DSM: Digital Soil Mapping

Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) is the main exploratory research thematic of the SOIL Action. Digital Soil Mapping is the creation and the population of a geographically referenced soil databases generated at a given resolution by using field and laboratory observation methods coupled with environmental data through quantitative relationships.

It has been initiated with the updating of the SOTER methodology by Endre Dobos and Joel Daroussin (2004) for mapping Soil Terrain Units in Europe. At the same time, the SOIL Action launched a European Working Group for setting up the framework and the associated concepts of DSM .

DSM outputs

The DSM outputs of the SOIL Action are:

  • The SOTER Units of Hungary
  • the version 3.0 of the SRTM (with filled gaps) in collaboration with the CIAT
  • The pedolandscapes of the Aisne (French department) in collaboration with the French Institute of Agriculture of Beauvais
  • The wind erosion map of Europe
  • Soil contamination in Europe
  • OSACA: A Numerical Tool for classifying soil profile

Current projects on DSM

The current projects on DSM of the SOIL Action are:

  • DSM for mapping biomass production in England & Wales (in collaboration with Cranfield University)
  • DSM for mapping soils of Somalia (SWALIM Project) in collaboration with MARS Food
  • e-SOTER for mapping globally the Soil Terrain Units (FP7 project)
  • DIGISOIL and i-SOIL(FP7 projects) for producing a multi-sensor platform for mapping directly and accurately (less than 10 m resolution) soil properties involved in land degradation and soil functions
  • Global digital soil mapping for mapping soil properties involved in soil fertility and land degradation at 90 m

International collaborations

The main international collaborations are with:

  • The CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture)
  • USDA (United States Department of Agriculture)
  • The University of Beijing
  • The University of Sydney
  • ISRIC - World Soil Information

Books

Reports

Papers

Presentations

Links