Modern Soil Survey of Israel

Comprehensive mapping of Israel's soils to inform conservation, land use, and policy

Project Lead: Dr. Brian Needelman

The Israel FEWture team is collaborating on a project led by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to conduct the first modern soil survey of Israel. A soil survey is an inventory of a nation’s soil resources that is used to provide information to a wide range of stakeholders to make informed soil management, land use, and policy decisions. The team will adopt the USDA Soil Taxonomy system as its official soil classification system. 

The initial stages of this project focus on adaptation and implementation of Soil Taxonomy for mapping Israeli soils. The team is correlating previous maps made using the two previous soil classifications used in Israel to publish a national soil map based on Soil Taxonomy. They plan to conduct extensive field work to resolve uncertainties in soil classification and verify and improve this national map.

They recently conducted the first field workshop in which 42 participants were given basic instruction on how to apply Soil Taxonomy to field soils. They plan additional field workshops to broaden their target audience and provide more advanced training.

The project is led by Danny Itkin from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security; Gil Eshel from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security; Onn Crouvi from the Geological Survey of Israel; Alon Ronen from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security; and Shikma Zaarur from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Faculty of Agriculture, Food, and Environment are also Israeli collaborators.

Project objectives:

• Improve soil education, research, management, and public awareness 
• Integrate best methods in soil conservation and food security 
• Provide critical data to address the diversity of soil-related challenges Israel currently faces