An online seminar dedicated to the presentation of the Armenian Soil Information System (http://armsis.cas.am/) was organized on December 23, 2020.

The event was attended by the RA Deputy Minister of Economy Arman Khojoyan, the Assistant to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Representative in Armenia Gayane Nasoyan, and Davit Mejlumyan, the Project Manager of the “Second Community Agricultural Resource Management and Competitiveness” (CARMAC 2) project of the Agricultural Programs Implementation Department of the RA Ministry of Economy.

While welcoming the participants of the event, Arman Khojoyan, in particular, noted: “Armenia’s soil information system was developed drawing from the necessity for an objective assessment of soil resources, which will serve as basis for improving the agricultural policy, developing the land market, as well as preventing land degradation and attracting new investments”.

According to the Deputy Minister of Economy, in order to fully present the state of Armenia’s soil, the following were implemented within the project framework: assessment of the number of land profiles (cuts) and their spatial distribution, digitization of the archive data of land profiles, database check to ensure the completeness and accuracy of information, scanning, geoconnection, and digitization of the soil maps of Armenia, checking the quality of maps, data integrity, and topological accuracy.

“Within the framework of the project, about 5 thousand data of agricultural chemical assays of soil carried out in recent years have been digitized, which, in total, cover about 800 communities of 10 provinces of the Republic of Armenia. As a result, national digital maps on soil characteristics have been created, and the Armenian soil information system has been introduced”, Arman Khojoyan added.

The project is funded by the Russian Federation within “GCP/GLO/853/RUS Support to the Promotion of Sustainable Soil Management in the framework of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP): Phase II” program and was selected by the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on a competitive basis.

The website of the Armenian Soil Information System is currently available in English, but development of the Armenian version is also planned in near future.