Soil Types – Mapping

The initial topsoil map

We create an initial topsoil map based on best available information for any given country. We refer to the country specific information for details on which base data and topsoil typology we use and how we create the initial map.

Note that not all countries have a soil type map available currently. Please contact us if you have questions about availability for your country.

The enhanced topsoil map

Following this mapping from national soil maps to the initial soil map, we perform an adjustment of the soil type map to better reflect the type of soil we expect in the top layer of the soil in high resolution. We use our own land cover map and national definitions of urban zones for these modifications, and apply the rules that are shown in the tables below.

Soil types not listed in a table are not affected at this step. 

The modifications for unpaved roads are made to ensure that infiltration rates are reduced for soil types with high infiltration rates than the paving material, but remain the same for soil types with lower infiltration rates. 

The modifications based on the presence of vegetation (farmland, shallow vegetation and dense vegetation) are made to reflect that it's improbable to find vegetation directly on e.g. gravel or bedrock, and therefore the topsoil is set to the most probable soil type found on top of the original soil type.

We also make some changes inside urban areas, to reflect the probable human improvement of problematic soils. To see what data we use to define urban areas, please see the country specific information.

Both the final topsoil map and the original national soil map are available for you to see in Scalgo Live, but it is the topsoil map that is used in our analyses.

Here are the rules we use when enhancing the initial JB-based soil types based on information from our land cover map.

Inside urban areas, we do the following to reflect the probable human modifications to the original soils (soil types not listed are left unchanged):

• Coarse sand, fine sand and coarse sand with clay are set to fine sand with clay.
• Clay, fine clay, very fine clay are set to fine clay with sand.

Here are the rules we use when enhancing the initial USDA-based soil types based on information from our land cover map.

Inside urban areas, we do the following to reflect the probable human modifications to the original soils (soil types not listed are left unchanged):