Soil Description DevTool: an ODK-based application.

A new open-access field work tool for soil description is now available through ISRIC – World Soil Information: Soil Description DevTool. This tool is for people doing field work who will describe soils using the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2006 Guidelines for Soil Description.

This tool was created by ISRIC – World Soil Information and is openly shared under the Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0. The tool was originally produced with the support of the European Union Horizon 2020-funded InnoVar project, ‘Next-generation variety testing for improved cropping on European farmland’, with grant agreement ID 818144.

Soil Description DevTool is powered by Open Data Kit (ODK). ODK is a suite of open source tools that help organizations collect data and manage data gathering. It is licensed under CC BY 4.0. For more information about ODK forms, visit the ODK website. The Soil Description DevTool was tested using ODK Central v1.3.3.

The Soil Description DevTool is an evolving resource which will adapt to future changes in soil ontologies and user experiences.