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Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) version 2.0

The Harmonized World Soil Database version 2.0 (HWSD v2.0) is a unique global soil inventory providing information on the morphological, chemical and physical properties of soils at approximately 1 km resolution. Its main objective is to serve as a basis for prospective studies on agro-ecological zoning, food security and climate change.

The Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) was established in 2008 by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and FAO, and in partnership with International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC), the European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN) and the Institute for Soil Sciences Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The data entry and harmonization within a Geographic Information System (GIS) was carried out at IIASA, with verification of the database undertaken by all partners. HWSD was then updated in 2013 (HWSD v1.2) and in 2023 (HWSD v2.0).

This updated version (HWSD v2.0) is built on the previous versions of HWSD with several improvements on (i) the data source that now includes several national soil databases, (ii) an enhanced number of soil attributes available for seven soil depth layers, instead of two in HWSD v1.2, and (iii) a common soil reference for all soil units (FAO1990 and the World Reference Base for Soil Resources). This contributes to a further harmonization of the database.

The GIS raster image file is linked to the soil attribute database. The HWSD v2.0 soil attribute database provides information on the soil unit composition for each of the near 30 000 soil association mapping units. The HWSD v2.0 Viewer, provided with the database, creates this link automatically and provides direct access to the soil attribute data and the soil association information.

Note:

- A tutorial for accessing HWSD ver. 2.0 using R (prepared by David Rossiter, June 2023) has been added as an 'associated resource' (NOTE: Needs the SQLite version of HWSD v2 as provided below).

- Soil property estimates in HWSDv2 were derived from Batjes (2016), Geoderma (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2016.01.034).

Simple

Date (Publication)
2023-02-02
Identifier
54aebf11-ec73-4ff8-bf6c-ecff4b0725ea
Presentation form
Digital map
Purpose
The Harmonized World Soil Database version 2.0 (HWSD v2.0) is a unique global soil inventory providing information on the morphological, chemical and physical properties of soils at approximately 1 km resolution. Its main objective is to serve as a basis for prospective studies on agro-ecological zoning, food security and climate change.
Status
Completed
Principal investigator
  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Freddy Nachtergaele ( )
Postal code is enough , Brussels , 1049 , Italy
Author
  International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis - Harrij van Velthuizen ( )
Schloss Laxenburg , Laxenburg , A-2361 , Austria
Author
  International Institute for Applied Systems - Luc Verelst
Author
  International Institute for Applied Systems - Dave Wiberg
Point of contact
  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Matieu Henry
Author
  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Federica Chiozza
Author
  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Yusuf Yigini
Author
  European Commission - Joint Research Centre - Ece Aksoy
Author
  ISRIC - World Soil Information - Niels H. Batjes
Author
  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Enoch Boateng
Author
  International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis - Günther Fischer
Author
  European Commission - Joint Research Centre - Arwyn Jones
Author
  European Commission - Joint Research Centre - Luc Monanarella
Author
  Chinese Academy of Sciences - Xuezheng Shi,
Author
  International Institute for Applied Systems - Sylvia Tramberend
Publisher
  International Institute for Applied System - None
Publisher
  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - None
Theme
  • soil profiles
Stratum
  • Soil science
Region
  • Global
Access constraints
License
Use constraints
License
Other constraints
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Spatial representation type
Grid
Distance
30  arc-second
Metadata language
English
Character set
UTF8
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information
Begin date
2008-01-01
End date
2023-02-01
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Reference system identifier
EPSG / 4326
Distribution format
  • HWSD v2 ( v2 )

Publisher
  FAO - Matieu Henry
  -
OnLine resource
Download data and viewer ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--related )
OnLine resource
HWSD V.2 Web viewer ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--related )
OnLine resource
Project webpage ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--related )
OnLine resource
Technical Report and Instructions ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link )

HWSD v2 - Technical Report and Instructions

OnLine resource
Download HWSD v2 database ( WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download )

Download database (.mdb)

OnLine resource
Processing HWSD v2 in R (tutorial) ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link )

Technical note Processing the Harmonized World Soil Database (Version 2.0) in R, by David Rossiter

OnLine resource
HWSDv2 SQLite data set (accompanies HWSD v2 in R tutorial) ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link )

This is an SQLite version of HWSD ver. 2.0 for use with the tutorial prepared by David Rossiter.

OnLine resource
Harmonized soil property values for broad-scale modelling (WISE30sec) ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link )

This study describes how the analytical data considered on HWSDv2 were derived from the WISE database

Hierarchy level
Dataset
Statement
Version 2.0 supersedes Version 1.2
File identifier
54aebf11-ec73-4ff8-bf6c-ecff4b0725ea XML
Metadata language
English
Character set
UTF8
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Hierarchy level name
dataset
Date stamp
2025-04-10T09:48:31
Metadata standard name
ISO 19115:2003/19139
Metadata standard version
2003/Cor.1:2006
Point of contact
  FAO - Matieu Henry
Publisher
  IIASA - Contact
  -
 
 

Overviews

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Spatial extent

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Keywords

soil profiles

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