Soil Geographic Databases

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Providing information on the soils of the world is an enormous task and continuing challenge for  ISRIC — World Soil information. ISRIC collects, harmonizes and publishes global soil geographic information, whereas many national, regional, local and NGO organizations provide soil information specific to their area and according to their procedures and standards. This page is a catalogue of digital soil resources available outside our organisation.

Looking for ISRIC’s data products? Click here. These include the SoilGrids 250m predictive maps of soil properties and classes, their generalizations to 1km and 5km resolutions, the WoSIS Soil Profile Database, and the WISE v3.1 harmonized Global Soil Profile Dataset.

This page attempts to catalogue all freely-downloadable primary soils information usable in a GIS either as 'points', lines, polygons or grids ('rasters'). This compilation has been maintained first at University of Twente/ITC (1997-2014), then at Cornell University (2014-2017), and now at ISRIC by guest researcher David G. Rossiter . He has described the status and prospects for on-line soil geographic databases as of November 2014, as described in a online book chapter, and presented an hour-long lecture on the topic as part of the ISRIC Spring School 2015. In 2013 the FAO Global Soil Partnership published "State of the Art Report on Global and Regional Soil Information: Where are we? Where to go?".

Information outdated or missing? Please do not hesitate to contact us using the e-mail button at the bottom of this page.

Last update: 01-April-2023

Index: World | Europe | Asia, Eurasia | Australia, Oceania, Antarctica | Africa | North America, Central America and the Caribbean | South America | Antarctica | Dynamic soil status

World

Portals

  • FAO Soils Portal
    Links to global, national and FAO legacy maps (scans), also soil profiles and reports, soil degradation, management, biodiversity.
     
  • GloSIS Global
    From the FAO. Data Hub for Global Soil Information System (GloSIS) country-driven global datasets. Includes Global Soil Organic Carbon (GSOC) map, C sequestration potential, Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) derivatives (soil properties, soil quality indicators, digital Soil Map of the World (FAO, pre-HWSD0.  
  • European digital archive on soil maps (EuDASM)
    Scans of legacy maps over the whole world, downloadable (and on CD-ROM) and with metadata. To be usable in GIS these must be georeferenced, the linework digitized, and a linked attribute database created. Downloads from here.
    Reference: Panagos, P., Jones, A., Bosco, C., Senthil Kumar P.S. (2011): European digital archive on soil maps (EuDASM): preserving important soil data for public free access. International Journal of Digital Earth 4(5): 434-443. DOI:10.1080/17538947.2011.596580.
    A more recent paper is Panagos, P., Van Liedekerke, M., Borrelli, P., Köninger, J., Ballabio, C., Orgiazzi, A., Lugato, E., Liakos, L., Hervas, J., Jones, A., & Montanarella, L. (2022). European Soil Data Centre 2.0: Soil data and knowledge in support of the EU policies. European Journal of Soil Science, 73(6), e13315. DOI: 10.1111/ejss.13315.
    An expanded collection of scanned soil maps is available on-line at ISRIC.
     
  • International Council for Science (ICSU) World Data System
    Collects datasets from World Data Centres and others. ISRIC is a contributor. Querying for "soil map" returns > 2600 datasets.
     
  • GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) portal
    A data broker to find datasets. Search terms include soil properties, soil moisture and temperature, soil chemistry, soil C. Can filter search by country/geography and data access conditions.
     
  • Catalogue of soil parameter data sets from the Global Change Master Directory hosted by Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA). A very large catalogue (over 1000 links) of soil parameters (e.g. C, CEC, heat budget, macrofauna...) with links to the actual data and metadata
     
  • Soil Collections data sets from the Distributed Active Archive Center for Biogeochemical Dynamics of the Oak Ridge National (USA) Laboratory intended for global modelling of biogeochemistry.
     
  • Data collections from the International Soil Modeling Consortium (ISMC).
    Collections relevant to modelling soil processes: hydrology, soil physics, pedogenesis... at scales from macropore to continental.
     
  • International Soil Carbon Network data access, from ISCN
    "a science-based network that facilitates data sharing, assembles databases, identifies gaps in data coverage, and enables spatially explicit assessments of soil carbon in context of landscape, climate, land use, and biotic variables".
     
  • Northern Circumpolar Soil Carbon Database  (NCSCDv2), a spatial dataset created for the purpose of quantifying storage of organic carbon in soils of the northern circumpolar permafrost region, from the Bolin Centre of Stockholm University. Includes downloadable points (to 3 m), grids and polygons of C stocks.
     
  • Global mangrove soil carbon: dataset and spatial maps
    Method is explained in this paper.
     
  • Global "black soils" map from the FAO Global Soil Partnership
     
  • International Soil Radiocarbon Database (ISRaD) version 1.0
    "[A]n open-source archive of [georeferenced] soil data that include reported measurements from bulk soils, distinct soil carbon pools isolated in the laboratory by a variety of soil fractionation methods, samples of soil gas or water collected interstitially from within an intact soil profile, CO2 gas isolated from laboratory soil incubations, and fluxes collected in situ from a soil profile." The database is explained in this paper.  
  • Global Gridded 1-km Soil and Soil Heterotrophic Respiration Derived from SRDB v5
    "[G]lobal gridded estimates of annual soil respiration (Rs) and soil heterotrophic respiration (Rh) and associated uncertainties at 1 km resolution... Soil respiration (Rs) is the efflux of CO2 from soils to atmosphere as a result of autotrophic and heterotrophic processes belowground, and Rs is a large component of the global carbon cycle. Soil heterotrophic respiration (Rh) describes CO2 efflux by decomposition of soil organic matter by microorganisms but excludes autotrophic respiration by plant roots."  
  • PANGAEA Open Access library of publictions with soil data.
    "an Open Access library aimed at archiving, publishing and distributing georeferenced data from earth system research. PANGAEA guarantees long-term availability (greater than 10 years) of its content. PANGAEA is open to any project, institution, or individual scientist to use or to archive and publish data". Over 7K papers, mostly soil-related experiments.  

Polygons

Grids

  • Google Earth Engine (GEE) soils layers
    Includes properties from Open Land Map, the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia, the NASA-USDA Enhanced SMAP Global Soil Moisture Data. More datasets are regularly added.
     
  • Community datasets for Google Earth Engine
    Unofficial GEE datasets, contributed by "the community" of open data. See the "Geophysical" tab. Includes Geomorpho90, Soil Grids 250 v2.0, iSDAsoil Predicted Soil Properties for Africa 30m, Polaris 30m Probabilistic Soil Properties US, HiHydroSoil v2.0, Soil Organic Carbon Stocks & Trends South Africa. More datasets are regularly added.
     
  • OpenLandMap from OpenGeoHub
    "Access and interactive visualizations of the Terabytes of high resolution data (1 km, 250 m or better) produced by the OpenGeoHub Foundation and/or contributing organizations."
    Search in the "Themes and Datasets" panel for "Soil Properties and Classes". These are produced by machine-learning methods based on a large number of point observations and covariate layers, as explained here.
     
  • Soil Type Mapping from OpenGeoHub
    Predictive mapping of soil types (WRB Reference Soil Groups with one qualifier), using legacy soil observations, correlation tables between soil classification systems and machine learning. The probability of each class is separately mapped. All code and data are provided at this Github site.
     
  • HWSD v2.0
    A substantially improved updated version of the HWSD -- see next entry. Now with more soil parameters, mapping phases, Technosol areas, seven depth layers, error estimates, expanded source profile database.
     
  • Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) v1.2 from FAO, originally developed by IIASA with contributions from many partners, notably ISRIC and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

    The Harmonized World Soil Database is a 30 arc-second raster database with over 15000 different soil mapping units that combines existing regional and national updates of soil information worldwide (SOTER, ESD, Soil Map of China, WISE) with the information contained within the 1:5 000 000 scale FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World (FAO, 1971--1981).

    The resulting raster database consists of 21600 rows and 43200 columns, which are linked to harmonized soil property data. The use of a standardized structure allows for the linkage of the attribute data with the raster map to display or query the composition in terms of soil units and the characterization of selected soil parameters (organic Carbon, pH, water storage capacity, soil depth, cation exchange capacity of the soil and the clay fraction, total exchangeable nutrients, lime and gypsum contents, sodium exchange percentage, salinity, textural class and granulometry).
     

  • HWSD-derived soil quality parameters
    On the basis of soil parameters provided by HWSD v1.2 seven key soil qualities important for crop production have been derived, namely: nutrient availability, nutrient retention capacity, rooting conditions, oxygen availability to roots, excess salts, toxicities, and workability.
     
  • Re-gridded Harmonized World Soil Database v1.2
    This data set describes select global soil parameters from the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) v1.2, including additional calculated parameters such as area weighted soil organic carbon (kg C per m2), as high resolution NetCDF files. These data were re-gridded and upscaled to 0.05-degree spatial resolution from the Harmonized World Soil Database v1.2, and provided as a set of 27 NetCDF files.
     
  • The FAO Global Soil Organic Carbon Map (GSOCmap). A GeoTIFF can be downloaded here.
    A mosaic of national SOC maps, developed as 1 km soil grids, covering a depth of 0-30 cm, following standard digital soil mapping procedures. Available for download or as an interactive map viewer.
     
  • Global High-Resolution Soil-Water Balance
    Gridded maps at 30 arc-seconds of actual evapo-transpiration and soil water deficit: annual, monthly, Priestly-Taylor alpha; documentation. Primary inputs are WorldClim and Global-PET. Reference: Trabucco, A., and Zomer, R.J. (2010): Global Soil Water Balance Geospatial Database. CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information.
     
  • Global Hydrologic Soil Groups (HYSOGs250m) for Curve Number-Based Runoff Modeling
    This grid supports USDA-based curve-number runoff modeling at regional and continental scales. Classification of HSGs was derived from soil texture classes and depth to bedrock provided by ... soilGrids250m
     
  • Global soil, landuse, evapotranspiration, historical and future weather databases for SWAT Applications, DOI:10.1038/s41597-019-0282-4
     
  • Global soil datasets for Earth system modeling
    From the Land-Atmosphere Interaction Research Group of Beijing Normal University. Includes soil property grids and soil hydraulic and thermal parameters (NetCDF format) of the World, horizontal resolution 30 arc-seconds (about 1 km at the equator), over eight layers to 2.3 m depth, for land surface modeling.
    Described in Shangguan, W., et al. (2014). A global soil data set for earth system modeling. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 6(1), 249–263  
     
  • Global High-Resolution Soil Profile Database for Crop Modeling Applications
    From International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI); Michigan State University (MSU); HarvestChoice, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). A reclassification of SoilGrids based on the 27 HarvestChoice (see below) generic soil profiles for crop modelling using DSSAT or APSIM, presented on a 5 arc-minute grid.
     
  • Global high-resolution dataset of soil hydraulic and thermal parameters for land surface modeling
    From Land-Atmosphere Interaction Research Group at Sun Yat-sen University. 30" grid of the World matching four popular world grids, with their standard depths, developed by ensemble pedotransfer functions, for land-surface modelling.
    Described in Dai, Y., et al. (2019). A global high-resolution data set of soil hydraulic and thermal properties for land surface modeling. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 11(9), 2996–3023
     

Points

  • SoilHive
    From Varda AG: "a collaborative platform where you can find relevant soil data for your projects, create your own queries, generate tables and maps, and easily save and share them." An attractive interface to many sources of open soil point data, with a multi-scale hexagonal tiling of the world. Requires signup to Varda and then login.
     
  • Kellogg Soil Survey Laboratory (KSSL), National Soil Survey Center Soil Characterization Data
    Mostly USA, but includes analytical data for about 1,100 pedons from other countries. The above link describes the dataset; it can be downloaded from the NCSS Soil Characterization Database page.
     
  • Compiled Earth System Science point data sets: soil chemical and physical properties
    From the OpenLandMap project. Points collected from various sources, provided under open data license, with detailed instructions on how to use the data. Data sources and formats explained here. Two sets: chemical and physical properties.
     
  • An Open Compendium of Soil Datasets
    From Tom Hengl at OpenGeoHub. "A public compendium of global, regional, national and sub-national soil samples and/or soil profile datasets (points with Observations and Measurements of soil properties and characteristics).
     
  • HC27: Generic/Prototypical Soil Profiles
    27 soil profiles generated in formats compatible with the DSSAT and APSIM crop simulation models. Not a georeferenced set, modellers have to decide which of the generic profiles to use, based on soil maps or field survey. Developed by IFPRI
     
  • European digital archive on soil maps Scanned maps, with metadata, from ISRIC's collection, processed by the European Soil Bureau. Uneven quality, uneven coverage, but a gold mine of historical maps. Separate DVD-ROM and online access for Africa, Asia, Canada, Caribbean Islands, Europe, Latin America, the USA. Reference: Panagos, P., Jones, A., Bosco, C., Senthil Kumar P.S. (2011): European digital archive on soil maps (EuDASM): preserving important soil data for public free access. International Journal of Digital Earth 4(5): 434-443. DOI:10.1080/17538947.2011.596580
     
  • World Soil Survey Archive and Catalogue (WOSSAC) from Cranfield University (England)
    "[A]n archive and catalogue of all substantial soil surveys, reports and maps made overseas, with particular reference to those by British companies and personnel, to provide a safe repository for endangered copies, and to make the accrued information widely available for consultation by interested parties.". Materials are scanned as requested, and if scanned free for download. Excellent metadata and search interface; about 23k items catalogued.  
  • GSHP: Global database of soil hydraulic properties
    "A total of 15,259 SWCCs from 2,702 sites were assembled from published literature and other sources, standardized, and quality-checked to obtain global database of soil hydraulic properties (GSHP)."
    Also contains several other soil variables such as soil texture (12,233 measurements), bulk density (15,125 measurements), and soil organic carbon (2,255 measurements). R code for database creation and example use are also provided.
     

Europe

  • INSPIRE geoportal
    This is intended as the entry point for all European data provided by governments, with compliant metadata.
     
  • National soil data in EU countries, where do we stand?, Cornu et al. (2023) European Journal of Soil Science, 74(4), e13398, DOI: 10.1111/ejss.13398
    The result of "a standardized survey of EJP SOIL programme participants to identify the national and regional soil databases... their structure, the data they contain, the frequency of the sampling campaigns and the amount of sampling point locations they include, and their availability or openness". No links to the datasets but does show what is available
     
  • European Soil Portal - Soil Datasets
    Primary and derived data covering Europe. 
     
  • European Soil Portal - Soil Datasets

    These links are active but the pages are empty. I am keeping them here in case they become populated again

    1. ESB links to national datasets
      national datasets including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Demark, England & Wales (but Scotland is listed under a region of the UK, see below), Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Norway and Slovakia. Format and coverage vary widely. A few are downloadable, usually as generalized maps.
    2. ESB links to regional datasets
      sub-national (for now) regions such as Flanders (B), Wallonia (B), Bavaria, Niedersachsen, NRW, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein (D), Rhône-Alpes (F), Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli Venezia Giuliam Lombardy, Piemonte, Tuscany, Veneto (I), Galicia (E), and Scotland (UK).
  • The European Soil Database (ESDB)
    1. Soil Geographical Database of Eurasia at scale 1:1,000,000 (SGDBE)
    2. Pedotransfer Rules Database (PTRDB)
    3. Soil Profile Analytical Database of Europe of Measured parameters (SPADE/M)
      Europe-wide soil profile databases, developed for various modelling projects (e.g. pesticide fate) SPADE-1 are direct measurements; SPADE-2 are inferred and harmonized for each Soil Typological Unit (STU) of the legend of the 1:1,000,000 Soil Geographic Database of Europe (SGDBE).
    4. Database of Hydraulic Properties of European Soils (HYPRES)
  • Soil Databases 1:250.000
    "The European Soil Bureau Network recommended and endorsed the preparation of a georeferenced soil database for Europe at scale 1:250,000. The Manual of Procedures Version 1.1 (Georeferenced Soil Database for Europe, EUR 18092) sets out the proposed methodology, the concepts, the structure and the implementation of the new soil database." Currently available for A, CZ, D, I, GB-SCT.
     
  • e-SOTER databases for W and E Europe
    e-SOTER is a methodology for producing SOil and TERrain bases according to a procedures manual. The databases are ESRI shapefiles at a nominal 1:1M scale.
     
  • HoliSoils (Holistic management practices, modelling & monitoring for European Forest Soils) point database
    review the project's aims. The data will also be available via an ISRIC dashboard.  
  • LUCAS: Land Use/Cover Area frame Statistical Survey (2009)
    19,967 geo-referenced samples distributed in 25 countries; topsoils; analysed for the percentage of coarse fragments, particle size distribution (% clay,silt and sand content), pH (in CaCl2 and H2O), organic carbon (g/kg), carbonate content (g/kg), phosphorous content (mg/kg), total nitrogen content (g/kg), extractable potassium content (mg/kg) , cation exchange capacity (cmol(+)/kg) and multispectral properties.
     
  • LUCAS: Land Use/Cover Area frame Statistical Survey (2018)
    Same, but updated to 2018. So the change in soil status over this decade can be studied. The methodology and results are described here.
     
  • SOVEUR
    SOTER for thirteen countries of Central & Eastern Europe, at a scale of 1:2.5M.
     
  • Digital Soil Map of the Netherlands / BIS Nederland (1:50k)
    Bodemgegevens staan in de top vijf van gegevens, die het meest gebruikt worden door de overheid. Bodemkundig Informatie System (BIS) Nederland biedt overheden en bedrijven toegang tot bodemgegevens en scenario’s voor duurzaam bodem- en grondwatergebruik. Hiermee kunnen de effecten van maatregelen op de bodem en het grondwater worden doorgerekend. Het systeem bevat up-to-date informatie over de Nederlandse bodem, die op systematische wijze is verzameld en bewerkt.

    Now also available as WMS and WFS, "soon" as downloadable GIS files, and "soon" thereafter the field data points, from Publiek Dienstverlening op de Kaart (PDOK). Search for "Bodem". As of 06-July-2017, only WMS and WFS with map unit names and (for WFS) up to three soil types per map unit; no linked attribute tables.
     

  • GIS SOL (France)
    "Le Gis Sol participe à la production de données nationales sur les sols et les centralise dans le SI Sol. Un certain nombre d’entre elles sont accessibles sous différentes formes: des tableaux de données utilisables dans un tableur; des services web interopérables avec des outils cartographiques SIG; des cartes"

     

  • Digital Soil Map of Germany / BGR Geoviewer
    Mit dem Geoviewer können die von der BGR angebotenen Geodatendienste verschiedener Kartengrundlagen aus mehreren Fachgebieten betrachtet und untereinander kombiniert werden. Bei Interesse können Sie die Geodaten zu den Karten auch herunterladen, indem Sie den Links zum Produktcenter folgen. Die deutschlandweiten, europaweiten und globalen Übersichtskarten sind in unterschiedlichen Maßstäben ab 1:200.000 vorhanden.
     
  • Environmental Atlas of Berlin -- Topic: Soil / Umweltatlas Berlin -- Themenbereich: Boden
    Bodenkundliche Kennwerte, Bodenfunktionen, Radioaktivität im Boden, Schwermetalle im Boden. Texte, Abbildungen, Daten und Karten werden zum Download in verschiedenen Formaten angeboten.
     
  • Digital Soil Map of Austria / Digitale Bodenkarte von Österreich (eBOD)
    Die Daten werden in 1 x 1km Rasterauflösung mit allen parametrisierten Auswertungen angeboten. Für jede Rasterzelle werden zusätzlich der Prozentanteil der Summe aller Bodenformen, sowie der Prozentanteil der Hauptbodenform mit dem größten Anteil angegeben.
     
  • Bodeninformationssystem BORIS (Österreich)
    "BORIS informiert über den Zustand österreichischer Böden. Das Umweltbundesamt bietet Bodendaten der Bundesländer und des Bundes in vergleichbarer und qualitätsgeprüfter Form online an."  
  • NABODAT: das nationale Bodeninformationssystem (Schweiz)/; NABODAT: le système national d’information pédologique (Suisse)/
    "Das nationale Bodeninformationssystem NABODAT führt Daten zur Qualität von Böden in der Schweiz zusammen, harmonisiert diese und verwaltet sie. Die Bodendaten stammen aus Bodenkartierungen, dem Vollzug und aus Monitoringprogrammen von Bund und Kantonen."
    "Le Système national d’information pédologique NABODAT regroupe, harmonise et gère des données sur la qualité des sols en Suisse. Ces informations proviennent de cartographies des sols, de l’exécution de la législation et de programmes de monitoring de la Confédération et des cantons."  
  • Database e cartografia digitale del suolo
    From the Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA), Firenze. Various thematic soil maps of Italy
     
  • LandIS -- Land Information System for England and Wales
    All digital soil data for these countries, subject to signing a licensing agreement and (often) payment. Always licensed, never freely-usable.
     
  • Soilscapes of England and Wales (Cranfield University)
    Soilscapes is a 1:250,000 scale, simplified soils dataset covering England and Wales. It was created from the more detailed National Soil Map (NATMAPvector) with the purpose of effectively communicating a general understanding of the variations which occur between soil types, and how soils affect the environment.
     
  • Scotland's soils
    Unlike the country to the south, freely-downloadable and useable 1:250k, 1:25k, and points from the national soils inventory on a 10 km grid, also topsoil Pb and Zn.
     
  • Irish Soil Information System from Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority in Ireland. The project has gathered together existing information and data from previous soil survey work in Ireland and augmented it with a new field campaign, leading to the production of a new national soil map at a scale of 1:250,000... An extensive range of soil types (or 'series') have been identified ... each of them different in properties, with different environmental and agronomic responses. For each, the properties have been recorded in a database that can now be used to satisfy the information required both for soils management and effective policy implementation.
     
  • EstSoil-EH "A high-resolution eco-hydrological modelling parameters dataset for Estonia... 1:10 000 soil map: soil profiles (e.g., layers, depths), texture (clay, silt, and sand components), rockiness, and physical variables related to water and carbon (bulk density, hydraulic conductivity, organic carbon content)."  
  • European digital archive on soil maps (EuDASM)
    Scanned soil maps available for countries in Europe.  

Asia, Eurasia

Australia, Oceania, Antarctica

  • Australian Soil Resources Information System (ASRIS)
    1. National Soil Grids
      250 m horizontal resolution; themes: Australian Soil Classification; clay percentage; bulk density, pH, plant available water
    2. Atlas of Australian soils
      Digitized from 1:2'000,000 scale paper maps; includes a reliability map and legend
    3. Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia
      This is the Australian implementation of the GlobalSoilMap.net specification, i.e., at 3 arc-second (approx. 100 m) resolution. It is available for viewing on-line, via Google Earth, or for download. In addition to the soil properties it also provides many landscape attributes, e.g., the Prescott Index measure of water balance and solar radiation.

     

  • Australian Soil Classification Map
    "A map of Australian Soil Classification Soil Order classes with quantified estimates of mapping reliability at a 90m resolution"; methods described here.  
  • APSoil
    "[A] database of soil water characteristics enabling estimation of Plant Available Water Capacity for individual soils and crops. It covers many cropping regions of Australia and is regularly updated. It is designed for use in simulation modelling and agronomic practice."
    Soil properties applicable to the APSIM Agricultural Systems Modelling and Simulation computer program.
     
  • Victorian Soil pH mapping (VicDSMv1)
    "This dataset comprises soil property mapping across the whole State of Victoria at 6 prescribed depths. The set depths are 0 to 5 cm, 5 to 15 cm, 15 to 30 cm, 30 to 60 cm, 60 to 100 cm and 100 to 200 cm. The mapped soil properties are pH (1:5 water), EC (dS/m), percent clay and soil organic carbon (SOC percent) ... The data is available in polygonal format (i.e., the land units) with soil property median value, standard deviation and assignment qualifier attributes."
     
  • S-Map, the digital soil map for New Zealand
    S-map is the new national soils database. When completed, it will 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.
    Other soil survey activities explained at Manaaki Whenua Soil Data and Maps page.  

Africa

  • Soil Atlas of Africa and its associated Soil Map
    A polygon map at design scale 1:3M as developed in the FAO/JRC Soil Atlas of Africa, showing the dominant WRB Reference Soil Group and associated qualifiers. Download by request; the PDF of the Atlas is also available for download. "The map has been derived from the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). The original data were updated and modified according to the World Reference Base for Soil Resources classification system. The corrections concerned boundary issues, areas with no information, soil patterns, river and drainage networks, and dynamic features such as sand dunes, water bodies and coastlines"
     
  • Africa Soil Information Service Soil Databases
    The Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS) is developing continent-wide digital soil maps for sub-Saharan Africa using new types of soil analysis and statistical methods, and conducting agronomic field trials in selected sentinel sites. These efforts include the compilation and rescue of legacy soil profile data, new data collection and analysis, and system development for large-scale soil mapping using remote sensing imagery and crowdsourced ground observations.
     
  • iSDA Open access soil data for Africa
    iSDA is the successor to AfSIS (previous list entry). As of 01-04-2023 this dataset has 49225 entries, with analytical data for the usual soil properties as well as micronutrients and Al. The profile data are also available at this github site.
     
  • SubSaharan Africa nutrient maps at 250 m resolution
    Spatial predictions of content of soil macro and micro-nutrients across Sub-Saharan Africa at 250 m spatial resolution for the 0-30 cm depth interval Model training based on soil samples from 59,000 locations from the AfSIS, EthioSIS, One Acre Fund, VitalSigns and other legacy soil databases and an extensive stack of remote sensing covariates, as well as landform, lithologic and land cover maps.
     
  • iSDAsoil
    Gridded soil property predictive maps at 30 m horizontal resolution for sub-Saharan Africa. Soil chemical, physical and nutrients; agronomy information including a partial implementation of the Fertility Capability Classification (FCC) system of soil-related limitations. The claim is that these maps "make soil properties and advisory services possible at the level of the single small farm." From iSDA-Africa, an initiative to bring "smart farming" to this region. This is a followup to the AfSIS project.
    Available for download via Zenodo Also available as a "data cube" including agronomy data, see Soil and Agronomy Data Cube for Africa at 30-m spatial resolution.  
     
  • European digital archive on soil maps (EuDASM)
    Scanned soil maps available for countries in Africa.
     
  • e-SOTER database for Morocco
    e-SOTER is a methodology for producing SOil and TERrain bases according to a procedures manual. The database is an ESRI shapefiles at a nominal 1:1M scale.
     
  • SOTERSAF
    SOil and TERrain Database for eight southern African countries, at a scale of 1:2M.
     
  • SOTERCAF
    SOil and TERrain Database for the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi, at scales of 1:2M (DRC), and 1:1M (Rwanda and Burundi).
     
  • SOTER for Senegal and the Gambia
    SOil and TERrain Database for the Gambia, at a scale of 1:1M
     
  • SOTER for Kenya
    SOil and TERrain Database for Kenya, at a scale of 1:1M

     

  • SOTER for Republic of South Africa
    SOil and TERrain Database for Republic of South Africa, at a scale of 1:1M
     
  • SOTER for Tunisia
    SOil and TERrain Database for Tunisia, at a scale of 1:1M
     
  • Data for: Free, open, quantitative and adaptable digital soil map and database for Nigeria
    Vector GIS coverage, design scale of 1:650k, explained in this paper. Soil Taxonomy Great Group, surface textural class, drainage class, general crop suitability for the dominant soil
     

North America, Central America, Caribbean

  • México: Conjunto de Datos Vectorial Edafológico, Escala 1:250 000
    "Información geoespacial que muestra la distribución de los principales tipos de suelo en el territorio nacional, así como los atributos físicos, químicos y limitantes físicas y químicas presentes, de acuerdo con la base referencial mundial del recurso suelo de la FAO (WRB por sus siglas en inglés)"
     
  • Canadian Soil Information Service
    Includes Soil Landscapes of Canada (SLC) for the entire territory at 1:1'000 000 and detailed soil surveys (1:20 000 to 1:250 000) for most of the agricultural area. Also includes the National Pedon Database (NPDB), which contains pedon data that has been collected from across Canada.
     
  • Official soil survey products of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) of the USA
    • Geospatial Data Gateway (GDG) of the (USA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). To download digital SGDB for a user-defined area, click on the link "Order by...", and once the area is selected, specify SSURGO 2.2 (semi-detailed, source scale 1:12 000 to 1:25 000) and/or STATSGO2 (1:250 000, generalized from SSURGO).
      To download digital SGDB for a State, click on the link "Order by...", and then "by State". Once the State is selected, scroll down and "Gridded Soil Survey Geographic (gSSURGO) by State". This includes the gSSURGO rasters (see below) but also a seamless polygon map of all the SSURGO 2.2 polygons, with attribute tables, in ESRI geodatabases format.  
    • Gridded National Soil Survey Geographic Database (gNATSGO)
      A composite database that provides the best available soils information for all areas of the United States and Island Territories. It was created by combining data from the Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO), State Soil Geographic Database (STATSGO2), and Raster Soil Survey Databases (RSS) into a single seamless ESRI file geodatabase.  
    • STATSGO2
      STATSGO2 is a broad-based inventory of soils and non-soil areas that occur in a repeatable pattern on the landscape and that can be cartographically shown at the scale mapped of 1:250,000 in the continental U.S., Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands and 1:1,000,000 in Alaska. Files can be directly accessed at the NRCS Box repository
       
    • Gridded Soil Survey Geographic (gSSURGO) Database
      A seamless version of SSURGO (detailed soil map), which can be reclassified with properties or interpretations. Despite the name it is a vector coverage as ESRI geodatabases, not gridded but can easily be rasterized. No map unit disaggregation, but properties are estimated from map unit composition. See POLARIS (below) for a disaggregated (more detailed, harmonized) product. Files can be directly accessed at the NRCS Box repository
       
    • Web Soil Survey
      The same data for download as from the Geospatial Data Gateway; use the "Download Soils Data" tab. An advantage is the possibility to select an area of interest, which may cover several soil survey areas.
       
    • SoilWeb
      Another interface to SSURGO and NATSGO maps, from the California Soil Resource Lab. Uses either Google Maps or Google Earth. The latter is an incredible interface, showing polygons at appropriate display scale, click-through for map unit description with profile diagrams, block diagrams of typical landscape positions; also shows locations of typifying pedons. Also available as iPhone or Android apps.
       
    • Gridded Soil Properties of the Continental USA
      Gridded (800x800 m) maps of selected soil properties throughout the continental United States, interactive and downloadable as GeoTIFF. Maps were created by aggregating SSURGO, back-filled with NATSGO where SSURGO is not available. Chemical, physical, land use, soil colour. Some properties directly useful for land use: land capability, Kw, hydrologic group, soil thickness, wind erodibility. Also from the California Soil Resource Lab.
       
    • Kellogg Soil Survey Laboratory (KSSL), National Soil Survey Center Soil Characterization Data
      "Analytical data for more than 20,000 pedons of U. S. soils and about 1,100 pedons from other countries. Standard morphological pedon descriptions are available for about 15,000 of these pedons". The above link describes the dataset; it can be downloaded from the NCSS Soil Characterization Database page.
       
    • GlobalSoilMap v0.5 (USA)
      The USA's contribution to the GlobalSoilMap.net project, which is currently on-hold. This product from 2015 is however fully in accordance with the specifications: 6 standard depth intervals based on equal area spline functions (0-5; 5-15; 15-30; 30-60; 60-100; and 100-200cm) for twelve soil properties (total profile depth-cm; plant exploitable (effective) soil depth-cm; organic carbon-g/kg; pH1:5 water; sand-g/kg; silt-g/kg; clay-g/kg; gravel-m3 m-3; ECEC-cmolc/kg; bulk density (< 2 mm) fraction-Mg/m3; bulk density of the whole soil in situ (includes gravel)-Mg/m3; and available water capacity-mm. Nominal grid resolution is 3" of arc, about 100m. An extensive database includes uncertainty estimates. Explained by the NRCS here.  
    • National Soil Information System NASIS
      The dynamic internal database behind products including SSURGO and Web Soil Survey. Not for use outside NRCS, but you could ask for access conditions.  
  • Other USA products (not NRCS)

South America

Antarctica

  • University of Wisconsin Antarctic Soils Database
    Data collected by Dr. James G. Bockheim and his colleagues from 1975 through 1987. Data include site information, air and soil temperature measurements, soil profile features, and surface boulder weathering features for 482 sites in the McMurdo Sound area of Antarctica.

Dynamic soil status

  • International Soil Moisture Network
    "Soil moisture, which is the water stored in the upper soil layer, is a crucial parameter for a large number of applications, including numerical weather prediction, flood forecasting, agricultural drought assessment, water resources management, greenhouse gas accounting, civil protection, and epidemiological modeling of water borne diseases.
     
  • Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN)
    From the (USA) National Water & Climate Center. Time-series of soil moisture, temperature, snowpack for scattered stations. Also has some records for Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands
     
  • National [USA] Soil Moisture Network database
    Maintained at Ohio State University by Steven Quiring. Harmonized and quality-controlled. Explained in this paper.
     
Contact:
David G. Rossiter

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