More legacy data
Regional and National Soil Maps and Datasets
The most updated national soil information can only be obtained from a country’s national soil service. However, International organizations such as FAO, ISRIC World Soil Information, the Joint research Centre of the European Commission and others have compiled and harmonized national soil information in regional datasets or made soil maps available in digital format.
Sub-regional Soil Information
- Soil Atlas for Africa
- New generation soil property maps for Africa
- Soil and Terrain database for North Eastern Africa
- Soil and Terrain database for Southern Africa
- Soil and Terrain database for Central Africa
Country Soil Maps and Geographic Databases
Sub-regional Soil Information
- Soil maps of Asia (all countries)
- Soil and Physiographic database for North and Central Eurasia
- Soil and Terrain database for China
In a second phase, 1030 maps of the Asian continent pertaining to soil and related studies were added to the EuDASM archive.
The soil and physiographic database for north and central eurasia covers China, Mongolia and all countries of the former Soviet Union. The soil information has been derived from several sources, in particular the 1:2.5M Soil Map of the Former Soviet Union prepared by Friedland in the Dokuchaiev Institute, Moscow; and the soil map of China at 1:4M prepared by the Soil Science Institute of the Academia Sinica in Nan-Jing. All soil information has been correlated with the Revised Legend of the Soil Map of the World.
The Soil and Terrain database for China primary data (version 1.0), at scale 1:1 million (SOTER_China), was compiled of enhanced soil information within the framework of the FAO's program of Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands (LADA). The primary database was compiled using the SOTER methodology. The SOTER unit delineation was based on a raster format of the soil map of China, correlated and converted to FAO’s Revised Legend (1988), in combination with a SOTER landform characterization derived from Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) 90 m digital elevation model (DEM). Reference profiles for the dominant soil of the SOTER units has been directly linked to the polygons. SOTER forms a part of the ongoing activities of ISRIC, FAO and UNEP to update the world's baseline information on natural resources. The project involved collaboration with national soil institutes from the countries in the region as well as individual experts.
Country Soil Maps and Geographic Databases
- Soil and Terrain database for Nepal
- Afghanistan
- Bangladesh
- Thailand
The Soil and Terrain database (SOTER) for Nepal, at scale 1:1 million, is a generalisation of Nepal's Soil and Terrain database (1:50 000) compiled in 2004 by FAO and the Survey Department of Nepal.
ISRIC- World Soil Information compiled the database using the SOTER methodology. Much of the discrimination and characterization of the SOTER units is based on a former land system survey, complemented by data of the 90 m digital elevation model (DEM), derived from Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission.
The SOTER information is presented in ArcGIS9.3® and in ArcView 3.3® format, while the attribute database is in tabular MSAccess® format.
Soil Regions map of Afghanistan
Pacific Soils Portal
Developed by New Zealand’s Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research (MWLR) in collaboration with CSIRO Agriculture and Food, the Secretariat of the Pacific Communities Land Resources Division, and PICT Agriculture Departments, the Pacific Soils Portal (PSP) brings together soil data for five Pacific countries, some of which dates back to the 1960s.
The PSP currently covers Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati and Tuvalu and will also link to the New Zealand and Australia portals to showcase and compare soils across the entire South Pacific. It will also align with activities under the FAO’s Global Soil Partnership.
The PSP is a component of the Soil Management in the Pacific Islands project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), and can be viewed on computers, tablets and smart phones.
Learn more about Pacific Soils Portal ❯
Australia
The ASRIS map window provides access to a Geographic Information System via the web. The maps are created in response to the settings you specify with the buttons and selectors. Map layers are the different sets of information that can be added to your map. The system can add and subtract layers from the map according to the scale. This stops your map becoming cluttered with lots of fine detail when large areas are being viewed.
See also National library of Australia ❯
New-Zealand
S-map provide a seamless digital soil map coverage for New Zealand. S-map is designed to be applied at any scale from farm to region to nation.
Existing soil databases are patchy in scale, age and quality. Many maps do not adequately describe the underlying properties of the soil types they represent. S-map integrates existing reports and digital information and updates soil maps where existing data are of low quality. The goal is to provide comprehensive, quantitative soil information to support sustainable development and scientific modelling.
Papua New Guinea
This unit of NARI provides technical advice on Geographical Information Systems and produces maps that when retrieved and manipulated can enable one to have a “birds eye view” of natural resources and agricultural practices or crops grown in different parts of the country. There are three major agricultural databases kept at NARI. These databases are available in a Geographical Information Systems format or simply map-linked databases. They can be presented as maps, tables and graphs.These databases are relevant to Researchers, Agriculturalists, Planners, Investors, Environmentalists, Schools and Universities or to anyone involved in planning development and land management in PNG.
Regional Soil Maps and Databases
Soil and Terrain Database, Land Degradation Status and Soil Vulnerability Assessment for Central and Eastern Europe (SOVEUR). This FAO CD-ROM includes a harmonized soil and terrain database for 13 countries in eastern Europe at 1:2.5M, compiled following the SOTER principles, including geo-referenced soil profile data.
National Soil Maps
The report “Soil Resources of Europe” provides the most comprehensive summary of the current position regarding the detail and availability of soil information, particularly spatial data, at national and European levels. It provides links to more detailed information and national soil institutes.
Soil Atlas of the Northern Circumpolar Region
"The result of a three-year collaborative project with partners from northern EU countries, as well as Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, the USA and Russia and gives a detailed overview of circumpolar soil resources relevant also to agriculture, forest management, water management, land use planning, infrastructure and housing and energy transport networks."
The atlas can be downloaded as PDF but unfortunately not the GIS coverage.
Other Soil Maps and Datasets
Since 1995 collaborative efforts have been made between FAO, UNEP, JRC, IIASA and ISRIC World Soil Information to make regional updates of the FAO/UNESCO soil map of the world, notably under the SOTER (Soil and Terrain Database) program. A first revised global product (The Harmonized World Soil Database) was published in 2006 at a resolution of 1km. Recent efforts focus on using Digital Soil Mapping techniques (mapping soil properties continuously rather than soil associations with their related soil properties). A first revised global product made in this way may be expected soon. Other global maps (WRB, Soil Regions and Zobler) are using the original FAO/UNESCO soil map as main source of information.
The World Resource Base Map of World Soil Resources is available at 1:25 000 000 scale. This is the most general digital map of the World's soils, now using the international standard soil classification WRB. Available as a graphic or digital coverage.
World soil resource maps:
This map is based on the FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World but uses the USDA Soil Taxonomy.
Global Soil Regions Map
The Zobler "World Soil File for Global Climate Modelling" shows the global distribution of soil types, including data for dominant soil units (classification of soil types), slope classes, soil texture classes and soil phases. These have been generalized from the FAO Soil Map of the World (FAO, 1974) and the Matthews Vegetation data (1984) into one-degree square latitude/longitude grid cells, using a dot grid overlay technique to determine the largest map unit of each one-degree cell. The data are only suitable for very large-area studies such as climate research with GCM.
Soil profile databases
Many of the digital soil maps contain geo-referenced soil profile information for instance most Soil and Terrain database (SOTER) products do.
Some national soil science organizations also maintain a collection of soil profile databases, although often these are not freely available. At global level ISRIC maintains the WISE soil profile database, which recently has been considerably expanded thanks to the AfSIS data set. FAO also has a considerable collection of soil profile information. These data are of utmost importance for applications in Digital Soil Mapping.
Other soil profile databases: