced by humanity. According to the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the progress towards achieving most of the Sustainable Development Goals is lagging. One contributing factor is the lack of sufficient focus on sustainable soil management and protecting areas from sealing and other forms of destruction. Regenerative and sustainable soil management is essential for sustainable development. Without addressing the impact of human activities on soil health, achieving most of the targets set by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is unfeasible. In consideration of the need to prioritize production, dissemination and use of actionable scientific knowledge to achieve the targets of the SDGs, the IUSS has launched the 2025-2034 Decade of Soil Sciences for Sustainable Development (DSSSD). The Research Forum of the IUSS, in collaboration with the Executive Committee and the Council, will play a crucial role in enabling activities during this period. The overall objectives of the decade are: ● Create a strong science-policy-society interface on soil health and protection for sustainability ● Advance practical understanding on soil sciences for sustainable development. ● Support scientific research and innovation in integrating sustainable soil management in all areas of social action. ● Promote initiatives which engage society with soil research, including citizen science, knowledge co-production, science communication, and soil in education. ● Foster meaningful cooperation between soil research and society to enhance trust in science ● Diversify and strengthen social, cultural, and artistic research on soils. ● Strengthen international collaborative and transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research initiatives.
Among the planned specific activities during the decade there are: Working with UNESCO, FAO, ISC, and other organizations for the implementation of IDSSD initiatives at various levels, including national soil science societies; Collaborating with UNESCO’s initiatives focused on leveraging the organization’s designated sites as monitoring points for soil, water, landscape, and biodiversity impacts associated with climate change and land degradation; Proclamation of the World Soil of the Year (WSY).
A milestone of the DSSSD is the 23rd World Congress of Soil Sciences which will be held in Nanjing, China in June 2026. The general theme of the Congress is “Soil Health for Humanity”. Therefore, improving soil health for humanity is the first focus of the decade’s initiative. (https://www.23wcss.org.cn/)
To keep informed on the DSSSD initiative visit the IUSS website (https://www.iuss.org/) and the linked socials.
2025 IUSS World Soil of the Year
In recognition of the success of various national programs, the IUSS WSY program has been implemented to enhance soil literacy across numerous countries and on a global scale. Through the World Soil of the Year (WSY), the IUSS endeavors to celebrate a specific soil, on an annual basis, in recognition of our collective responsibility for sustaining soils and their functionality, as well as to promote public awareness of this crucial and increasingly threatened resource.
The “Gleysol,- Hydromorphic soil supporting forest growth in the steppe region from the Carpathian Basin”, has been officially named the World Soil of the Year 2025. This soil was proposed by the Hungarian Soil Science Society. It highlights the significance of these unique soils that have a large global coverage, occurring in nearly all climates.
The World Soil Day was first proposed by IUSS at our World Congress of Soil Sciences held in Bangkok in 2002. The 5th of December was chosen as World Soil Day because it is the birthday of the King of Thailand who has had a lifetime interest in promoting sustainable soil use. In 2012 IUSS presented the King with the IUSS Humanitarian Soil Scientist Medal in recognition of his excellent work in promoting sustainable soil use in Thailand and South east Asia. IUSS has promoted World Soil Day in conjunction with the Global Soil Partnership of FAO and UNESCO has officially endorsed it (https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-soil-day).
New series for the United Nations International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDSSD)
Brief of ISC GeoUnions Standing Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction December 2020
ISC GeoUnions Standing for DRR has published a Brief about Meteorological Observation and Upper Atmospheric Climate Data Share. Full-text is available here.
ISC GeoUnions Standing Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction
The GeoUnions Standing Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction (ISC-GU-SC-DRR) was established in July 2020, initiated and lead by Prof. Orhan Altan, who was nominated by the International Science Council (ISC) GeoUnions Steering Committee and ISPRS. The newly established Committee seeks to strengthen the long-standing ISC leadership in advancing DRR. It also honours the ISC’s (former ICSU’s) role in preparation of world conferences on DRR. For more information see the comittee website here.
Geoinformation for Disaster Management
In the past several years, there have been significant technological advances in the field of crisis response. However, many aspects concerning the efficient collection and integration of geo-information, applied semantics and situation awareness for disaster management remain open. Improving crisis response systems and making them intelligent requires extensive collaboration between emergency responders, disaster managers, system designers and researchers alike. To facilitate this process, the Gi4DM (Geoinformation for Disaster Management) conferences have been held regularly since 2005. The events are coordinated by the Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies (JB GIS) and GeoUnions of the International Science Council (ISC). The last conference Gi4DM 2018 organized by the ISPRS-URSI Joint Working Group ICWG III/IVa: Disaster Assessment, Monitoring and Management and supported by several GeoUnions was held in Istanbul, Turkey, 18-21 March 2018. The major outcomes of the conference is now available as a book containing 12 scientific papers focusing on the intelligent use of geo-information, semantics and situation awareness. The book is available online
Geoscience international: the role of scientific unions
GeoUnions have been coordinating and promoting international efforts in Earth and space sciences since the beginning of the 20th century. Thousands of scientists from many nations and specific scientific disciplines have developed ways of cooperation through international unions and learned how to work together to promote basic geosciences. The unions have been initiating, developing, and implementing international cooperative programmes, setting scientific standards, developing research tools, educating and building capacity, and contributing to science for policy.
New paper published in the open-access journal “History of Geo- and Space Sciences” analyses the role of GeoUnions in and their added value to the promotion of geoscience internationally in the arena of the existing and emerging professional societies of geoscientists. The history of the geounions and the development of international cooperation in geosciences are reviewed in this paper in the context of scientific and political changes over the last century. Scientific and organisational aspects of their activities, including cooperation with international and intergovernmental institutions, are analysed using the example of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). The GeoUnions’ activities are compared to those of professional societies. Future development of scientific unions and their role in the changing global landscape of geosciences are discussed (Ismail-Zadeh, A., 2016. Geoscience international: the role of scientific unions, Hist. Geo Space. Sci., 7, 103-123, doi:10.5194/hgss-7-103-2016).
Future of the Ocean and its Seas
At the G7 Meeting of the Science Ministers in Berlin, Germany, on 8-9 October 2015, the Ministers resolved to take action to further develop a global knowledge society. In the final Communiqué they stated their commitment “to continuing discussions and developing a proposal for how we can most effectively enhance international co-operation among the G7 and other interested countries ahead of the next Science Ministers meeting in Japan 15-17 May 2016”. Recognizing that science plays a pivotal role in providing solutions to today’s environmental and health issues the Ministers wish to engage in closer co-operation with the international scientific community on four topics, one being the future of the seas and oceans.
The International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) of IUGG together with the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) of the International Council for Science (ICSU) set up an ad-hoc working group with the intention to develop a Report related to the topics highlighted in the G7 Science Ministers Communiqué. The Report has been prepared by the international group of experts and submitted on 3 May 2016 to the Bureau of Science, Technology and Innovation, Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan (the host organization for the G7 Science Ministers Meeting in Tsukuba-city). The Report was also sent to the Science Council of Japan, Federal Ministry for Education and Research (Germany), the Royal Society (UK), and the National Academy of Sciences (USA).
The International Conference “Future Earth and Space Science and Education” co-sponsored by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) was held in ICTP, Trieste, Italy on 2-6 November 2015. The participants of the conference adopted the Declaration “Future Earth and Space Science Education”, which aims to highlight the importance of Earth and space science education in future scientific progress and to reinforce the link between the scientific community, national governments and the public to contribute to sustainable development of society through scientific awareness and actions related to challenging problems of society. The declaration was endorsed by IUGG, International Cartographic Association, International Geographical Union, International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS), the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), and the International Union of Radio Sciences (URSI).
Geosciences For Future Earth Research
This paper is a commentary on the Future Earth Research Agenda 2014 presenting a view of several experts from several major international geoscientific organizations including Scientific Unions of the International Council for Science (ICSU). The comments point to the issues where geoscientific expertise may help to improve the scientific quality of the potential outcomes of the Research Agenda, in line with the Future Earth 2025 Vision that aims to link disciplines and knowledge systems to achieve its goals.
International Year of Global Understanding 2016
The International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH) jointly announced that 2016 would be the International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU). The aim of IYGU is to promote better understanding of how the local impacts the global in order to foster smart policies to tackle critical global challenges such as climate change, food security and migration (see here the IYGU Press Release).
Disaster risks research and assessment to promote risk reduction and management
A review and synthesis paper of the basic knowledge of natural hazards, vulnerabilities, and disaster risks, which aims to highlight potential contributions of science to disaster risk reduction, has been released by ICSU and ISSC on the occasion of the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai. Several experts of GeoUnions took part in the development of the paper: http://icsu-geounions.org/files/Report_RiskReduction_WCDRR_2015.pdf
