This dataset comprises soil property mapping across the whole State of Victoria at 6 prescribed depths. The set depths are 0 to 5 cm, 5 to 15 cm, 15 to 30 cm, 30 to 60 cm, 60 to 100 cm and 100 to 200 cm. The mapped soil properties are pH (1:5 water), EC (dS/m), % clay and soil organic carbon (SOC %).
The dataset has been created by the Understanding Soil and Farming Systems project (CMI 102922)and is referred to as Version 1.0 of the Victorian Digital Soil Map (VIC DSM 1.0).
Soil point data stored in the Victorian Soil Information System (VSIS) from over 6,000 sites has been standardised to the set depths (using equal area splines or a value weighting derived from the proportional contruibution of each sample to the depth class). This processed data was used to attribute soil land units from a collection of surveys (mapped at 1:100k or better) collated to provide the best map unit coverage across the State. Only data from sites that match the soil type of the dominant soil within the land unit being attributed were used. Sites and land units were assigned an Australian Soil Classification (to the Suborder level) to aid this process.
The raw profile data stored in the VSIS (as of March 2013) used to produce these maps were:
pH data were either laboratory based (1:5 soil/water suspension) or field pH (Raupach and Tucker 1959).
Clay % was laboratory derived particle size data (PSA all methods), or converted field observations of texture class (McKenzie et al. 2000).
Organic Carbon measurements methods was either Walkley and Black or Heanes wet oxidation.
Electical Conductivity was 1:5 soil/water extract (dS/m).
The data is available in polygonal format (i.e. the land units) with soil property median value, standard deviation and assignment qualifier attributes. ESRI grids in ascii format at 100 m cell resolution have been generated from the attributed land unit polygon dataset for each soil property at each depth interval.
The assignment qualifiers have been created in order to provide a level of quality evaluation for the soil property assignment to each polygon. Reliability maps generated from these qualifiers have been produced together with each soil property map.
The strength of these products is our ability to leverage on the significant investment in soil site and survey mapping data procurement and the capture of tacit knowledge of former soil surveyors.
A revised version of these digital soil maps is due to be released at the end of 2014.