Global distribution of soil phosphorus retention potential

Limited availability of P in soils to crops may be due to deficiency and/or severe P retention. Earlier studies that drew on large soil profile databases have indicated that it is not (yet) feasible to present meaningful values for “plant-available” soil P, obtained according to comparable analytical methods, that may be linked to soil geographical databases derived from 1:5 million scale FAO Digital Soil Map of the World, such as the 5 x 5 arc-minute version of the ISRIC-WISE database. Therefore, an alternative solution for studying possible crop responses to fertilizer-P applied to soils, at a broad scale, was sought. The approach described in this report considers the inherent capacity of soils to retain phosphorus (P retention), in various forms. Main controlling factors of P retention processes, at the broad scale under consideration, are considered to be pH, soil mineralogy, and clay content. First, derived values for these properties were used to rate the inferred capacity for P retention of the component soil units of each map unit (or grid cell) using four classes (i.e., Low, Moderate, High, and Very High). Subsequently, the overall soil phosphorus retention potential was assessed for each mapping unit, taking into account the P-ratings and relative proportion of each component soil unit. Each P retention class has been assigned to a likely fertilizer P recovery fraction, derived from the literature, thereby permitting spatially more detailed, integrated model-based studies of environmental sustainability and agricultural production at the global and continental level (< 1:5 million). Nonetheless, uncertainties remain high; the present analysis provides an approximation of world soil phosphorus retention potential.

The files are provided in ArcGIS and QGIS format.

Date (Publication): 2011-06-01

Citation identifier: 36cb1f3a-c0fe-4f99-ba5f-a9f2b4494431

Presentation form: Digital map

Status: Completed

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
ISRIC - World Soil Information	Niels Batjes	niels.batjes@isric.org	Author
ISRIC - World Soil Information (WDC - Soils)	Niels Batjes	niels.batjes@isric.org	Originator
ISRIC - World Soil Information (WDC - Soils)	Niels Batjes	niels.batjes@isric.org	Point of contact

Theme

phosphorus
nutrients

Stratum

Soil science

Region

Global

Access constraints: License

Use constraints: License

Other constraints: Attribution 3.0 International (CC BY 3.0)

Spatial representation type: Vector

Denominator: 5000000

Language: English

Character set: UTF8

Topic category

Geoscientific information

Begin date: 2001-06-01

End date: 2011-06-01

Reference system identifier: EPSG / 4326

Distribution format

Name	Version
zip

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
ISRIC - World Soil Information (WDC - Soils)	Data infodesk	Paul.vangenuchten@isric.org	Point of contact

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
ISRIC - World Soil Information (WDC - Soils)	ISRIC	info@isric.org	Distributor

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
ISRIC - World Soil Information (WDC - Soils)	ISRIC	info@isric.org	Custodian

Digital transfer options

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--related	https://www.isric.org/projects/global-assessment-soil-phosphorus-retention-potential	Project webpage
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--related	https://www.isric.org/sites/default/files/isric_report_2011_06.pdf	Report
WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download	https://data.isric.org/geonetwork/srv/api/records/36cb1f3a-c0fe-4f99-ba5f-a9f2b4494431/attachments/Global_distribution_of_soil_phosphorus_retention_potential.zip	Global_distribution_of_soil_phosphorus_retention_potential.zip