http://www.wossac.com/about.cfm
The World Soil Survey Archive and Catalogue, or WOSSAC, is one of the key facilities of the Centre for Environmental & Agricultural Informatics, CEAI Institute, incorporating the former National Soil Resources Institute (NSRI), at Cranfield University, UK. We are the largest UK national and international centre for research and development, consultancy and training in soils and their interaction with the atmosphere, land use, geology and water resources. CEAI is a centre within Cranfield's School of Water, Energy and Environment, leading Cranfield's research on soil. The WOSSAC collection contains soil-related materials accumulated over the many years of soils activity at Cranfield, NSRI and its predecessor organisations, the Soil Survey and Land Research Centre (SSLRC) and before that the Soil Survey of England and Wales (SSEW). The materials have arisen via reciprocal sharing arrangement with parallel survey organisations, from personal donations, and from a number of significant institutional donations, foremost amongst which is the collection from HTSPE (DAI), and most recently the Booker Tate soils collection.
We draw the WOSSAC project to soil scientist's attention, hoping that you will find the following interesting and worth encouraging.
It has increasingly become a matter of concern for the British Society of Soil Science (BSSS) and the Tropical Agricultural Association (TAA) and the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS), among others, that large numbers of soil surveys made worldwide in the past 80 years in some 359 territories worldwide, principally by British companies and soil survey staff, are in danger of being lost, destroyed and becoming generally unavailable. This situation arises at a time when there is reviving interest in soils on global and regional agendas and an increasing realisation of the crucial role of soils in sustainable development and the functioning of the environment.