readme.txt
5/6/2005

Global Gridded Surfaces of Selected Soil Characteristics (IGBP-DIS)

This data set contains 7 data surfaces: soil-carbon density, total nitrogen 
density, field capacity, wilting point, profile availble water capacity,
thermal capacity and bulk density.  The surfaces were reformatted from the 
Global Soil Data Products CD-ROM.

File Listing:

/comp:
bk.jpg - bulk density graphic map
bulkdens.txt - companion text file to bulk density data (bulkdens.dat)
fc.jpg - field capacity graphic map
fieldcap.txt - companion text file to field capacity data (fieldcap.dat) 
pawc.jpg - profile available water capacity graphic map
pawc.txt - companion text file to profile available water capacity data (pawc.dat)
readme.txt - this text file
sc.jpg - soil carbon density graphic map
soilcarb.txt - companion text file to soil carbon density data (soilcarb.dat)
tc.jpg - thermal capacity graphic map
thermcap.txt - companion text file to thermal capacity data (thermcap.dat)
tn.jpg - total nitrogen density graphic map 
totaln.txt - companion text file to total nitrogen density data (totaln.dat)
wiltpont.txt - companion text file to wilting point data (wiltpont.dat)
wp.jpg - wilting point graphic map

/data:
bulkdens.dat - bulk density data
fieldcap.dat - field capacity data
pawc.dat - profile available water capacity data
soilcarb.dat - soil carbon density data
thermcap.dat - thermal capacity data
totaln.dat - total nitrogen density data
wiltpont.dat - wilting point data

Data Format:

These data files are provided in ASCII GRID format for ARC INFO.  Each file
contains a single ASCII array in a geographic (lat/long) projection.  The
ascii files consist of header information containing a set of keywords, 
followed by cell values in row-major order.

The first six lines of the ascii files (header) should read:
ncols 4320
nrows 1686
xllcorner -180.0000
yllcorner -56.5000 
cellsize 0.0833333
NODATA_value -2

To import the *.dat files into ARC INFO as GRIDS use one of the following 
commands:

At the ARC prompt:
Arc: ASCIIGRID <in_ascii_file> <out_grid>  FLOAT

OR

At the GRID prompt:
Grid:  (*) = ASCIIGRID (<in_ascii_file>,  FLOAT)