Dr. Gan-Lin Zhang graduated from Huazhong Agricultural University in 1987, with the Bachelor of Agronomy and obtained his PhD of Soil Science from Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1993. He was promoted as professor of soil science in 2001. His research fields cover soil genesis, soil classification, soil mapping and soil evaluation. He is a grantee of the Distinguished Young Scientist Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation. He served as the Vice-Chair and the Chair of the Commission of Soil Genesis, International Union of Soil Science (C1.3, IUSS) during 2002 and 2014. He is now the vice-chair of the Working Group of Soils of Urban, Industrial, Traffic and Mining Areas (SUITMA), IUSS. He also served the Chair of the Committee of Soil Genesis, Classification and Geography (2004-2012), Soil Science Society of China. He is currently on the editorial board of Geoderma, Soil Use and Management, Science China (Earth Science), Acta Pedologica Sinica and Arid Zone Research. He is the leader of the East Asian Node of GlobalSoilMap.net Project and a member of the FAO Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soil (ITPS). He has authored (co-authored) a number of books and book chapters as well as more than 300 papers in Chinese and international peer-reviewed journals, covering soil genesis, soil classification, soil mapping, soil information system and soil quality evaluation, as well as urban soil and environment. Dick J. Brus has studied geology and physical geography. He works at Wageningen University and Research Centre for 32 years. After his work on the geomorphological mapping of the Netherlands at scale 1:50,000 and on the Dutch Soil Classification System, in 1990 he moved to the field of pedometrics. His main fields of interest are sampling theory, geostatistics, (generalized) linear regression analysis and uncertainty analysis. He has rich research experiences in developing and applying statistical methods fornatural resources inventory and monitoring. He has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed, international journals on these topics. He is second co-author of the book 'Sampling for Natural Resource Monitoring', published in 2006 by Springer. This book is widely acclaimed in soil, earth, environmental, agriculture, and statistical sciences. He was the Vice-chair of the International Union of Soil Science commission Pedometrics. He was awarded Best Paper on Pedometrics in 1996, 2004 and 2011 by the Pedometrics Commission of the International Union for Soil Science (IUSS). In 2014 he was granted by the Chinese Academy of Science a Visiting Professorship for Senior International Scientists. Dr. Feng Liu is working as an associate professor in soil geography, Department of Soil Resources and Remote Sensing Applications, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China. His work on soils started with his PhD thesis on predictivesoil mapping over low relief areas such as plains and gently undulating terrains. His research interest and projects focus on this topic. He is a member of the advisory board for the Pedometrics Commission, for the period of 2014-2018. He obtained his MSc degree from the Department of Geography, University of Lanzhou, and his PhD degree from the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He had done one-year soil mapping work as a visiting scholar in the group of Canadian Soil Information System (CanSIS) at Ottawa. Dr. Xiao-Dong Song is working as an assistant professor in soil geography, Department of Soil Resources and Remote Sensing Applications, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China. He completed his PhD in soil science in 2013 at Nanjing Normal University. He was awarded Doctoral National Scholarship in 2013. Philippe Lagacherie trained as an Agronomist and completed his PhD in soil science in 1992. He obtained his senior scientist degree from Montpellier 2 University in 2002 for his researches on digital soil mapping methods. He is currently senior researcher at INRA Montpellier (France) and lead a research team of the LISAH research unit entitled "spatial structures and dynamics of the cultivated landscapes". Dr Philippe Lagacherie has been involved in research dealing with Digital Soil Mapping, remote sensing and spatial modelling of cultivated landscapes. He developed spatial approaches that associated field knowledge, GIS, remote sensing, geostatistics, and fuzzy logic. He organised the first international workshop on Digital Soil mapping in Montpellier (2004) and is the co-editor of the first book on Digital Soil Mapping published in 2007. He has conducted several research projects at the crossroad of soil, agronomy and hydrology. Dr Philippe Lagacherie has been nominated in the editorial boards of Geoderma and Int. J. of Earth Observation and Geo-information.
