The Ministry of Ecology and Environment officially launched a national soil status platform on Dec 27 in Beijing.

According to the ministry, the establishment of the national soil environment information platform is in response to President Xi Jinping's requirement of big data construction, as well as the requirements of Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law and Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan.

The establishment of the platform is of great significance to enhance protection of soil nationwide and strengthen supervision. The national database will provide the scientific basis for comprehensively preventing and controlling pollution and contamination. And the platform is expected to play a positive role in urban and rural planning as well as agricultural production.

The soil environment information platform aims to meet the demands of both the departments and local governments, and integrate related sectors to build a high-level and high-quality national map for soil information.

The soil environment database is required to strictly check data quality, establish a data update mechanism and enhance capacity of data evaluation and analysis as well as data visualization.