GlobalSoilMap for Soil Organic Carbon Mapping and as a Basis for Global Modeling

The demand for information on functional soil properties is high and has increased over time. This is especially true for soil organic carbon (SOC) in the framework of food security and climate change. The GlobalSoilMap consortium was established in response to such a soaring demand for up-to-date and relevant soil information. The majority of the data needed to produce GlobalSoilMap soil property maps will, at least for the first generation, come mainly from archived soil legacy data, which could include polygon soil maps and point pedon data, and from available co-variates such as climatic data, remote sensing information, geological data, and other forms of environmental information. Several countries have already released products according to the GlobalSoilMap specifications and the project is rejuvenating soil survey and mapping in many parts of the world. Functional soil property maps have been produced using digital soil mapping techniques and existing legacy information and made available to the user community for application. In addition, uncertainty has been provided as a 90% prediction interval based on estimated upper and lower class limits. We believe that GlobalSoilMap constitutes the best available framework and methodology to address global issues about SOC mapping. Main scientific challenges include time related and uncertainties issues.