Building a EUROPEAN DATABASE SOTER 1:5M from the EUROPEAN DATABASE EUSIS 1:1M An example of generalization of a soil geographical database (1) INRA Soil Science, Orléans, FRANCE (2) FAO GLS, Roma, ITALY (3) ISRIC, Wageningen, THE NETHERLANDS (4) BGR, Berlin, GERMANY (5) JRC, European Soil Bureau, Ispra, ITALY KING Dominique (1), SABY Nicolas (1), LE BAS Christine (1), NACHTERGAELE Freddy (2), VAN ENGELEN Vincent (3), EIMBERCK Micheline (1), JAMAGNE Marcel (1), LAMBERT Jean Jacques (1), BRIDGES Mike (3), HARTWICH Reinhard (4), MONTANARELLA Luca (5), CHARLE Fany (1), DAROUSSIN Joël (1)

Local Soil Information System CONTEXT: EUSIS = nested databases European Soil Information System EUSIS 1:1M World Soil and Terrain Database SOTER 1:5M Catchment Information System Georeferenced Soil Database of Europe

European Soil Information System EUSIS 1:1M World Soil and Terrain Database SOTER 1:5M OBJECTIVE:transfer information... Attribute data (semantic) EUSIS  SOTER Spatial data (geometry) 1:1M  1:5M

European Soil Information System EUSIS 1:1M World Soil and Terrain Database SOTER 1:5M OBJECTIVE:transfer information... with aims to… prevent from loss of information preserve compatibility in up-scaling (location, pattern, topology) have an explicit algorithm

DATA STRUCTURES: EUSIS 1:1M SOTER 1:5M Soil Component (SC)Soil Typological Unit (STU) Terrain Unit (TU)Terrain Component (TC)Soil Mapping Unit (SMU) area data Soil Profile point data DEM

DATA USED: For building: - EUSIS database (ESB, 2001) - DEM 1x1 km (Defence Mapping Agency, 1992) For validating: - SOVEUR project (Batjes and Van Engelen, 1997) - Soil Regions (Finke and Hartwich, 1998)

METHOD Semantic: derive SOTER criteria from EUSIS and DEM attributes Geometry: delineate SOTER units from EUSIS boundaries

Building SOTER criteria « Major Land Forms » DEM 1kmElevation Slope (calibrated in some areas using higher resolution DEMs) Relief (STD of elevation within 5km radius) Mean/EUSIS polygonReclass to SOTER classes Mean/EUSIS polygon Reclass to SOTER classes Slope calculationDEM 1x1km Mean slope per EUSIS polygon SOTER classes

DEM 1kmElevation Slope (calibrated in some areas using higher resolution DEMs) Relief (STD of elevation within 5km radius) Mean/EUSIS polygonReclass to SOTER classes Mean/EUSIS polygon Reclass to SOTER classes SOTER Major Land Forms (MLF) Combine (overlay) Building SOTER criteria « Major Land Forms »

DEM 1kmElevation Slope (calibrated in some areas using higher resolution DEMs) Relief (STD of elevation within 5km radius) Mean/EUSIS polygonReclass to SOTER classes Mean/EUSIS polygon Reclass to SOTER classes SOTER Major Land Forms (MLF) Combine (overlay) EUSIS Soil name (Fluvisol, Gleysol, Histosol) Linear shape ValleysReplace + Building SOTER criteria « Major Land Forms »

Taxotransfer rule Building SOTER criteria « lithology » EUSIS lithologySOTER lithology Examples: Secondary chalk  SO1 (limestone, carbonate rocks) Marl  SO2 (marl and other mixtures) Claystone  SC3 (siltstone, mustone, claystone) … …  … … EUSISParent materialTaxotransfer ruleSOTER Lithology Dominant SOTER Lithology/EUSIS polygon

SOTER Major Land Forms (MLF) Dominant SOTER Lithology/EUSIS polygon Agregate (dissolve) Rule driven polygon merge + line simplification Combine (overlay) Building Terrain Units (TU) SOTER Terrain Units (TU) at 1:1M (MLF, Lithology) SOTER TU at 1:5M (MLF, Lithology)

1,1n,1 Structure of resulting TU database

Building « Terrain Components » (TC) EUSIS SOTER TU at 1:5M (MLF, Lithology) Soil name (FAO level 2) Dominant soil name/EUSIS polygon Combine Rule driven polygon merge (25 mm2 SOTER criteria Within TUs) SOTER « TC » at 1:5M Soil associations or « Terrain Components » (« TC ») (MLF, Lithology, Soil name)

1,1n,1 Structure of resulting TU and TC database n,1

EUSIS Select 10 most dominant soil names Rule driven distribution of remainers SOTER « Soil Components » (« SC ») SOTER « TC » at 1:5M Building « Soil Components » Soil Mapping Units (SMU) Integration List of Soil names (FAO level 2)/« TC »

1,1n,1 Structure of resulting SOTER database n,1 n,n 1,n

Building the profile dataset: the missing part EUSISProfilesSelect SOTER « Soil Components » (« SC ») Attach Profile dataset

RESULTS EUSIS 1:1M SOTER 1:1M Mapping units Polygons Mapping units 95% of Europe semantic SOTER 1:5M geometric

SOTER 1:5M Major Lanforms

SOTER 1:5M Lithology

Analyse sensitivity 25 mm² at 1:5 M

Threshold in km² Percentage with rules without rules Polygon merge Stability to original database 25 mm² at 1:5 M

Influence of polygon merge with rules 46 % improvement using rules Same semantic (dissolve) 20 % Similar semantic (merged by rule) 46 % Different semantic (merged on longest arc) 34 % ? ? ?

200 km² threshold Soil name (FAO level 2) Example AFTER, WITHOUT RULES AFTER, WITH RULES BEFORE

Merging polygons (1) Which neighbour to merge in? ? ? ?

Merging polygons (2) Without rules

Merging polygons (3) Take the polygons semantic into account Evaluate a degree of similarity between semantics (semantic distance) ? ? ?

Semantic distance to be defined by expert rules identicaldifferent +  0 Merging polygons (4)

With rules Without rules Merging polygons (5) Semantic distance between neighbouring polygons

Building a contingency table from the semantics of polygons Merging polygons (6) a c b d c a da d b c bc a da d b c b