This CD ISO Image contains three groups of products: 1. The Global Pedon Database consists of data records from actual soil profiles selected from around the world. You can browse the data, search it, and export it in ASCII format. It was developed by ISRIC, using data from ISIS, FAO and the USDA. 2. The FAO Interpreted Surfaces are global surfaces, at 5'x5' resolution, of organic carbon, soil water capacity and easily available water capacity. These have been interpreted and spatially mapped using a combination of base data and field experience by soil experts. You can view and export from them in IDRISI format. The surfaces were developed by FAO. 3. The SoilData System uses a statistical bootstrapping approach to link the pedon records in the Global Pedon Database to the FAO Soil Map of the World. It can generate maps and output datasets for a range of original and derived soil parameters, for any part of the world, at any resolution (in increments of 5'), for user-selected depth ranges. The full system was written to run under "Windows98" or "Windows95". It will not run under WindowsNT. It requires no complex installation: simply run it directly from the CD or, for best results, copy the contents of the CD directly onto your hard drive. In the latter event, ensure that all files in the "program" folder are present in a single folder. Files in the remaining folders can be copied as needed. The operation and algorithms of the SoilData System are fully explained in the accompanying on-line help manual. This manual resides in the file "SoilData.hlp", which is a Rich Text format (RTF) file that can be imported and printed from any standard word-processing package. Data-Surface Generation Overview 1. Set the default directory (folder) for data files and the SoilData image files (*.sim) by clicking the appropriate icons at the bottom of the main window. 2. Create a pedon-attribute file for some selected soil-variable for some soil-depth interval (Menu-option: Data|Generate Map-Unit Data). 3. Using the text-editor in the main window, edit the pedon-attribute file if necessary, adding data for any soil units that lack data (refer to on-line help). 4. Create a map unit file for the pedon-attribute file. (A map unit file can be created at the same time as a pedon-attribute file if data for the required soil-variable and depth-interval are available for all soil units.) 5. Generate a data-surface for some area of the globe from the map unit file (Menu-option: Data|Create Data Surface). 6. View the output data-surface, adjusting the display-scale as required (Menu-option: View|Data Surface). The SoilData system uses data derived from the global pedon database developed by ISRIC. More information on this database can be obtained at URL: http://www.isric.nl/WISE.htm SoilData also uses image files taken directly from the FAO/Unesco Digital Soil Map of the World (1995). More information on this product is available at URL: http://www.fao.org/icatalog/book_review/giii/w7189-e.htm. The files on this CD are arranged into 6 folders/directories as follows: FOLDER: "Program" The full SoilData system (including auxiliary data and help files). FOLDER: "Maps" The 15 SoilData image files (*.sim), taken from the Digital Soil Map of the World. FOLDER: "PedonDB" wisascii.zip: A compressed file containing the global pedon database in comma-delimited, ascii format. FOLDER: "FAOSurfaces" The IDRISI-format image-files for the FAO interpreted surfaces, plus all auxiliary and help files for these surfaces. FOLDER: "Document" 1. SoilData.wpd: A WordPerfect 6.1 copy of the on-line help manual. 2. Batjes.wpd: Batjes,NH 1995 A Homogenized Soil Data File for Global Environmental Research: A Subset of FAO, ISRIC and NRCS profiles. 3. ThermProp.rtf: Hubrechts,L & Feyen,J 1996 Pedotransfer Functions for Thermal Soil Properties 4. Proposal.rtf: Scholes,RJ, Skole,D & Ingram, JS 1995 IGBP-DIS Working Paper #10: A Global Database of Soil Properties: Proposal for Implementation 5. ReadMe.txt: Text file with the abstracts of the above documents. FOLDER: "Surfaces" This folder contains 10 global data-surfaces pre-generated by SoilData. All the surfaces are global, at a resolution of 5x5 arc-minutes, in Idrisi format (*.img + *.doc), and for the soil depth interval 0-100 cm. SoilData's default settings were used in the generation of all of them (i.e. Bootstrap sample size = 500; Field Capacity water potential = -10 kPa; Wilting Point water potential = -1500 kPa; Missing soil unit data patched from the default data set). The surfaces are as follows: FileName.* Contents ----------------------------------------- SoilCarb Soil-Carbon Density (kg/m2) (0..100cm) TotalN Total Nitrogen Density (g/m2) (0..100cm) FieldCap Field Capacity (mm) (PsiFC=-10 kPa) (0..100cm) WiltPont Wilting-Point (mm) (PsiWP=-1500 kPa) (0..100cm) PAWC Profile Available Water Capacity (mm) (PsiFC=-10kPa; PsiWP=-1500kPa) (0..100cm) ThermCap Thermal Capacity (J/m3/K) (Water Content=0.00 %v/v) (0..100cm) BulkDens Bulk Density (g/cm3) (0..100cm) ----------------------------------------- These data-surfaces were generated using the following data for the 6 miscellaneous FAO land units: DS, ST, RK, WR, GL, and ND (refer to the on-line help manual). These data were chosen by assuming that DS represents a sandy soil with FC=10% and WP=2%, ST a clayey soil with BDOD=1.60, and RK a pure sand (quartz) with BD=2.60. Surface DS ST RK WR GL ND ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SoilCarb 0 7.30 0 0 0 0 TotalN 0 720.0 0 0 0 0 FieldCap 100 0 0 0 0 0 WiltPont 20 0 0 0 0 0 PAWC 80 0 0 0 0 0 ThermCap 1.33 1.27 2.02 0 0 0 BulkDens 1.60 1.60 2.60 0 0 0