Abstract
Digital Soil Mapping to capture or determine categorical or property information has undergone a tremendous increase in capability and application during the past decade. Many successful technologies have been developed through research activities worldwide, including generalized linear models, classification and regression trees, neural networks, fuzzy systems, expert systems, and geostatistical methods and applications. These technologies have matured beyond a research activity and have potential for use by soil scientists to more accurately, consistently, and efficiently define soil categories and soil properties based on digital proxies to soil-forming factors. These applications for producing soil maps are now poised to become production tools to either update older soil survey information or to produce soil information on previously unmapped areas.
As these technologies move into the mainstream for producing soil survey information, there are challenges that must be overcome. The community of soil scientists and soil classifiers engaged in producing soil information must become familiar with the technologies and their potential uses and limitations. More importantly, the users of soil survey information must be convinced of the relevance and applicability of maps and data that appear different from the “traditional” products with which they have become familiar. New challenges include developing acceptable standards and procedures for the production and quality control and interpretation of the information that relates to agricultural, engineering, forestry and other soil-landscape uses.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Farm Bill Conservation Provisions. US Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service. 19Mar. 2006 <http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/farmbill/2002/>.
Why a Watershed Approach Is Being Used. US Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service. 19 Mar. 2006 <http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/csp/watershed_ approach_reasons.html/>.
Arnold, R.W. 1983. Concepts of soils and pedology. In: L.P. Wilding, N.E. Smeck and G.F. Hall (eds.), Pedogenesis and Soil Taxonomy I. Concepts and Interactions. Elsevier, NY, pp. 1–21.
Code of Iowa, 441.21 Actual, assessed and taxable value. <http://www.legis.state.ia.us/IACODE/ 2003SUPPLEMENT/441/21.html.
Glocker, C.L. and R.A. Patzer. 1978. Soil Survey of Dane County, Wisconsin. U.S. Dept. Agric., Soil Cons. Serv. in coop. with College of Agric. and Life Sci., Univ. of Wisconsin.
Hudson, B.D. 1992. The soil survey as a paradigm-based science. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 56: 346–841.
Trayvick, J.C. 1995. Soil Survey of Barbour County, Alabama. U.S. Dept. Agric., Nat. Res. Cons.Serv. in coop. with Alabama Agric. Exp. Stat. and Alabama Soil and Water Cons. Dist.
Scull, P., J. Franklin, O.a. Chadwick, and D. McArthur. 2003. Predictive soil mapping: A review. Progress in Physical Geography 27: 171–197.
Soil Survey Division Staff. 1993. Soil survey manual. Soil Conservation Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture Handbook 18.
Soil Survey of Barbour County Map Manuscript, Alabama, 1995. Clayton North Quadrangle, Sheet 11 of 27 Alabama.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, 2005. National Soil Survey Handbook, title 430-VI. [Online] Available: http://soils.usda.gov/technical/handbook/.
Zhu, A.X. 1999. A personal construct-based knowledge acquisition process for natural resource mapping. Int. J. Geog. Inform. Sci. 13:119–141.
Zhu, A.X., A.C. Moore, M.P. Smith, J. Liu, J.E. Burt, F. Qi, D. Simonson, J. Hempel and K. Lubich, 2004. Advances in information technology for soil surveys: The SoLIM effort. In: H. Eswaran, P Vijarnsorn, T. Vearasilp, and E. Padmanabhan (eds.), Innovative Techniques in Soil Survey: Developing the Foundation for a New Generation of Soil Resource Inventories and Their Utilization. Land Development Department, Chattuchak, Bangkok, Thailand, pp. 25–42.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hempel, J., Hammer, R., Moore, A., Bell, J., Thompson, J., Golden, M. (2008). Challenges to Digital Soil Mapping. In: Hartemink, A.E., McBratney, A., Mendonça-Santos, M.d. (eds) Digital Soil Mapping with Limited Data. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8592-5_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8592-5_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-8591-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-8592-5
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)