TY - JOUR
T1 - Harmonisation of the soil map of Africa at the continental scale
AU - Dewitte, Olivier
AU - Jones, Arwyn
AU - Spaargaren, Otto
AU - Breuning-Madsen, Henrik
AU - Brossard, Michel
AU - Dampha, Almami
AU - Deckers, Jozef
AU - Gallali, Tahar
AU - Hallett, Stephen
AU - Jones, Robert
AU - Kilasara, Method
AU - Le Roux, Pieter
AU - Micheli, Erika
AU - Montanarella, Luca
AU - Thiombiano, Lamourdia
AU - Van Ranst, Eric
AU - Yemefack, Martin
AU - Zougmore, Robert
PY - 2013/12/1
Y1 - 2013/12/1
N2 - In the context of major global environmental challenges such as food security, climate change, fresh water scarcity and biodiversity loss, the protection and the sustainable management of soil resources in Africa are of paramount importance. To raise the awareness of the general public, stakeholders, policy makers and the science community to the importance of soil in Africa, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has produced the Soil Atlas of Africa. To that end, a new harmonised soil map at the continental scale has been produced. The steps of the construction of the new area-class map are presented, the basic information being derived from the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). We show how the original data were updated and modified according to the World Reference Base for Soil Resources classification system. The corrections concerned boundary issues, areas with no information, soil patterns, river and drainage networks, and dynamic features such as sand dunes, water bodies and coastlines. In comparison to the initial map derived from HWSD, the new map represents a correction of 13% of the soil data for the continent. The map is available for downloading.
AB - In the context of major global environmental challenges such as food security, climate change, fresh water scarcity and biodiversity loss, the protection and the sustainable management of soil resources in Africa are of paramount importance. To raise the awareness of the general public, stakeholders, policy makers and the science community to the importance of soil in Africa, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has produced the Soil Atlas of Africa. To that end, a new harmonised soil map at the continental scale has been produced. The steps of the construction of the new area-class map are presented, the basic information being derived from the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). We show how the original data were updated and modified according to the World Reference Base for Soil Resources classification system. The corrections concerned boundary issues, areas with no information, soil patterns, river and drainage networks, and dynamic features such as sand dunes, water bodies and coastlines. In comparison to the initial map derived from HWSD, the new map represents a correction of 13% of the soil data for the continent. The map is available for downloading.
KW - Soil map
KW - Harmonisation
KW - Soil classification
KW - Soil Atlas of Africa
KW - Google Earth
U2 - 10.1016/j.geoderma.2013.07.007
DO - 10.1016/j.geoderma.2013.07.007
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0016-7061
VL - 211
SP - 138
EP - 153
JO - Geoderma
JF - Geoderma
ER -