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Determining the original soil classification of the STU used

The SGDBE version 4.0 represents a synthesis of the knowledge of the spatial pattern of soils at a resolution of 1:1,000,000 in each country it is covering. To make such synthesis, each country expert needed to make a correlation between his national classification and the classification of reference used for the SGDBE. Historically, three different classifications have been used as reference in the SGDBE:

Depending on the date of introduction and his own knowledge, each country expert used only one of the three reference classifications for soil naming of STUs. In the present SGDBE, the nature of the reference soil classification used by each country expert to make the correlation with the national classification is not available. This information was added in the STU file using the following three ‘confidence level’ attributes:

These attributes were already present in the SGDBE and were used to distinguish the soil names that were given by the national expert on one hand (code ‘o’ for original) from those estimated through a taxotransfer rule (the codes used here were then an information about the accuracy of the estimation, with the codes ‘h’ for high, ‘m’ for medium and ‘l’ for low). When a national expert gave a soil name for several soil classifications, then all the concerned ‘confidence level’ attributes were given the value ‘o’. But, in fact, only one of these soil classifications was used for the correlation with the national classification. Using the archives of the SGDBE, it was determined which soil classification was used as reference and then the corresponding ‘confidence level’ attribute is given the value ‘o’ for original reference classification. If another soil name was given by the national expert using one of the other soil classifications, then the corresponding ‘confidence level’ attribute is given the value ‘i’ for estimation by the national expert. For example, if the national expert used the FAO-UNESCO 1974 legend as reference soil classification, then the attribute FAO85-FULL.CL is given the value ‘o’. If the national expert gave also a soil name using the FAO-UNESCO 1990 revised legend, then the attribute FAO90- FULL.CL is given the value ‘i’ (instead of ‘o’ as it was previously).

The reference classification used by the national expert is called hereafter ‘the original soil name’ and is shown in Annex 1.

In the following chapters, the term SGDBE will correspond to the SGDBE version 4.0 completed with the DSMW extracted through the activity described in this chapter.

 

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MARS STATEuropean Commission Directorate General Joint Research CentreIES - Institute for Environment and Sustainability IPSC - Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen