http://www.fao.org/globalsoilpartnership This Presentation was made during the Digital Soil Mapping training that took place in Amman - Jordan from 29 November - 7 December 2015, and it presents course plan of the course © FAO: http://www.fao.org

1. DIGITAL SOIL MAPPING – CAPACITY
BUILDING COURSE
Day 1: Lecture 1

2. COURSE PLAN
1 week intensive training
 Theory– Introduction, basics, procedures
 Practical – hands-on practice
 Assignments
 Half-day– discussion on problems encountered,
1 week case-study
 Development of case studies
 Practical application on own dataset
 Presentation of case-studies,
 Final evaluation

3. COURSE AIMS
To equip soil scientists/staff at national soil science
institutes with recent techniques in DSM.
 Exposure to recent developments in DSM methods and
tools for developing and updating national and
regional soil information.
 Practical orientation to give opportunity to implement
the DSM techniques
 Allow simultaneously use of own data to develop
relevant DSM products
 Support update of soil information

4. COURSE OUTCOMES
To be able to:
 Compile and harmonize legacy data and other
input data for DSM applications
 Use various software to implement DSM
 Develop accurate digital soil maps for updating
national soil information systems

5. COURSE STRUCTURE
 Lectures
 Discussions and clarifications
 Practical sessions
 Demonstrations
 Hands-on exercises
 Assignments
 Follow-up work
 Case study
 Individual work
 Own case study
 Plenary discussions
 Group discussion
 Individual presentations

6. OBJECTIVES FOR DAY 1
 To introduce you to DSM training and set the
training pace
 To expose you to the theory and principles of
DSM
 To introduce you to input requirements in DSM
 To familiarize learners with data rescue and
documentation and DSM methods

7. INTRODUCTION TO DSM
 DSM is a method of producing soil maps. Like other
soil mapping methods, it’s also based on:
 A soil-landscape model that relates soil characteristics to
the soil forming factors
 Computer applications to implement the soil landscape
model (difference being - heavy dependency )
 GIS layers of soil forming factors as input to the model
 In addition; Mathematical/statistical models to represent
the soil-landscape model
 Defined simply as computer-assisted production of
digital maps of soil

8. MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT DSM
 No need for field sampling (i.e. Remote Sensing is
adequate)
 It relies much on adequately sampled soil data as input
 Field validation is an integral component of DSM
 Geo-referencing and local knowledge are assets in DSM
 Computer does all the mapping
 Computing is a core method/tool in DSM
 Computing cannot replace soil profile description
and laboratory analysis – steps in soil mapping
 It’s replacing basic soil science
 Soil science is the foundation
 DSM enriches approaches to soil mapping
 There are still needs for all soil mapping products

9. HOW DOES DSM WORK
 The principles
 Soil formation and distribution is influenced by
 Climate, organisms, topography, parent materials, time
 If spatial distribution of these factors is known then soil
character may be inferred
 Soil character may not always show hard boundaries
between differing and contiguous groups
 Ordering of soil character in the landscape is not
arbitrary – there is a law obeyed/pattern followed
 These principles have been employed for ages in
soil mapping albeit with varied success
 They have been combined to lay ground for
development of operating guidelines in DSM

10. DSM THEORY
 Spatial distribution of soil forming factors is a function
of magnitude and spatial distribution of soil forming
factors
 Theory can be mathematically modelled
 There exists a quantifiable/hueristic function f to link
the SCORPAN factors and soil character
 If the function is applied at known/sample locations
and quantities, then it can be used to predict the soil
attribute at unknown/un-sampled locations
A
B
C

11. STEPS IN DSM
 Three major stages: input data, tools and
methods selection, and soil information system
Legacy soil data
• Soil sampling/survey
• Secondary data
Environmental factors/GIS
database
• Remote sensing images
• DEM
• Land use/cover
• Climate data
• Geology maps
Digital soil assessments
Uncertainties of spatial
prediction
DSM Methods
DSM Tools
GIS layers of soil
Properties and types
Expert/technical support
• Scientists
• Technicians
• Soil information users
• Technical manual
• Standards
Stage I
Input
Stage II
Tools and method selection
Stage III
Soil information system
Spatial database / soil
information system
Soil inference system

12. END OF SESSION