The Congress will encompass a range of activities including keynote addresses, workshops, symposia, an indoor exhibition hall, tours and soil judging. Fringe events will run alongside the WCSS and will engage the general public on the cultural importance of soil and include exhibitions, digital storytelling and collaborative works with the local community. The wide-reaching scope of the WCSS offers a unique opportunity for organisations and individuals to reach influencers and decision makers in the industry, cultivate opportunities, and promote public engagement with soil science
These meetings will be a set of directed conversations focused on reaching a consensus on how to deliver global-scale soil health by 2030. We aim to connect farmers, science, corporates, NGOs, and policy to build a worldwide living laboratory through a creative commons. Your voice needs to be heard. This is a call to action.
Kiss the Ground, narrated and featuring Woody Harrelson, is an inspiring and groundbreaking film that reveals the first viable solution to our climate crisis. This documentary highlights soil biodiversity no-till and importance in climate change mitigation, we shall be showing the documentary 2 August 2022.
This session explores the transformative benefits of collaborative postgraduate training for doctoral soil researchers. We will celebrate ground-breaking soil science research undertaken by UK-based PhD students from the Soils Training and Research Studentship (STARS) Centre of Doctoral Training (CDT), funded by the UK government (2014 to 2022). As well as highlighting some of the programme’s research outputs, we will convene an interactive discussion focused on the unique training experience delivered through the CDT. We will conclude by outlining how the CDT model may help propagate the next generation of soil experts, and the potential for building a legacy upon this.
How can soil scientists work more closely with farmers?
Farmers collect huge amounts of data on their soils. But it's usually never shared off-farm.
This event will explore the potential of better use and sharing of this data to help both farmers and soil scientists.
This main event will 'showcase' the UK’s long-term ecological experiments (LTEs) resource to the soil science community with a view to building closer links and collaborations between researchers working above and belowground. The morning session will present five LTE case studies from ecologists, and the afternoon session will explore with policymakers how LTE science and an understanding of soil health can help to preserve vital ecosystem services such as flood prevention, climate change mitigation and food security. The event will conclude with a chaired Q&A panel session involving all the day's speakers.
To complement our main event, there will be an optional field excursion for interested delegates to the Whim Bog long-term nitrogen deposition experiment in the Scottish Borders on the morning of Friday 5 August, departing at 9.15am and returning by approximately 1pm. The spectacular Whim Bog experiment has been running for 20 years, and up to 30 delegates will be able to visit with return coach travel provided from and to the Glasgow Conference Centre. Delegates will be divided into three groups for simultaneous 1-hour tours of the site provided by our partners UKCEH. A visit fee of £50 per person will be payable directly to the ECT.
Please contact Ben Sykes (ben.sykes@ecologicalcontinuitytrust.org) to register and make payment. Read more about the Whim Bog experiment here: https://www.ecologicalcontinuitytrust.org/whim
A soil journey with Cranfield: Past, present, future
Come and join us for an interactive session highlighting the latest research and soil survey legacy at Cranfield University. Experience a virtual reality tour of the Organic-rich soils in the Welsh Uplands and have fun playing a new soil based boardgame. Discover curiosities from the national soil archive, soil maps and publications for the UK. Talk to researchers about: sensing soils | soil sensing; erosion and soil formation; the use of cover crops to bioengineer soils.
