A Compendium of On-Line Soil Survey Information
Soil Geographic Databases : North & Central America
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A Compendium of On-Line Soil Survey InformationSoil Geographic Databases : North & Central America |
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Canada
Canadian Soil Information System (CanSIS) /
Système d'information sur les sols du Canada
The first true Soil Information System (since 1972!) and still an excellent model of data provision. "We stand on guard for thee."
The NSDB is the set of computer readable files which contain soil, landscape, and climatic data for all of Canada. It serves as the national archive for land resources information that was collected by federal and provincial field surveys, or created by land data analysis projects.
It includes detailed soil surveys (1:20k etc.), the Canada Land Inventory (1:250k), and a national database (1:1.5m), all downloadable via interactive maps and metadata. Typical Canadian thoroughness.
"SLC was conceived as a standardized database consisting of major attributes important to plant growth, land management, and soil degradation. These data have since turned out to be a useful framework to support other databases, including Environment Canada's Ecological Land Classification System."
Including digital data; from the BC government
Soil Map Unit File (SoilSMUF) by Municipality (metadata and shapefiles)
European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) -- Canada
65 histoical soil and related maps scanned from ISRIC's map collection; part of the EuDASM project of the Soil & Waste Unit of the EU. A tremendous resource of historical data. Not georeferenced but most maps have overprinted grids to allow user geo-referencing
USA National
SoilWeb: An Online Soil Survey Browser
1:24 000 soil coverages (polygons), typifying pedons from Official Series Descriptions, pedons described and analyzed for other NRCS projects, all available via a Google Earth interface, Google Maps, iPhone app, and an API where you can include this functionality in your own web pages.
The Google Maps interface can use a satellite image, terrain, or terrain + cultural features background. The polygons are linked to data tables for the series.
NCSS Web Soil Survey
An interactive viewer for USA soil survey data, including interpretive tables.
From the Earth System Science Center of Pennsylvania State University. "This Web site strives to provide soil information in understandable forms which can be used by non-soil scientists." Includes archives of SSURGO and STATSGO; the most important dataset is:
This is a multi-layer soil characteristics dataset based on the USDA State Soil Geographic Database (STATSGO) for application to a wide range of SVAT, climate, hydrology, and other environmental models. Individual layers include soil texture, porosity, depth to bedrock etc.
The NRCS publishes standardized digital soil geographic databases of the USA at two scales: 1:63,360 to 1:12,000 (previously named SSURGO) and 1:250,000 (previously named STATSGO). They are preparing a national inventory at 1:7,500,000 (ready in 2003). In addition, soils data are included in the time-series point samples of the National Resources Inventory (NRI).
[Editorial Comment] We all owe a big debt to Al Gore and his "re-inventing government" initiative from the early 1990's, which established the principle that the data paid for by the people should be freely and easily accessible to the people.
A seamless web-based map of the USA (including territories) with photo, political, and hydrologic layers, as well as the soils. Includes the Soils Data Explorer to view linked tables.
Note: Off-line between 0000 and 0400 US Mountain Time (GMT-6 or 7) so be patient if you live East of the USA
MLRA's are divisions of the USA based on major soil patterns, climate, and land use; they are intended to stratify the country for any program based on physical geography, including resource inventory. All soil surveys in the USA are now correlated within MLRA's. Boundaries can be downloaded as a GIS coverage or viewed as an image.
MLRA Explorer
" An interactive map-based presentation of USDA Agriculture Handbook 296. With the tools in this application, you can: (1) search for LRRs and MLRAs using a variety of geographical and textual queries; (2) select which handbook sections to display; and (3) save and print a customized subset of the handbook." An innovative presentation of the MLRA concept from Penn State Center for Environmental Informatics.
This is a statistically-based sample of land use and natural resource conditions and trends on U.S. nonfederal lands. The NRI includes about 800 000 sample points, with information for four years - 1982, 1987, 1992, and 1997. The data includes soils, land use, and erosion/land degradation. Raw data may be ordered at cost on CD-ROM
Base maps of the USA and possessions, including administrative divisions, hydrologic units, soil & water conservation districts, federal lands, and Major Land Resource Areas (MLRA). All coverages have metadata and are available as Arc/Info Export files.
An interesting idea to show the geographic extent of soil series (by county) across the USA. Includes links to official series descriptions. Most useful to correlators and to check the integrity of the SSURGO database from which it is derived. Hosted by the Center for Environmental Informatics (CEI) at Penn State University.
PDF files of the complete soil survey report; about 14 reports from the southeastern states
European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) -- USA
240 historical soil and related maps scanned from ISRIC's map collection; part of the EuDASM project of the Soil & Waste Unit of the EU. A tremendous resource of historical data. Not georeferenced but most maps have overprinted grids to allow user geo-referencing
SSURGO metadata from NASIS
You can populate the template from the tables in a SSURGO download.
The NSDAF provides a mechanism to access, query, analyze, download, and report the various national soils databases. These include:
Search for series by name; option to download OSD.
Map Unit Information Records (MUIR)
The MUIR gives interpretive properties for each SSURGO map unit. At this site you can search for all map units by soil survey area. There is also an option to download the complete MUIR database tables for the selected survey. Includes metadata.
This includes a neat option to search for all series within a given family or higher taxonomic grouping. Shows where defined and used.
Search and display detailed analytical data for more than 20,000 pedons from the USA and about 1,100 pedons from other countries. Standard morphological descriptions are available for about 15,000 of these pedons
A web-based data view, using ArcIMS, showing geochemistry of representative soil samples of the USA
"The focus of the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) is shifting from producing static printed soil survey reports to providing a dynamic resource of soils information for a wide range of needs. The National Soil Information System (NASIS) is the core component of this vision and is designed to manage and maintain soil data from collection to dissemination."
The database is well-documented with metadata.
This includes several hundred soil survey areas, all from recent surveys. Some are in PDF, others as scanned graphics files, others in HTML. These are not digital products per se, but the graphics could probably be geo-referenced without too much difficulty. Tables could be extracted from the PDF or HTML documents.
USA State and local
CA
California Soil Resource Lab
"An interactive map interface allows for panning and zooming, with highways, streets, and aerial photos to assist navigation (Figure 1). Soil polygons become visible near a scale of 1:30,000. Alternatively, a GPS point, CA Zip code, or a street address can be used to zoom in on a specific location."
Here they go one step further and allow the user to export to Google Earth. Very nice.
Browse to soils data (SSURGO, STATSGO, permeability, runoff) via heading "Land Surface Geology Soils"); organized by county
"Minnesota Soil Atlas data is now free online in shapefile and EPPL7 formats... SSURGO Version 2 now available"
Includes downloadable soil survey maps and reports.
From East Carolina University. Most counties listed have a scanned version of the historical soil surveys from the early 1900's (both maps and report). Naturally this includes the 1908 Edgecombe County soil survey (map, report) where your editor participated in a (later) soil survey.
"The NYC Soil Survey is a pioneering study of urban soils, spanning a citywide reconnaissance soil map, a series of intensive soil surveys and special research projects". This is a semi-detailed reconnaissance (1:62 500) survey whose main interest is the definition of urban-specific soil series and mapping units. The site includes:
An interesting example of an urban soil survey at a quite detailed scale (1:4 800). Includes orthophoto map as un-geoferenced JPEG
Copy stored at ITC (PDF, 30.9Mb)
From the Tompkins County GIS. An example of the beautiful maps from the early days of US soil survey. Unfortunately the scan is not of highest quality.
Includes downloads of yet-to-be-certified SSURGO coverages for PA.
"SoilMap is an online, interactive web-based program that allows anyone with a computer and internet access to learn more about Pennsylvania soils" Does not work on standard browswers, only MSE.
Mexico, Central America & Caribbean
European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) -- Latin America & Caribbean Islands
More than 1060 maps scanned from ISRIC's map collection; ; part of the EuDASM project of the Soil & Waste Unit of the EU. A tremendous resource of historical data. Not georeferenced but most maps have overprinted grids to allow user geo-referencing
Funcionan solamente con Microsoft Interenet Explorer (no siguen normas).
Selectionar capa suelos, hacerlo activo. Muestra solamente suelos principales y asociados segú taxonomía; no ligado a bases de datos de propiedades. Parte de los Sistemas Nacionales Estadístico y de Información Geográfica
Base pour Martinique
| Author: D G Rossiter |
URL:
http://www.itc.nl/personal/rossiter/research/rsrch_ss_digital_na.html
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| E-Mail: rossiter@itc.nl | Last modified: Mon May 14 20:03:24 CEST 2012 |
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