FAIRagro is an exciting initiative that represents a tremendous opportunity for agrosystems research. Soils and their data are not only a window into agricultural use over the past 10000 years, but they are also urgently needed to guide and improve future use. Soil data, the basis of many groundbreaking academic studies, have been collected and stored for a long time. The INSPIRE directive in 2007 was a key step in making these data treasures available to the European community.
My goal is to use the experience with the already established INSPIRE standard to improve data sharing in the scientific community. Additional soil data can be made interoperable and thus increased in their value. The provision of standardized soil data offers enormous potential for research, which has so far only been partially exploited. For example, the BonaRes repository provides INSPIRE metadata and is “GDI-DE ready”.
I can very well imagine continuing the existing good cooperation in the BonaRes project (www.bonares.de) and would like to participate in FAIRagro Use Cases. The BGR soil data products are ready.
Dr. Einar Eberhardt (BGR)
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