Expanding the World Soil Survey Archive and Collection (WOSSAC)
25/10/2018

Cranfield University’s World Soil Survey Archive and Collection (WOSSAC), has recently acquired a valuable collection of documents and maps which ensures the status of this unique resource centre as the principle collection of soil and land documentation in the UK, and one of the most significant centres in Europe, playing a key part in Cranfield University’s 2017 Queen’s Anniversary Prize in Further and Higher Education for Soil Science.
The additional materials have been provided by the long established international consultancy organisation Booker Tate Limited, based in Thame, Oxfordshire. Renovations to their offices within the UK, led to the decision to downsize the library resulted in some 600 items including reports, books, and over 200 maps relating to soils and land resources being offered to the WOSSAC facility at Cranfield University. A number of map storage units to house the collection have also been gifted to WOSSAC.
The materials are being introduced to the WOSSAC facility on the Cranfield campus, part of a significant investment of £4 million from Cranfield University to develop a new Environmental and Agricultural Informatics capability, with a dedicated new building being commissioned currently. The materials received from Booker Tate will be sorted, catalogued and entered into the web-based WOSSAC listings, ensuring that this resource is available for future research and development planning.
Materials arriving for sorting at the Cranfield WOSSAC archive
This additional material complements the existing WOSSAC resource and is especially important in soil science as the Booker Tate consultancy has a long history in tropical plantation agriculture. The documentation reflects this aspect of land resource assessment and includes land appraisals reports and maps from Africa, South-East Asia, the Caribbean and South America.
The map collection offers a particularly interesting resource as these maps are often difficult to locate in-country: many territories have suffered security breakdown, map collections are lost or destroyed and government agencies are merged or closed. These additional maps provide both reconnaissance and detailed assessments of land considered suitable for plantation crops such as sugar: land assessments in Somalia are one example.
Similarly the documents acquired include unpublished reports. With few copies printed, most are unlisted on any library data base, and are difficult to obtain.
The historical importance of these documents will be a rich source of research for academics and also be an essential first-step in any modern land evaluations for rural development, in many developing counties recovering following conflict and in plans to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The ultimate aim is to scan documents in a systematic way and add these to the web based catalogue. In the short term documents or maps specifically requested can be scanned and made available in response to a request.
The Booker Tate consultancy continues to offer a wide range of professional services from offices in the UK and overseas, www.booker-tate.co.uk
A recent academic paper outlining more about WOSSAC its applications, and wider ‘land information systems’ work at Cranfield is:
Hallett, S.H., Sakrabani, R., Keay, C.A. and Hannam, J.A. (2017) Developments in Land Information Systems: Case studies in land resource management capabilities and options. Soil Use and Management. Volume33, Issue4. December 2017. Pages 514-529 doi:10.1111/sum.12380
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sum.12380/full
Further information on WOSSAC can be obtained from Dr Stephen Hallett, Associate Professor in Environmental Informatics at Cranfield University (personal page), and from www.wossac.com
Categories & Tags:
Leave a comment on this post:
You might also like…
How do I access the full-text of Harvard Business Review (HBR)?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions in the School of Management Library, presumably because HBR is such a key management journal and is renowned worldwide. The short answer is via EBSCO Business ...
Want to find out more about data documentation?: Workshop on 1 June
Data documentation is essential to make sure that well-organised and well-documented research data can be produced from our research projects. It ensures that your data will be understood and interpreted by any user. It will ...
Working on your internship report
Instead of producing a traditional thesis, as covered in our earlier post, some students in the School of Management - and perhaps some in other Cranfield Schools too - will embark upon on an internship ...
Embracing a Marketing and Leadership MSc Apprenticeship.
A Q&A with Faizah Azeem. Why did you decide to undertake a postgraduate apprenticeship in Marketing and Leadership? Cranfield delivers a unique programme that sits well with professionals wanting to develop themselves into expert ...
What is ‘Digital Forensic Science’?
Despite being a fundamental tool for many organisations and criminal justice systems around the world, arguably digital forensic science as a discipline does not always get the recognition it deserves in media broadcasts. Therefore, public ...
Pandemic PhD to prospects PhD
Hello, my name is Danni and I’m a third-year PhD student in the School of Water, Energy, and Environment specifically within the Soil, Agrifood and Biosciences department. My PhD focuses on how biostimulants (seaweeds, ...