Earth Observation of Soils. Digital Mapping in Sustainable Land Management

Authors

Mario Guevara Santamaria Professor of Geostatistics and Aesearch Associate, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico. Dr. Mario Guevara is Professor of Geostatistics and a research associate of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and is an expert on digital soil mapping. He completed his PhD studies in the University of Delaware (USA) developing soil organic carbon maps across Mexico and the United States using machine learning and remote sensing. Mario has postdoctoral experience working on selected topics of digital agronomy in the University of California, and in the United States Department of Agriculture Soil Salinity lab. Since 2017, Mario has served as the Pillar 4 (soil data and soil information) representative for the Global Soil Partnership of the Food and Agriculture Organization and is a member of the Science Leadership Group of the North American Carbon Program. His research interests are rooted in the spatial and temporal variability of soil properties, soil functions and soil degradation signals from the plot to the continental scale. Claudio Zucca Associate Professor of Pedology, Universitadi Sassari, Italy. Dr. Zucca is Associate Professor of Pedology at the University of Sassari, Italy. Since 2015 he has also been a Soil Conservation and Land Management Scientist at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas. At ICARDA he coordinated research projects in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tunisia, and Morocco and contributed to projects in Senegal, Mauritania, Pakistan and Jordan. He also acted as ICARDA's focal person in FAO's Global Soil Partnership and in WOCAT (World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies). During his 20 years of research he has been involved in several international projects, particularly on soil and land degradation, desertification, and sustainable land management . His interdisciplinary scientific interests mainly focus on: integrated assessment of land degradation and SLM; survey, mapping, and evaluation of land and soil; and soil formation and development. He is expert in GIS and applied geomatics to land studies. Prem Chandra Pandey Researcher, Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, India. Dr. Prem Chandra Pandey received his PhD degree (2015) from Centre for Landscape and Climate Research (CLCR) Department of Geography, University of Leicester, United Kingdom, under the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP). He received his BSc degree in Botany (Hons.) from Institute of Sciences, Banaras Hindu University (2005), M.Sc. degree in Environmental Sciences (2007) from Institute of Sciences, BHU and M.Tech in Remote Sensing (2009) from Birla Institute of Technology (BIT) Mesra Ranchi, India. Dr Pandey is currently working as Assistant Professor in Center for Environmental Sciences & Engineering, Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida, India. He did his Post-Doctoral from Department of Geography and Human Environment, Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University Israel (2016-2017). Dr Pandey has worked as a National Post- Doctoral Fellow with Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development (IESD), Banaras Hindu University (BHU) Varanasi. He worked on remote sensing applications as Professional Research fellow in National Urban Information System (NUIS) funded by National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) Government of India at BIT Mesra Ranchi. Dr. Pandey has been a recipient of several prestigious International and National awards including Commonwealth Fellowship UK, INSPIRE fellowship, Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) Government of India, University Grant Commission (UGC) fellowships, Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)-NPDF and IT Merit awards from Government of India. He has authored 30+ research articles published in international peer-reviewed journal articles, Edited 2 Books, 9 book chapters and presented his work in several conferences. Additionally, he is also a member of Indian Society of Geomatics (ISG), Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS), SPIE, and Association of American Geographers (AAG). His research interests include forestry, environmental pollutant modeling, urban studies and agricultural studies.