Dr. Gan-Lin Zhang graduated from Huazhong Agricultural Universityin 1987, with the Bachelor of Agronomy and obtained his PhD of Soil Sciencefrom Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1993. He waspromoted as professor of soil science in 2001. His research fields cover soilgenesis, soil classification, soil mapping and soil evaluation. He is a granteeof the Distinguished Young Scientist Fund of the National Natural ScienceFoundation. He served as the Vice-Chair and the Chair of the Commission of SoilGenesis, 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 Committeeof Soil Genesis, Classification and Geography (2004-2012), Soil Science Societyof China. He is currently on the editorial board of Geoderma, Soil Use andManagement, Science China (Earth Science), Acta Pedologica Sinica and Arid ZoneResearch. He is the leader of the East Asian Node of GlobalSoilMap.net Projectand a member of the FAO Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soil (ITPS). Hehas authored (co-authored) a number of books and book chapters as well as morethan 300 papers in Chinese and international peer-reviewed journals, coveringsoil genesis, soil classification, soil mapping, soil information system andsoil quality evaluation, as well as urban soil and environment. Dick J. Brus has studied geology and physical geography. He worksat Wageningen University and Research Centre for 32years. After his work on the geomorphological mapping of the Netherlands atscale 1:50,000 and on the Dutch Soil Classification System, in 1990 he moved tothe field of pedometrics. His main fields of interest are sampling theory,geostatistics, (generalized) linear regression analysis and uncertaintyanalysis. He has rich research experiences in developing and applyingstatistical methods fornatural resources inventory and monitoring. He haspublished numerous papers in peer-reviewed, international journals on thesetopics. He is second co-author of the book ’Sampling for Natural ResourceMonitoring’, published in 2006 by Springer. This book is widely acclaimed in soil, earth, environmental, agriculture, andstatistical sciences. He was the Vice-chair of the International Union of SoilScience commission Pedometrics. He was awarded Best Paper on Pedometrics in1996, 2004 and 2011 by the Pedometrics Commission of the International Unionfor Soil Science (IUSS). In 2014 he was granted by the Chinese Academy of Science a Visiting Professorshipfor Senior International Scientists. Dr. Feng Liu is working as an associate professor in soilgeography, Department of Soil Resources and Remote Sensing Applications,Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China. Hiswork on soils started with his PhD thesis on predictivesoil mapping over lowrelief areas such as plains and gently undulating terrains. His researchinterest and projects focus on this topic. He is a member of the advisory boardfor the Pedometrics Commission, for the period of 2014-2018. He obtained hisMSc degree from the Department of Geography, University of Lanzhou, and his PhDdegree from the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural resources,Chinese Academy of Sciences. He had done one-year soil mapping work as avisiting scholar in the group of Canadian Soil Information System (CanSIS) atOttawa. Dr. Xiao-Dong Song is working as an assistant professor in soilgeography, Department of Soil Resources and Remote Sensing Applications,Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China. Hecompleted his PhD in soil science in 2013 at Nanjing Normal University. He wasawarded Doctoral National Scholarship in 2013. Philippe Lagacherie trained as an Agronomist and completed his PhDin soil science in 1992. He obtained his senior scientist degree fromMontpellier 2 University in 2002 for his researches on digital soil mappingmethods. He is currently senior researcher at INRA Montpellier (France) andlead a research team of the LISAH research unit entitled “spatial structuresand dynamics of the cultivated landscapes”. Dr Philippe Lagacherie has beeninvolved in research dealing with Digital Soil Mapping, remote sensing andspatial modelling of cultivated landscapes. He developed spatial approachesthat associated field knowledge, GIS, remote sensing, geostatistics, and fuzzylogic. He organised the first international workshop on Digital Soil mapping inMontpellier (2004) and is the co-editor of the first book on Digital SoilMapping published in 2007. He has conducted several research projects at thecrossroad of soil, agronomy and hydrology. Dr Philippe Lagacherie has beennominated in the editorial boards of Geoderma and Int. J. of Earth Observationand Geo-information.
