Digital soil mapping using legacy data in the eden valley, UK

Abstract

The National Soil Resources Institute has a considerable amount of legacy data in the form of auger bore observations and detailed soil maps. Both have limitations due to inconsistencies in mapping, extent and spatial distribution of the data. Expert knowledge and quality assessment of the inference model can be used to analyse the available training data as well as the resulting map to identify shortcomings. Expert knowledge will identify soils which are either under predicted or missing from the training dataset, whereas the quality assessment will identify soils and landscape units that are missing from the training data. In addition, the methodology provides the means to assess accurately the number and locations of any additional samples required. Using this framework, legacy data can be a valuable source of information in Digital Soil Mapping. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.