WP4| Developing the African Union Soil Observatory (AUSO)

Lead ISRIC, with support from FARA, IITA, UKCEH, CABI, UNISS. T4.2 designs the architecture for the AUSO, based on information from T2.4. System architecture design is a vital element of software engineering, functioning as a comprehensive blueprint for both the system and the project as a whole. It clearly delineates the tasks assigned to design teams and provides detailed specifications for the hardware and software components required at the continental level, as well as their interactions with national level systems.

The continental AUSO system architecture will be presented as a first version 1 (D4.3), followed by an updated and improved version 2 (D4.4) that will have ingested soil health indicators and index from WP3 as well as input from WP5 on gap fill strategies and planned additional data collection.

Lead ISRIC, with support from FARA, National Partners: CSIR, INP, IRAD, ICRA, MoA, KALRO, DLRC, ZARI, CSRI, INIDA, FOFIFA. T4.3 will establish the ASDAC (D4.5) at FARA. T4.3 will develop ASDAC from the Soils4Africa SIS and develop a central infrastructure for testing and operation, a suite of tools and strategy for supporting FAIR data, a User Interface (UI) and API interfaces for user data access and data contribution (depending on copyrights) from data owners and tools for data quality assurance.

The operational ASDAC -D4.5- is a key product for the project. It will be developed in steps with a prototype scheduled in M22, a developmental version in M36 and a functional ASDAC with its launch, together with AUSO, planned for M47. These products correspond to milestones M9, M10 and M11. These are thus the three development stages in WP4, including inputs of external stakeholders (output T2.3), feedback and improvements for the development of ASDAC and AUSO. It will be developed after the AfricaSIS system of Soils4Africa, with a Mapviewer, Dashboard, Data catalogue, Doc & Media page and Tech Corner with access to developer toolkits.

Lead ISRIC, with support from FARA, CIRAD, UKCEH, UNISS, WU, ICARDA. T4.4 will build AUSO. The activity will include i) Building of Prototype (D4.6, M 22), developmental (D4.7, M37) and final version (D4.8, M48), and preparing documentation and user support; ii) Testing and feedback with anticipated global, continental, regional, national users of AUSO (linked to AUSO advisory committee).

Feedback will be collected in a structured manner on the content and functionality of the prototype, developmental and final versions, and will be used to plan further development of these AUSO versions; and iii) Deployment and launch, including a launch plan, training, documentation and monitoring feedback. Various Work Packages will contribute to the development of the non-technical aspects of AUSO. A publication will be prepared.

Lead: ISRIC, with support from UKCEH, ETH-Z, CIRAD. From data collected in WP3 and WP5, T4.5 will produce a continental ‘convergence of evidence’ map (D4.9) that indicates the extent to which areas in Africa are likely to be affected by soil health degradation processes. The map will be developed using soil health descriptors as elaborated in Section 1.3.1 and will show results of applying these in the participating countries to the extent possible with available data. The map and corresponding report will be included in AUSO. A publication will be prepared.

Lead ISRIC, with support from FARA, CABI, UKCEH, MATE. Based on T2.6 and the sustainability plan of Soils4Africa, FARA will appoint the team for hosting ASDAC and AUSO, bringing in its current team and additional personnel on secondment from related organizations. T4.6 will train the staff of this team atFARA to manage and maintain AUSO using system management guidelines (D4.10).

The training content will cover all technical fields, including soil mapping, soil data management, and systems maintenance. Participants will learn through on-the-job training, online learning, on-site professional training, and in-person and online coaching. As part of the long-term sustainability, a Training-of-Trainers model will be used to ensure that future staff can be trained in-house at FARA on the management of AUSO.

Lead FARA, with support from ISRIC, AFAAS, MATE, national Partners: CSIR, INP, IRAD, ICRA, MoA, KALRO, DLRC, ZARI, CSRI, INIDA, FOFIFA. Task 4.7 includes preparing curriculum and training materials on the use of AUSO by external users at the continental, regional and national level. It will develop simple user guides and tutorials in key languages (D4.11,M54) with which non-expert users can assess parts of AUSO.Subsequently, task 4.7 will train trainees from user groups at the continental, regional and national level, as assessed in Task 2.2, in the usage of AUSO through in-person and online events(3 physical meetings and three online events in the two project languages (2 in English and 1 in French)). It will use the materials developed in T4.6 and T4.7 and include a helpdesk function.