A Compendium of On-Line Soil Survey Information
Learning Resources
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A Compendium of On-Line Soil Survey InformationLearning Resources |
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If you don't know much about soil survey, here are some good starting places.
What is soil and soil survey?
The more-or-less continuous cover of the earth's land surface that forms by surface and near-surface processes, including physical, chemical and biological weathering, animal activity, and reorganisation of mineral and organic material. The soil cover is in places more or less influenced by human activity.
The soil cover is a natural body with its own ecosystem. It functions as the interface between the lithosphere (rocks), hydrosphere (water), biosphere (organic life), atmosphere (climate and weather), and of course anthrosphere (humans).
Any spatially-explicit information about the distribution of soil types or properties. These are usually presented as maps with an accompanying report. To be useful in a GIS, the SRI should be available in digital form as a Soil Geographic Database (SGDB).
The process of determining the types or properties of the soil cover over a landscape, and mapping them for others to understand and use.
It is a branch of applied physical geography, and draws heavily from geomorphology, analysis of vegetation and land-use patterns, and theories of soil formation. Primary data for the soil survey are acquired by field sampling, supported by remote sensing (principally vertical airphotos).
Why do a soil survey?
"The practical purpose of soil survey is to enable more numerous, more accurate and more useful predictions to be make for specific purposes than could have been made otherwise [i.e., in the absence of location-specific information about soils]. To achieve this purpose, it is necessary to:
- determine the pattern of the soil cover; and to
- divide this pattern into relatively homogeneous units; to
- map the distribution of these units, so enabling the soil properties over any area to be predicted; and to
- characterize the mapped units in such a way that useful statements can be made about their land use potential and response to changes in management."
- Dent & Young, p. 1. [emphasis and punctuation dded]. This description applies to area-class (`polygon') soil maps; for continuous-field (`raster') maps another methodology is used.
Fact sheets
A brief explanation of how maps are made and stored in a GIS, suitable for schools; part of the "Soils Education" topic of soil-net.com, from the National Soil Resources Institute (Cranfield, UK).
North Dakota Extension Bulletin 60, a simple introduction to US soil maps and reports
On-line Tutorials & Courses
My Lecture Notes
Plenty of definitions, formulas, controversy, and opinion.
Useful (?) ideas on how to design and build a SGDB.
The relation between scale and location accuracy, minimum & optimum legible delineations, and recommended number of field observations.
These are from a course I gave at Cornell University for two years; notes are now stored at ITC.
Others
This is a scan of the 1988 ITC lecture notes of Professor J. Alfred Zinck, who taught the core material of the ITC Soil Survey course from the time of his appointment as Professor of Soil Survey in 1986 until his retirement in 2000. They are centred on his "Geopedological Approach" to soil survey, which has been highly-influential, especially in Latin America, and which provides a unified framework for a mental model of soil geography, as well as a method for soil mapping. The material is somewhat dated but the concepts are still useful.
Soil Mapping, part of the course
Soil Science 325 "Soil Morphology, Classification & Mapping at the University of Wisconsin.
Instructor Kevin McSweeney, web pages by Sabine Grunwald. Gives a good introduction to how mapping is done in practice in the USA, and modern field and computer techniques to improve the objectivity of mapping.
Very smoothly presented, for non-specialists or as a first course. From N G Juma Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta (Canada).
Soil Science Education Home Page
From NASA's GLOBE programme,
a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based education
and science program.
The idea is to give students direct contact
with good techniques in earth sciences. Includes a large number
of
experimental protocols for field and lab work,
including
soils. Not really soil survey in the geographical sense, rather
point investigations, but still very valuable for giving young people
a sound appreciation of the function of soil.
Includes a nice guide to estimating
texture by feel.
I give this site five stars for the impact it may have on future generations
of soil scientists and, perhaps more importantly, informed citizens.
Soils of Wales (Priddoedd yn Nhirwedd Cymru)
: an online textbook and field guide
by Dr John Conway, Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester (England). Very nice introduction, includes field guide both to landscapes and soil types.
Iceland - the ultimate study tour, also from Dr John Conway
"You are a hard rock geologist with a fascination for the early stages of soil formation - where would you chose to go? Iceland, obviously. The island that represents the only place in the world where a mid-ocean plate margin exists above sea level. The only place where a hot spot combines with a plate margin. The ultimate geologists dream. But also the place where the Ice Age still exists, with Europe's largest icecap sending glaciers to calve icebergs at sea level. And on top of all of this, farmers trying to eke out a living on soils so fragile that they barely exist over most of the island."
Editor's note: I fully agree, Iceland should not be missed by any earth scientist.
Very nice, simple, explanation of soils as they occur on the Alberta landscape, with model profiles and catenas.
This is part of Canada's Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network.
Scientific content by David Dent, ISRIC (and
the co-author of the classic text
"Soil Survey and Land Evaluation"),
execution by Bryan Dawson.
Some interesting information on the occurrence, importance and
processes in these soils. In part this site is an advert. for
"The Acid Test", an expert system for identifying acid sulphate
soils, by Dent & Dawson. But are these really the "nastiest soils
in the World" as the authors claim?
A simplified explanation from the Florida (USA) forestry information page of the School of Forest Resources and Conservation , University of Florida.
Includes links for K-12 teachers and professional soil scientists, as well as a presentation "10 key messages to understanding soils".
With a section Online Soil Education Series:
The Guy D. Smith Memorial Slide Collection I:
Oxisols: Their properties, classification,
distribution and management (PDF, 2Mb)
A very nicely presented web slide show, with excellent photos, drawings and explanations, from real experts in the subject.
Soil Under the Microscope:
Evaluating Soils in Another Dimension, by Hari Eswaran
A closer view of soil constituents than is visible with a hand lens. Essential to understanding soil properties and genesis.
Not soil survey, but I couldn't resist including it. A nice introduction to soil biology for the un-initiated.
Off-line Tutorials & instructional materials
This is a CD-ROM about Soil Science, intended for the final year at schools and first year at universities. Among the topics are Soil Geography and World Soils.
This is an interactive multimedia program designed to teach the core concepts and processes of soil science. One of the sections deals with "Soils & the Landscape", which gives practical methods of field investigation.
"Ce cédérom d'autoformation a pour objectif de favoriser l'apprentissage des sols, de leurs fonctions, de leur histoire et de leurs potentialités, par le biais principal de l'observation." Par Alain Ruellan et Mirelle Dosso
Soil Science Links
Hit or miss, but some interesting sites, a few I don't have here.
Veel links betreffende aardwetenschap, inclusief bodemkunde. Nadruk op Nederland.
TERRA-ALEXANDER-Datenbank; Bodenkunde
Von Klett-Verlag ("Ich weiß"); Startseite
from NASA's GLOBE soil science education programme. [Ed. note - But who decides what is cool? Miles Davis and Chet Baker are no longer with us...]
Gateway to publications and data distributed by the Land & Plant Nutrition Management Service (AGLL) of the FAO's Land & Water Development Division (AGL).
Soil Science Society of America
Includes searchable journal table-of-contents and a complete publications catalog and on-line ordering, as well as soil science and agronomy links and a daily press briefing. An extremely attractive and functional set of pages.
Other than the salinity mapping, this is not soil survey but interesting information anyway on soil management, including conservation, fertility, and salinity. The salinity pages are well worth a visit. The Alberta Fertilizer Guide is a nice example of using soil survey information to improve soil management.
Guidebooks and Tours
The best way to learn about soils is to see them in the field, or at least as profiles in a museum. Here are the descriptions some field or virtual tours.
Reiseführer - Zu den Böden Deutschlands - Online
"Böden sehen - Böden begreifen": A virtual tour of Germany, with facts
about soil and all sites where soil information is collected:
museums, exhibitions etc. From the Umweltbundesamt.
"Im Vorfeld dieser Broschüre waren wir der Auffassung, dass es eine
Vielzahl von darstellungswürdigen Projekten und Angeboten gibt, die
es sich lohnt zusammenfassend darzustellen. So können Interessierten
der Zugang zu den einzelnen Projekten erleichtert werden."
"Entdecken Sie die Faszination der unter.Welten Online! ... In unserer Dauerausstellung Bodenschutz braucht Wissen können Sie in die Welt der Bodentiere und Pflanzenwurzeln abtauchen." Vom Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Bodenforschung (NLfB)
Some exhibits of Dutch soils along with lots else on the natural history of the High Veluwe region. Combine it with a trip to see the van Goghs (a man who appreciated the countryside!) and the beautiful sculpture garden at the Kröller-Müller Museum , less than 1 km away.
Reference Materials
Other lists of links
Soil Wide Web - il suolo nel mondo web
A list of quality links, from the Associazione Italiana Pedologi.
AgriFor says it is "the UK's gateway to high-quality internet resources in agriculture, food and forestry".
With an especially thorough list of German-language sites. A bit (!) over the top in terms of web page design, but has useful links.
Sites with a link to this Compendium
These people had the good judgement to link to this Compendium, therefore, you might think that their other links are similarly well-chosen!
Click
here
for a Google search of all sites that currently refer to this Compendium under
its old address (../~rossiter/..),
and
here
for the new address (../personal/rossiter/..).
Here are some pages that Google thinks are similar to the Compendium
GEsource, a free information resource for geography and the environment (UK)
Not many links, but well-chosen and previewed
Courses
In a few places you can follow a formal course in soil survey and related skills.
ITC's main mission is organisational and institutional
strengthening in support of development, in the knowledge fields
of geo-information science (and systems) and remote sensing.
Courses are taught in Enschede (NL) and in cooperation with
several partners in ITC client countries; custom training anywhere in the world can
also be arranged.
Courses taught in Enschede include Postgraduate Diploma (3 to 9 months),
Professional Master's (12-month taught and project), MSc (18-month taught and thesis),
and PhD courses. For soil survey the most relevant are:
Applied Earth Sciences
The "stream" in Earth Science Data Provision is most relevant for mappers; the "stream" in Geo-hazards is most relevant for soil survey interpretation, especially land degradation assessment and monitoring.
This is relevant for soil survey interpretations for natural resources including agriculture.
On-line Discussions
Here you can post your questions and opinions about soil survey related topics.
History
Simonson (1986); ISRIC Technical Paper 18. An excellent retrospective of the long, winding road to modern classification systems
Ideas
What is soil?
"The most fundamental and, possibly, the only real difference between soil and other unconsolidated geological materials is that, in the case of soil, the materials have been organized by natural, non-depositional processes into horizons".
- Soils of the Tugela Basin, p. 43.
Why do a soil survey?
"The practical purpose of soil survey is to enable more numerous, more accurate and more useful predictions to be make for specific purposes than could have been made otherwise [i.e., in the absence of location-specific information about soils]. To achieve this purpose, it is necessary to:
- Dent & Young, p. 1. (emphasis and punctuation mine)
What is a soil survey?
"A soil survey
The different uses of the soils and how the response of management affects them are considered. The information collected in a soil survey helps in the development of land-use plans and evaluates and predicts the effects of land use on the environment."
- Soil Survey Manual, p. 1. (emphasis and punctuation mine)
Editor's comment: There are several hidden assumptions in this definition. First is that soils must be classified according to a standard system. This is the practice in the USA (using Soil Taxonomy), but as long as useful statements about soils have been made, the classification seems to me to be a separate step. The second assumption is that boundaries must be drawn. This ignores approaches based on the Continuous Model of Spatial Variation.
What makes a useful survey?
"The test of accuracy is, and should be, this: does it convert to an
interpretive map satisfactorily?"
- Hubert Byrd, Soil Survey Horizons
32(4): 126-127.
Some thoughts on scale
"It is nature which controls the areal variability of soils,
not soil scientists"
- Hubert Byrd, Soil Survey Horizons
32(4): 126-127.
Areas of low predictability
A major challenge to traditional free-survey based on airphotos and soil- landscape analysis are so-called areas of low predictability, where important soil properties (typically in the subsoil) have no surface expression, neither in the vegetation or present landuse, nor in their landscape position. Yet, the soils must be mapped accurately to predict the success of new uses which would rely on some of the subsoil properties.
Here are some thoughts from the USDA Soil Survey Manual Soil Survey Manual, page 230:
| Author: D G Rossiter |
URL:
http://www.itc.nl/personal/rossiter/research/rsrch_ss_tut.html
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| E-Mail: rossiter@itc.nl | Last Updated: 2010_346 |
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