Soil profile data (WoSIS snapshot - September 2019)

Authors

Niels H. Batjes*, Eloi Ribeiro*, Ad van Oostrum* ; * ISRIC - World Soil Information (WDC-Soils)

Summary

A global data set of quality-assessed and standardised soil profile data to underpin global mapping and modelling

Description Data set

The World Soil Information Service (WoSIS) provides quality-assessed and standardised soil profile data to support digital soil mapping and environmental applications at broad scale levels. The present dataset, referred to as ‘WoSIS snapshot - September 2019’, comprises 196,498 geo-referenced profiles originating from 173 countries. They represent over 832 thousand soil layers (or horizons), and over 6 million records. The actual number of observations for each property varies (greatly) between profiles and with depth, this generally depending on the objectives of the initial soil sampling programmes.

We presently consider the following soil chemical properties (organic carbon, total carbon, total carbonate equivalent, total Nitrogen, Phosphorus (extractable-P, total-P, and P-retention), soil pH, cation exchange capacity, and electrical conductivity) and physical properties (soil texture (sand, silt, and clay), bulk density, coarse fragments, and water retention), grouped according to analytical procedures (aggregates) that are operationally comparable. Further, for each profile, we provide the original soil classification (FAO, WRB, USDA, and version) and horizon designations insofar as these have been specified in the source databases. Measures for geographical accuracy (i.e. location) of the point data as well as a first approximation for the uncertainty associated with the operationally defined analytical methods are presented, for possible consideration in digital soil mapping and subsequent earth system modelling.

References:

Batjes NH, Ribeiro E and Oostrum Ad van 2019. Standardised soil profile data to support global mapping and modelling (WoSIS snapshot 2019).  Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss.: https://www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net/essd-2019-164/

Ribeiro E, Batjes NH and Van Oostrum AJM 2018. World Soil Information Service (WoSIS) - Towards the standardization and harmonization of world soil data. Procedures Manual 2018. ISRIC Report 2018/01, ISRIC - World Soil Information, Wageningen, 166 p. http://dx.doi.org/10.17027/isric-wdcsoils.20180001

Batjes et al. (2017). WoSIS: providing standardised soil profile data for the world. Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 9, 1–14, 2017 https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-9-1-2017.

 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17027/isric-wdcsoils.20180001