Digital Soil map of the world
Pedro A. Sanchez
(1)
,
Sonia Ahamed
(1)
,
Florence Carré
(2)
,
Alfred E. Hartemink
(3)
,
Jonathan Hempel
(4)
,
Jeroen Huising
(5)
,
Philippe Lagacherie
(6)
,
Alex B. Mcbratney
(7)
,
Neil J. Mckenzie
(8)
,
Maria de Lourdes Mendonça-Santos
(9)
,
Buniman Minasny
(7)
,
Luca Montanarella
(2)
,
Peter Okoth
(5)
,
Cheryl A. Palm
(1)
,
Jeffrey D. Sachs
(1)
,
Keith D. Shepherd
(10)
,
Tor-Gunnar Vågen
(10)
,
Bernard Vanlauwe
(5)
,
Markus G. Walsh
(1)
,
Leigh A. Winowiecki
(1)
,
Gan-Lin Zhang
(11)
1
Columbia University [New York]
2 European Commission
3 ISRIC - World Soil Information
4 USDA - United States Department of Agriculture
5 International Center for Tropical Agriculture
6 UMR LISAH - Laboratoire d'étude des Interactions Sol - Agrosystème - Hydrosystème
7 Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources
8 Land and Water
9 Embrapa - Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária
10 World Agroforestry Centre
11 State Key laboratory of soil and sustainable agriculture
2 European Commission
3 ISRIC - World Soil Information
4 USDA - United States Department of Agriculture
5 International Center for Tropical Agriculture
6 UMR LISAH - Laboratoire d'étude des Interactions Sol - Agrosystème - Hydrosystème
7 Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources
8 Land and Water
9 Embrapa - Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária
10 World Agroforestry Centre
11 State Key laboratory of soil and sustainable agriculture
Abstract
Soils are increasingly recognized as major contributors to ecosystem services such as food production and climate regulation (1, 2), and demand for up-to-date and relevant soil information is soaring. But communicating such information among diverse audiences remains challenging because of inconsistent use of technical jargon, and outdated, imprecise methods. Also, spatial resolutions of soil maps for most parts of the world are too low to help with practical land management. While other earth sciences (e.g., climatology, geology) have become more quantitative and have taken advantage of the digital revolution, conventional soil mapping delineates space mostly according to qualitative criteria and renders maps using a series of polygons, which limits resolution. These maps do not adequately express the complexity of soils across a landscape in an easily understandable way