Application of Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) to improve the spatial accuracy of national soils data and to quantify uncertainty.

DSM

Aims and Hypotheses

Grant CampbellThe James Hutton Institute, Macaulay Drive, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, AB15 8QH Email: Grant.Campbell@hutton.ac.uk

ReferencesCarré, F., McBratney, A.B., Mayr, T., and Montanarella, L. (2007): "Digital soilassessments: Beyond DSM." Geoderma 142(1–2): pp.69-79.Hannam, J., Mayr, T., Zawadska, J., Corstanje, R., Hallett, S., Jones, B., Creamer, R.(2014). "Putting the soil back into digital soil mapping.“Holden, J. (2008): “An Introduction to Physical Geography and theEnvironment.”2nd Edition. Harlow: Prentice Hall.McBratney, A. B., Menonca Santos, M.L. and Minasny, B. (2003): "On digital soilmapping." Geoderma 117(1): pp.3-52.

Introduction

• Soils form a major part of our natural

environment and, alongside water and

air, are vital to our existence on Earth.

Soil is made up of organic and

inorganic matter along with water and

air and is variously organised and

subjected to dynamic interactions and

processes such as weathering

(Holden, 2008).

• Soil maps are often used as spatial

carriers of soil attribute information

for modellers and to map soil

functions. However, traditional soil

maps are not always available in

digital form or appropriate scales for

modelling and frequently do not

clearly identify levels of uncertainty

connected with map units or soil

attributes.

• Increased costs, as well as, field

surveying practicalities, have limited

the collection of high resolution soil

information.

• Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) has been

identified as a useful tool to help

generate this information, to provide

uncertainty estimates and to improve

the spatial resolution of national scale

soil maps. At present, digital soil maps

are being developed to illustrate key

properties and groups such as the

GlobalSoilMap.net consortium have

provided criteria that will enable a

global dataset of specified soil

properties to be produced. Future Work• A generation of a soil property map for England, Wales and Scotland (and

potentially Northern Ireland).• From this property map, test various simple soil function models such as yield and

soil for carbon sequestration.• Estimating the uncertainty and investigate how to communicate this effectively to

policy makers and the wider academic community. A systematic review of userneeds of soil information will have been undertaken earlier in the PhD process andfrom that, a critical evaluation will have been addressed.

DIGITAL SOIL MAPPING COMPONENT

HYPOTHESIS• Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) can improve

the resolution of spatial information onsoil properties and reduce the associateduncertainty.

AIM• To compare and contrast the DSM

approaches against traditional, non-statistical methods to determine whichof the two approaches is best atrepresenting information about the soil.

SOIL FUNCTIONING COMPONENT

HYPOTHESIS• DSM can improve the resolution of

spatial information on soil functions andreduce the associated uncertainty on anational scale.

AIM• To critically evaluate the predictions of

exemplar soil functions produced byusing information generated from DSM.

From Carre et al, (2007)

From Hannam et al, 2014)

• The computer-assisted production of digital maps of soil types and soil properties.

or• “the creation and population

of spatial soil information systems by numerical models…inferring the spatial and temporal variations of soil types and soil properties…from soil observation and knowledge and related environmental variables” (McBratney et al, 2003).