WoSIS snapshot - September 2019
The World Soil Information Service (WoSIS) provides quality-assessed and standardised soil profile data to support digital soil mapping and environmental applications at broad scale levels. Since the release of the first ‘WoSIS snapshot’, in July 2016, many new soil data were shared with us, registered in the ISRIC data repository, and subsequently standardised in accordance with the licences specified by the data providers. Soil profile data managed in WoSIS were contributed by a wide range of data providers, therefore special attention was paid to measures for soil data quality and the standardisation of soil property definitions, soil property values (and units of measurement), and soil analytical method descriptions.
We presently consider the following soil chemical properties (organic carbon, total carbon, total carbonate equivalent, total Nitrogen, Phosphorus (extractable-P, total-P, and P-retention), soil pH, cation exchange capacity, and electrical conductivity) and physical properties (soil texture (sand, silt, and clay), bulk density, coarse fragments, and water retention), grouped according to analytical procedures (aggregates) that are operationally comparable.
Further, for each profile, we provide the original soil classification (FAO, WRB, USDA, and version) and horizon designations insofar as these have been specified in the source databases. Measures for geographical accuracy (i.e. location) of the point data as well as a first approximation for the uncertainty associated with the operationally defined analytical methods are presented, for possible consideration in digital soil mapping and subsequent earth system modelling.
The present snapshot, referred to as ‘WoSIS snapshot - September 2019’, comprises 196,498 geo-referenced profiles originating from 173 countries. They represent over 832 thousand soil layers (or horizons), and over 6 million records. The actual number of observations for each property varies (greatly) between profiles and with depth, this generally depending on the objectives of the initial soil sampling programmes.
The downloadable ZIP file has the data in TSV (tab separated values) and GeoPackage format. It contains the following files:
- ReadmeFirst_WoSIS_2019dec04.pdf (546.7 KB)
- wosis_201909.gpkg (2.2 GB, same data as in the tsv)
- wosis_201909_attributes.tsv (8.7 KB)
- wosis_201909_layers_chemical.tsv (893.5 MB)
- wosis_201909_layers_physical.tsv (890.7 MB)
- wosis_201909_profiles.tsv (18.8 MB)
To read the data in R, please, uncompress the ZIP file and specify the uncompressed folder. Then use read_tsv to read the TSV files, specifying the data types for each column (c = character, i = integer, n = number, d = double, l = logical, f = factor, D = date, T = date time, t = time).
setwd("/YourFolder/WoSIS_2019_September/")
attributes = readr::read_tsv('wosis_201909_attributes.tsv', col_types='cccciicd')
profiles = readr::read_tsv('wosis_201909_profiles.tsv', col_types='icccdddiicccciccccicccc')
chemical = readr::read_tsv('wosis_201909_layers_chemical.tsv', col_types='iiddclcdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccc')
physical = readr::read_tsv('wosis_201909_layers_physical.tsv', col_types='iiddclcdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccccdccccc')
For more detailed instructions on how to read the data with R, please visit https://www.isric.org/accessing-wosis-using-r.
Citation:
Batjes N.H, Ribeiro E, and van Oostrum A.J.M, 2019. Standardised soil profile data for the world (WoSIS snapshot - September 2019), https://doi.org/10.17027/isric-wdcsoils.20190901.
The dataset accompanies the following data paper: Batjes N.H., Ribeiro E., and van Oostrum A.J.M., 2019. Standardised soil profile data to support global mapping and modelling (WoSIS snapshot - 2019). Earth System Science Data, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-299-2020.
INSPIRE
Identification
- File identifier
- ca880bd4-cff8-11e9-8046-0cc47adaa92c XML
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Online resource
- Protocol
- WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-ftp--download
- Protocol
- WWW:LINK-1.0-http--related
- Protocol
- WWW:LINK-1.0-http--related
Resource identifier
- code
- ca880bd4-cff8-11e9-8046-0cc47adaa92c
- Metadata language
- English
- Spatial representation type
- Vector
Encoding
- Format
- Niels H. Batjes
Projection
- code
- 4326
Classification of data and services
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Classification of data and services
Coupled resource
Coupled resource
Classification of data and services
Coupled resource
Coupled resource
Keywords
- Stratum
-
- Soil science
- Region
-
- Global
Other keywords
- Theme
-
- bulk density
- cation exchange capacity
- soil classification
- coarse fragments
- clay
- effective cation exchange capacity
- electrical conductivity
- organic carbon
- pH
- sand
- silt
- calcium carbonate
- texture
- water retention
- soil profiles
Geographic coverage
Temporal reference
Temporal extent
- Begin
- 1918-01-01
- End
- 2016-07-05
Temporal extent
- Date (Publication)
- 2019-09-06
Quality and validity
- Denominator
- 100000
Conformity
Conformity
Conformity
Conformity
Conformity
Conformity
Restrictions on access and use
- Access constraints
- Licenced per profile, as specified by data provider and indicated in the data
Responsible organization (s)
Contact for the resource
- Organisation name
- ISRIC - World Soil Information
- niels.batjes@isric.org
- Organisation name
- ISRIC - World Soil Information
- ad.vanoostrum@isric.org
- Organisation name
- ISRIC - World Soil Information
- Organisation name
- ISRIC - World Soil Information
Responsible organization (s)
Contact for the resource
- Organisation name
- ISRIC - World Soil Information
- niels.batjes@isric.org
- Organisation name
- ISRIC - World Soil Information
- ad.vanoostrum@isric.org
- Organisation name
- ISRIC - World Soil Information
- Organisation name
- ISRIC - World Soil Information
Metadata information
Contact for the metadata
- Organisation name
- ISRIC - World Soil Information
- info@isric.org
- Date stamp
- 2023-12-08T11:13:11
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8