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A Compendium of On-Line Soil Survey Information

Methods & Techniques
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This page has links to methodology, that is, how a soil survey is actually carried out, or technqiues, that is, specific ways of collecting data.

PageTop Digital Soil Mapping

"Digital Soil Mapping", sometimes called "Predictive Soil Mapping" (e.g. by Scull et al., Progress in Physical Geography 27: 171) refers to techniques of mapping soils with mostly digital techniques, of course incorporating field information.

PageTop Pedometrics

"Pedometrics" is a neologism (since 1992) which refers to the application of numerical techniques to describe and map soils. The idea is to make soil survey, classification, and land evaluation as objective as possible.

PageTop Geostatistics

Geostatistics is the branch of applied statistics that deals with the exploration and modelling of spatial structure, and the use of this structure for mapping. It is used in many applications, not just soil survey. The portal for all things geostats is AI-GEOSTATS. Here are some soils-specific links.

PageTop USA

The Americans are to be commended for placing all of their materials (both procedures and datasets) on-line. The reasoning, which could profitably be adopted by other national survey organisations, is that the ratepayer (= US 'taxpayer') has already paid for the work to be placed into the public domain, and so it should be made freely available to all.

PageTop Other methods (not NRCS)

Some other soil survey organizations have published reports on their methods.

PageTop Sensors

Modern sensor technology has the potential to revolutionise field soil survey. Both remote and near sensors can be used.

PageTop Location methods

Modern technology can be used for rapid, cheap, accurate field location, thereby increasing the quality of the soil survey.

PageTop Quality control

Clients want to know the reliability of soil survey products. Several statistical techniques have been developed to deal with this problem.

PageTop Standards

Soil Survey is an applied geographical science, so we have to follow the same rules as all good scientists

PageTop Geotechnical mapping

Geotechnical engineers investigate soil properties to predict their behaviour under various kinds of construction or manipulation.

PageTop Concept mapping

These are techniques to predict what soils will be encountered before going to the field, based on secondary information. They are also used to stratify for sampling.

PageTop Laboratory Methods for Soil Survey

Laboratory analysis of soil samples is a fundamental component of soil survey.

PageTop Land Degradation Survey

It is possible to directly assess land degradation, including current soil conditions, by these field techniques.

PageTop Sampling & Description

The question of soil sampling both to support general-purpose survey and to provide specific information on soil conditions over an area is an active topic of both research and technology.

PageTop Soil colour

The colour of the soil is an important clue to its genesis and properties.

PageTop Photography

Photographs are excellent documents for soils and landscapes. It is not a simple matter to get good photos.

PageTop Digital Field Data Capture

The increasingly-rapid developments in rugged, low cost field hardware and specialised software may revolutionalize field data collection. The idea is to make all field observations directly in a digital device, which is also used for precise navigation. Surveyor notes can be captured digitally, leading to a huge increase in primary (un-interpreted) field data.

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Author: D G Rossiter URL: http://www.itc.nl/personal/rossiter/research/rsrch_ss_methods.html
E-Mail: rossiter@itc.nl Last Updated: 2010_011
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