Soil Spectroscopy for the Global Good is a Coordinated Innovation Network funded by USDA NIFA Food and Agriculture Cyberinformatics Tools Program (Award #2020-67021-32467). This project brings together soil scientists, spectroscopists, informaticians, data scientists and software engineers to overcome some of the current bottlenecks preventing wider and more efficient use of soil spectroscopy. It includes a series of working groups to address topics including calibration transfer, model choice, outreach & demonstration, and use of spectroscopy to inform global carbon cycle modeling.
On the World Soils Day (5 December 2021), the Soil Spectroscopy for the Global Good Coordinated Innovation Network released the Open Soil Spectral Library (OSSL). The OSSL consists of multiple interrelated components. The first is a harmonized database consisting of multiple spectral libraries in both the visible-near infrared (VNIR) and mid infrared (MIR) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum with associated traditionally measured soil properties (>110,000 samples). These data can be accessed and visualized through the OSSL Explorer or worked with directly via OSSL API or by downloading a snapshot of the entire database.
The second main component is the OSSL Engine, an estimation service where users can upload spectra collected on their own instruments and a set of soil properties will be estimated for each spectra using an ensemble of machine learning models
GILab, in collaboration with Woodwell Climate Research Center, University of Florida, OpenGeoHub, developed and designed all three OSSL components: OSSL Explorer, OSSL API, and OSSL Engine using R Shiny and R Plumber packages.
All of the compiled data and services can be found via https://github.com/soilspectroscopy under MIT license. Complete documentation can be found here.