need for improved soil information worldwide, particularly in the context of the Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol for soil carbon measurements and the immediate requirement for the FAO/IIASA Global Agro-ecological Assessment study (GAEZ 2008), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) took the initiative of combining the recently collected vast volumes of regional and national updates of soil information with the information already contained within the 1:5,000,000 scale FAO-UNESCO Digital Soil Map of the World, into a new comprehensive Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). The completion of this comprehensive harmonized soil information will improve estimation of current and future land potential productivity, help identify land and water limitations, and enhance assessing risks of land degradation, particularly soil erosion. The HWSD contributes sound scientific knowledge for planning sustainable expansion of agricultural production and for guiding policies to address emerging land competition issues concerning food production, bio-energy demand and threats to biodiversity. This is of critical importance for rational natural resource management and in making progress towards achieving Millennium Development goals of eradicating hunger and poverty and addressing the food security and sustainable agricultural development, especially with regard to the threats of global climate change and the needs for adaptation and mitigation. This soil information system will allow policy makers, planners and experts to overcome some of the shortfalls of data availability to address the old challenges of food production and food security and plan for new challenges of climate change and accelerated natural resources degradation. Citation: FAO/IIASA/ISRIC/ISS-CAS/JRC, 2009. Harmonized World Soil Database (version 1.1). FAO, Rome, Italy and IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria. Permafrost Distribution: Distribution: Permafrost distribution for Arctic regions was derived from the original 1:10,000,000 paper map (Brown et al. 1997). Permafrost distribution for Antarctica was derived from (Bockheim, J.G. and K.J. Hall. 2002). Land Surface Temp: Surface Temp: Land surface temperature is how hot the “surface” of the Earth would feel to the touch in a particular location. From a satellite’s point of view, the “surface” is whatever it sees when it looks through the atmosphere to the ground. It could be snow and ice, the grass on a lawn, the roof of a building, or the leaves in the canopy of a forest. Thus, land surface temperature is not the same as the air temperature that is included in the daily weather report. The map was made using data collected during the daytime by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. At mid-to-high latitudes, land surface temperatures can vary throughout the year, but equatorial regions tend to remain consistently warm, and Antarctica and Greenland remain consistently cold. Altitude plays a clear role in temperatures, with mountain ranges like the North American Rockies cooler than other areas at the same latitude. Scientists monitor land surface temperature because the warmth rising off Earth’s landscapes influences (and is influenced by) our world’s weather and climate patterns. Scientists want to monitor how increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases affect land surface temperature, and how rising land surface temperatures affect glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost, and