Global Nitrogen Innovation Center for Clean Energy and the Environment

Dr. Yuhao Wang recently attended the AFACI Soil+ International Workshop on Nutrient Budget, Erosion & Soil Health in Bangkok, Thailand. This workshop was convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its Global Soil Partnership (GSP), in collaboration with the Land Development Department of Thailand.

In the reflection below, he shares his experience leading a workshop training on nutrient budget mapping, connections with NICCEE, and lessons that will help shape the next stage of this work. Dr. Wang is a postdoctoral scholar with the NICCEE network based at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Appalachian Laboratory. 

In June 2026, I traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, to serve as a trainer at the AFACI Soil+ International Workshop on Nutrient Budget, Erosion & Soil Health. Held from June 22–27, the workshop brought together participants from across Asia to strengthen national capacity in nutrient budget mapping, soil erosion assessment, soil health monitoring, and National Soil Information Systems.

My role was to lead the nutrient budget mapping component of the workshop, drawing directly from ongoing research at the Global Nitrogen Innovation Center for Clean Energy and the Environment (NICCEE). This training was closely connected to our current effort to develop a globally consistent, spatially explicit nutrient dataset and mapping framework. The broader goal of this work is to move beyond national averages and better understand how nutrient use, nitrogen surplus, and nitrogen use efficiency vary across space, while creating a framework that can be progressively improved with better regional and national information.

During the workshop, I introduced this emerging framework and guided participants through hands-on exercises for developing spatial nutrient budget maps. Rather than presenting the research as a finished product, we used the workshop as an opportunity to demonstrate how the framework could be applied, examined, and improved in different national  contexts. Participants represented Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan, providing a valuable range of perspectives and experience with national agricultural data.

One of my most important takeaways was that building global spatial nutrient information is not simply a technical challenge—it also requires connecting global consistency with the realities of national and regional data. Participants raised important questions about data reliability and local applicability, reinforcing the value of the work we are developing at NICCEE. A globally consistent spatial framework can provide countries with a common analytical foundation, while my contribution has been to help translate this ongoing research into a practical workflow that can be communicated, tested, and refined through engagement with national experts. For NICCEE, this connection between research, training, and international collaboration is an important pathway for turning nitrogen science into practical impact.

The workshop also helped clarify several priorities for the next stage of our research. One is to strengthen the temporal dimension of the dataset so that nutrient patterns can be examined across multiple years rather than as a static snapshot. Another is to broaden crop coverage, particularly for fodder crops and pasture-related systems that remain difficult to represent consistently at the global scale. These directions are already part of the future development envisioned for the work.

For NICCEE, the workshop was therefore more than a training activity. It created an opportunity to bring an ongoing research effort into direct conversation with FAO experts and national specialists. It also highlighted the potential for deeper cooperation between NICCEE and the FAO soil team, particularly in connecting global spatial nutrient research with national data systems, local expertise, and international soil information initiatives.

For me, the most valuable aspect of the workshop was this two-way exchange. We were able to bring an emerging piece of NICCEE’s research to an international community, while the questions and feedback from participants helped us better understand where the work needs to go next. In that sense, the workshop was not only an opportunity to share our research—it also became part of the process of developing and strengthening it.

By Dr. Yuhao Wang