Tools from data-centered community of practice in soils

There is growing interest in global soil dynamics particularly in relation to climate change and food security. To support a more global context for soil dynamics, a number of groups have undertaken soil data synthesis projects. These projects have highlighted a need for a common community-governed semantic tool. We present here the Community Soil Data semantic tool kit (CoSoDat), developed by a group of soil scientists and data scientists together, that describes soil bulk density and organic carbon fraction as well as identifies connection points with existing geo-location, temporal, and depth semantic frameworks. We also outline a governance model to maintain these tools going forward and extend this toolkit to additional quantifications of importance to soil scientists including nutrients, hydrology, biology, and physical structure. We expect that this semantic tool kit can be helpful in a number of ways. Specifically a general inclusive description of methodologies can be used to generate data templates for specific projects, annotate archived soil data for improved discoverability, and automate the integration of annotated datasets for reanalysis. By adopting a governance framework that allows for updating and continual improvement, we will be able to adapt as emergent technologies that allow us to look at soils in new ways.