ANSIS: An approach to developing a federated, standards-based national soil information infrastructure for Australia

Soil is one of the Earth’s most valuable natural resource assets, vital for agriculture, environmental sustainability, and climate change resilience. In Australia, while there is a plethora of soil data, much of it has been unusable for informing sustainable soil management as a national scale due to it being fragmented across jurisdictions, institutions and formats. The Australian National Soil Information System (ANSIS) represents a novel advancement in the management, accessibility, and interoperability of soil data across Australia. This paper presents the collaborative approach taken to develop ANSIS, highlighting the system’s breakthrough in soil data federation and standardisation of disparate sources of soil data from across Australia. The approach articulates the underpinning requirements, the core architecture, the data and social governance framework, and the collaboration and outreach undertaken. ANSIS delivers nationally standardised, analysis-ready data conforming to Australian soil standards. By bringing together soil data from 13 data providers, ANSIS provides access to over 309,000 soil sites and over three million analytical records. The ANSIS platform has a range of tools that provide different ways to access and view soil data, enabling users with varying needs to target the soil data and information they seek. The novelty of ANSIS, its benefits for Australia and internationally, as well as challenges, limitations and opportunities are discussed, highlighting ANSIS’s role in advancing soil science and supporting sustainable soil management. The development of ANSIS has positioned Australia as a global leader in soil information systems and digital soil infrastructure development and delivery.