Geoderma 207208 (2013) 256267

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Geoderma
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoderma

Soil maps of the world

Alfred E. Hartemink a,, Pavel Krasilnikov b,c, J.G. Bockheim a
a b c

University of WisconsinMadison, Department of Soil Science, FD Hole Soils Lab, 1525 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA Lomonosov Moscow State University, Eurasian Center for Food Security, Leninskie Gory, 1, 119991 Moscow, Russia Institute of Biology, Karelian Research Center of Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushkinskaya str., 11, 185910 Petrozavodsk, Russia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Soil maps depict the distribution of soils on the earth's surface and have an important role in aggregating our knowledge of soil resources. The maps are based on geographic rules of spatial arrangement of soils and at each scale show soil distribution patterns. Here we review how world soil maps have evolved from the early 1900s to the present. The rst world soil map was published in 1906 by K.D. Glinka and included 18 soil classes that more or less corresponded to the climatic zones of the Earth. This rst map was followed by a number of world soil maps at various scales developed in different countries. With increasing information following extensive soil surveys in all parts of the world, world soil maps have become more precise, less schematic and eventually have led to the FAOUNESCO soil maps. Over time, world soil maps show an increasing complexity of the depicted soil pattern but most of the maps were concept-dependent rather than data-derived and are inuenced by the underlying systems of soil classication. In recent years, a project in soil mapping was developed that is based on the mapping of key soil properties rather than soil classes (GlobalSoilMap project). In the future, world soil maps should include both soil classes and soil properties and be accompanied by a set of interpretative tools. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Article history: Received 21 March 2013 Received in revised form 1 May 2013 Accepted 5 May 2013 Available online 20 June 2013 Keywords: Historical maps Digital soil mapping Soil classication World maps

1. Introduction We live in a world of maps. The entire Earth's surface has been projected in millions of two-dimensional images at a wide range of scales. The rst maps of a territory appeared in pre-historic time as paintings or stone block constructions (Utrilla et al., 2009). Harvey (1987) stated that these maps were one of the oldest forms of human communication. Complex maps that tried to maintain the proportions of the distances were made in Mesopotamia as early as 2500 years BC (Millard, 1987). Egypt was another center of early map production (Harrell and Brown, 1992). Mapping also developed in China, where the rst maps were made by 300 years BC (Hsu, 1993; Needham, 1986). The main achievements in Greek cartography took place from about the sixth century B.C. to the culminating work of Ptolemy in the second century AD. The Greeks were the rst to attempt making world maps (Harvey, 1987). The rst makers and users of the maps were sailors, soldiers, and merchants. Cartography changed from routing to increased detail between locations. Geographers collected the information and added it to the maps. Much time was needed to collect sufcient data for covering signicant areas with thematic maps like climate maps. Special systems of symbols were developed to show the distribution of natural phenomena on thematic maps. For example, the climatic maps could be produced only after Alexander von Humboldt introduced
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 608 263 4947. E-mail address: hartemink@wisc.edu (A.E. Hartemink). 0016-7061/$ see front matter. Published by Elsevier B.V. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2013.05.003

the idea of isotherms in the early 1800 s (von Humboldt and Bonpland, 1805). A map on Turin papyrus from Egypt and dated to 1150 BC is considered to be the rst geologic map, and it shows the mining areas and the sediments along the way to these mines (Harrell and Brown, 1992). The rst scientic geological map was published in 1815 after William Smith, who has been recently recognized to be one of the founding fathers of geology, had proposed stratigraphy as a basis for classifying and mapping geological units (Winchester, 2002). Smith called his map a delineation of soil strata, although he was dealing with deep sedimentary layers. The rst biogeographical map was published in the third edition of the Flore Franaise by Lamarck and Candolle in 1805 (Ebach and Goujet, 2006). This map showed the distribution of oristic regions in France, and it was based on biogeographical concepts, such as the historical and ecological bases for the distribution of vegetation. In summary, the development of thematic cartography depended on the scientic progress of particular disciplines. The rst scientic thematic maps appeared at the beginning of the 19th century, when it was realized that the spatial distribution of natural phenomena was governed by rules, which allowed these phenomena to be depicted on maps. Global knowledge about the distribution of the main characteristics of the Earth's geography emerged in the 19th century. The rst world map of climate appeared in 1823: it was an isotherm map published by Woodbridge, based on early drafts by Alexander von Humboldt (Woodbridge, 1823). The general gradients of temperatures

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were already known but climate distribution on the planet was only partially understood, and the delineation of isotherms proved to be a useful way to show the spatial distribution of climates. The global distribution of vegetation was rst mapped by Grisebach (1872), who related it to the distribution of climates. The rst quantitative classication of world climates was prepared by the German scientist Wladimir Kppen (18461940) in 1900. The world map based on this classication was prepared by Rudolf Geiger in the middle of the 20th century (Kottek et al., 2006). The geological features and structure of the globe were more difcult to map. The rst geological map of the world was made by Ami Bou in 1843 (Schweizer and Seidl, 2011); the map was based on reports on the geological structure of various parts of the world and on perceived relationships between geoforms and topography, on the one hand, and the geological composition, on the other hand. For example, it showed ood basalt in the center of the African continent, like in India, because Africa resembled India in shape. Soil maps constitute an integral part of the mapping coverage of the Earth. These maps, although too general for use on the farm or even regional level, have an important role in aggregating our knowledge of the soil resources of our planet. In this paper, we explore how world soil maps have been transformed throughout the centuries and provide some discussion on the future of world soil maps. The objectives of this paper are to (i) explore and describe what world soil maps have been published, (ii) analyze the origin and methods in which they were constructed, (iii) analyze how they have been used, and (iv) discuss the future of world soil maps and their use. 2. Early regional or country soil maps 2.1. Some ancient soil maps The rst soil maps were produced in China, and Yugong (about 4000 years BP) prepared a map that depicted the distribution of soils in nine provinces (Gong et al., 2003). There was a need for maps for better land use planning to provide more taxes for the feudalist dynasties. Soils were mapped based on characteristics like soil fertility, soil color, soil texture, and soil moisture. The Aztecs showed in a single document land ownership relations and soil productivity and properties. Codices of Santa Maria Assunta and the Vergara mapped plots owned by each family of a community, and each plot had in its central part a glyph indicating the type of soil. For describing the soils, 132 glyphs were used, including such elements as stone, points, backpack, thorn hill, eyes, teeth, manure, maize, water, and so on (Williams, 1976; Williams et al., 2008). The Aztecs developed a soil classication based on soil properties (fertility, texture, moisture, and genesis), topographic location, vegetation, and farmers' practices. This soil classication, with up to 45 classes, was used for several purposes, including taxation, soil management, medicinal usage, and construction (Williams, 1976). 2.2. Early scientic soil maps Soil cartography, which originated in Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium in the 1850 s and 1860 s, was based on ideas and classication approaches from agrogeology. In 1806 S. Staszic compiled a multi-sheet geology/geomorphology/soil map of Eastern Europe (Grigelis et al., 2011). The start of the scientic study of soils is commonly dated to the middle of the 19th century, with the works of Senft (1857), Fallou (1862) and Orth (1877). These authors prepared soil or agrogeological maps (Table 1) based on the texture and humus content of the soil (Asio, 2005). In 1875, A. Orth promoted the soil prole as an essential basis for agrogeological mapping in Germany (Brevik and Hartemink, 2010). Expanding on this, the German scientist M. Fesca published agrogeology and soil maps of Japan between 1885 and 1887 (Brevik and Hartemink, 2010). Earlier similar attempts were made in

Ireland by Sir Robert Kane, with an emphasis on soil assessment (Horner, 1994) and in England (Morton, 1843), where soils were mapped based on the underlying geologic strata (Hartemink, 2009). In 1856 A.I. Grossul-Tolstoi compiled a soil map that was later acknowledged to have inuenced V.V. Dokuchaev (Krupenikov, 1992). In the Netherlands the rst soil maps were produced in the 1860s (scale 1:0.2 million) and the maps were largely lithological distinguishing between alluvial (Holocene) soils, diluvial (Pleistocene) soils and tertiary soils (Hartemink and Sonneveld, 2013). The demand for soil mapping was greater in Russia and the USA than in Europe because of the need for the development of new and extensive territories for agriculture (Kellogg, 1974). In Russia, the Military Department published many maps showing items of interest to military operations, including relevant soil information, starting in 1812, and the Ministry of Government Properties started mapping soils for taxation purposes in 1838 (Krupenikov, 1992). The rst soil map for the European part of the country was made by K. S. Veselovskiy in 1851 (scale 1:8.4 million) and then by V. I. Chaslavskiy in 1879 at a scale of 1:2.52 million (Krupenikov, 1992). Both Veselovskiy and Chaslavskiy were economists, and the soil maps were developed from interviews of landowners. The earliest soil maps in the United States were part of state geological surveys; the rst appears to have been a soil map of Massachusetts published in 1841; these early maps were geologic maps with the assumption that soils formed depended upon the underlying geology (Brevik and Hartemink, 2010). The 1882 soil map of Wisconsin by T.C. Chamberlin (1882) was unique in that it recognized that a geological map and a soil map were not necessarily one and the same (Hartemink et al., 2012). Soil mapping was almost completely based on soil texture and the geological nature of soil material. A somewhat similar approach was adopted later for the entire system of soil survey in the United States: the soil series were based mainly on the texture and some evident morphological features (Brevik and Hartemink, in press; Helms et al., 2002; Simonson, 1989). 2.3. Maps by Dokuchaev World soil maps followed the rst climatic and geological maps. As there was little global soil information, a global geographic theory was needed similar to that developed for the geological map. An important step in the development of this theory was when V.V. Dokuchaev related the distribution of soils to the factors of their formation. Although he was a geologist by training, Dokuchaev linked soils to the climate and corresponding vegetation. His ideas were possibly inspired by the biogeographical zoning of Alexander von Humboldt and earlier studies of soil-horizon division proposed by Fallou and Orth (Asio, 2005). The bioclimatic aspects of soil formation were emphasized for two reasons. First, the distribution of soils on the Russian Plain, with its relatively uniform periglacial deposits, was mainly related to climate and to a lesser extent to the parent material. Secondly, Dokuchaev found that the climate was a much better predictor for the soil distribution than the complex geology. Dokuchaev considered making a global soil map. His archives contain an undated sketch drawing of a soil map of the world (Fig. 1). He drew the soil zones: glacial soils, podzolic soils, grey transitional soils, and chernozems. Further to the south the soil names were mixed with the climatic names: kastanozems (with a question mark) in Mexico, subtropical soils across the Eurasian continent, krasnozems (red soils) and zheltozems (yellow soils) in China. The southern hemisphere of the Earth was less well marked; it had mostly the names of the climatic vegetative zones such as tropical areas, transition, pampas, and coniferous forest. Dokuchaev was not sure if the distribution of soils was symmetrical on the Earth, and the amount of data from the Southern Hemisphere was insufcient for good extrapolation. For that reason he probably decided to make a map for the Northern Hemisphere alone that was published in 1899

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Table 1 Characteristics of some regional soil maps of the nineteenth century. Year of publication 1806 1841 1843 18401850 1851 1856 1857 1860 1862 1871 1877 1882 1883 18851887 1899 Authors Staszic Unknown Morton Kane Veselovskiy Grossul-Tolstoi Senft Staring Fallou Chaslavskiy Orth Chamberlin Dokuchaev Fesca Dokuchaev Scale 1:1,182,100 Coverage Eastern Europe (multisheet) Massachusetts, USA Some counties in England Some counties in Ireland European Russia Moldova and South Ukraine Netherlands Germany, between Leipzig and Dresden European Russia Wisconsin, USA European Russia Japan A scheme of soil zones of the Northern Hemisphere The basis of the legend Geology/geomorphology/soils Underlying geologic strata Underlying geologic strata Soil quality Interviews: local soil names and soil quality Zonal distribution of soils Agrogeology Geology Agrogeology Interviews: local soil names and soil quality Agrogeology Physical soil properties Soil humus content Agrogeology Zonal soil types

1:8.4 million ca. 1:2 million 1:02 million 1:2.52 million ca. 1:0.6 million 1:4.2 million 1:50 million

for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 (Fig. 2; Table 1). The map had a polar projection and reected the views of Dokuchaev on the global latitudinal zonality of soils. The legend included 11 soil units, namely the boreal, forest, chernozem steppes, wind-affected (with subdivision into stony, sandy, solonchak and loess deserts), and laterite zones plus forested stony territories, mountainous territories, and alluvial soils. 3. The rst world soil maps 3.1. Glinka's world soil maps (1908, 1915, 1927) K.D. Glinka, one of Dokuchaev's students, continued the work on the development of the soil-geographic concepts. Glinka contributed

to the development of soil mapping and prepared the rst schematic soil map of the world at a scale of 1:80 million in 1908 for the rst edition of his textbook on soil science (Fig. 3). In the Russian school of soil science, Glinka made the next step after Dokuchaev from soil-climatic zones to particular soils (Karavaeva and Gerasimova, 2005). However, this map showed that the spatial distribution of soils still closely followed the climatic distribution. The legend of the rst version of the map published in 1908 included 18 units (soil types) plus a unit for water bodies: 1 podzolic (and soddy) soils, 2 forest soils and degraded chernozem, 3 chernozem (and regoor), 4 chestnut soils, 5 stratied columnar soils of temperate deserts, 6 desert crusts of temperate deserts, 7 krasnozem (terra rossa), 8 laterite, 9 zheltozem (Gehnmgelehm of Rihtgofen), 10 soils of dry tundra, 11 meadow (and meadow-steppe) soils,

Fig. 1. Sketch soil map of the world by Dokuchaev (1883).

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in the Congress proceedings (Deemer et al., 1927). Although the spatial distribution of soils was corrected, the legend of the map had not evolved much since the rst edition from 1908. 3.2. The USDA soil maps (19381968) Some soil maps were produced in the USA since the mid 1800s, but systematic soil mapping begun with the start of the national soil survey program in 1899 (Brevik and Hartemink, in press). Soil mapping was mainly done on the basis of soil series (Simonson, 1989). In 1909 Milton Whitney published the rst small-scale map of soil regions of the United States (Whitney, 1909), followed by the maps by Coffey (1912) and Marbut et al. (1913). The legends of these maps included the landscapes, sediments, or geographical entities rather than soils (Simonson, 1989). The development of ne-scale soil cartography followed the introduction of soil classication by Curtis Marbut (1922). The rst soil map of the entire country appeared 16 years later, together with the US soil classication by Baldwin, Kellogg and Thorp (Baldwin et al., 1938). This map served as an illustration to the proposed classication and was published at a scale of 1:80 million; only 9 units were listed in the legend. The classication included only zonal soil sequence, and intrazonal and azonal soils were omitted from the world map. The world soil map (Fig. 4; Table 2) based on the same classication system was published in the 1957 Yearbook of Agriculture by Simonson (1957). The map has six broad zones: tundra soils, podzolic soils, chernozemic soils, desertic (arid) soils, latosolic soils, and soils of mountains. Each zone generally has similar processes of horizon differentiation prevailing over it and many kinds of soils are present in every zone (Simonson, 1957). 3.3. Other world soil maps Hollsteins (1930) published a schematic world soil map of the scale 1:125 million for the extensive Handbuche der Bodenlehre edited by E. Blank (Fig. 5). Ten years after the last version of Glinka's map, L. I. Prasolov, the Director of the Dokuchaev Soil Institute in Moscow, prepared a 1:50 million soil map of the world for the Big Soviet Atlas of the World (Prasolov, 1937). It was the rst world map completely based on the map of continents and regions of larger scales. The map had a more extensive legend than the previous ones. A characteristic of this map was a broad usage of landscape and land use names in the legend, such as forest, meadow, and desert soils (Rozanov, 1977); this legend inuenced the development of soil classication in Russia for several decades. 4. World soil maps based on soil survey generalizations 4.1. World soil maps from 1960 to 1980 A number of world soil maps were produced between the 1960s and 1980s. Colored soil maps of all continents of the world at a scale 1:80 million were produced by R. Ganssen and F. Hdrich from Freiburg, Germany (Ganssen and Hdrich, 1965). In the United Kingdom, Bridges (1970) included a small map (1:100 million) in his textbook on the world soils. Several world soil maps were produced in the Former Soviet Union. National and regional maps served as the base for the world maps, and expert knowledge was used for countries and areas for which there were few or no maps. Generally, these maps reected the rules of spatial distribution of soils. Firstly, a series of world maps was prepared by I. P. Gerasimov for the geographical atlases (Karavaeva and Gerasimova, 2005). A map at the scale 1:60 million was prepared for the World Geographical Congress in Stockholm in 1960, and then the map was further improved for the physico-geographical atlas of the world (Karavaeva and Gerasimova, 2005). The most important (due to a relatively coarse scale) map

Fig. 2. Soil map of the Northern Hemisphere (Dokoutchaev, 1899) prepared by Dokuchaev for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900.

12 krasnozem of tropical and subtropical deserts, 13 desert crusts of subtropical deserts, 14 vertical zones of mountainous regions, 15 large lakes, 16 bog soils, 17 sands of the deserts, 18 solonetz, and 19 dark soils of tropical savannas. Glinka had extensive knowledge on distribution of soils. Since 1906 he was the Head of Soil Survey of the so-called Resettlement Administration, which had been created for the study of land resources of Siberia and Far East of Russia. He organized more than 100 eld expeditions to these remote areas and took part in some of them. Glinka was much more involved in the international community of soil scientists than Dokuchaev; he attended the First Agrogeological Congress in Budapest in 1909 and corresponded with many European soil scientists. The world soil maps in the next edition of the textbook published in 1915, had not been improved and the number of soil groups in the legend was reduced (Table 2). This edition was of major importance for the distribution of the ideas of the Russian soil science school around the world: its shortened version was translated into German by H. Stremme, and then from German into English by C. Marbut (Glinka, 1937). Glinka had already updated information about the global distribution of climates which explained the longitudinal distribution of soils in Northern America. However, it seems unlikely that he had received soil information from the United States. The last version of Glinka's map was presented at the First World Congress of Soil Science in Washington in 1927. This map includes information derived by soil survey in different parts of the globe (Rozanov, 1977). Glinka showed a map at the scale 1:30 million at the Congress, but only a map at a scale 1:82 million was published

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Fig. 3. Glinka's schematic soil map of the world at a scale of 1:80 million (published in Glinka, 1908).

of this period was the 1:10 million Soil Map of the World by V.A. Kovda, G.V. Dobrovolski and E.V. Lobova (Kovda et al., 1974). Another example was the World Soil Map for Higher School edited by Glazovskaya and Fridland (1982). These maps differed in the content and organization of their legends: the map by Kovda et al. emphasized geochemistry and soil hydromorphism, whereas the map by Glazovskaya and Fridland emphasized geochemical regionalization and temperature regimes (Rozanov, 1977).

In the USA the only world soil map during this period was the map in the Buckman and Brady's textbook on soil science by Ackerson et al. (1968). 4.2. Papadakis map In 1964 the soil geographer, J. Papadakis, published a book Soils of the World that contained maps for all countries of the world

Table 2 World soil maps published between 1906 and 2006 (modied after Rozanov, 1977). Year of publication 1906 1915 1927 1930 1937 1957 1960 1968 1964 1970 19711975 1972 1974 1982 2006 Author(s) Glinka Glinka Glinka Hollsteins Prasolov Simonson Gerasimov Ackerson et al. Papadakis Bridges FAOUNESCO USDA Soil Survey Kovda et al. Glazovskaya and Fridland USDA Scale 1:80 million 1.80 million 1:82 million 1:125 million 1:50 million no scale 1:60 million 1:50 million 1:4 to 1:20 million 1:100 million 1:5 million 1:50 million 1:10 million 1:15 million 1:130 million Map name Schematic soil map of the globe Schematic soil map of the globe Schematic soil map of the globe Soil map of the world Soil map of the world Schematic world soil map Soil map of the world Soils of the world Major soil regions of the world Soil map of the world Soil map of the world Soils of the world: the distribution of orders and major suborders Soil map of the world Soil map of the world for higher school Global soil regions Number of major units in the legend 18 15 15 14 30 6 93 117 238 11 106 43 293 79 12

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(Papadakis, 1964, 1969). The maps were at a scale of about 1:10 million and the legend was based on soil horizon diagnostics. Like Simonson (1957), Papadakis recognized six broad soil regions: podsolic regions (P), cinnamonic regions (C), chernozemic regions (Ch), kaolinitic regions (K), deserts (D), and mountains (M) (Fig. 6). For each region a prevalent process, vegetation and other characteristic were dened as well as an assessment of the agricultural potential. It was published as a new map, and not as a compilation of national or regional soil maps. 4.3. FAOUNESCO soil map of the world At the 7th World Congress of Soil Science in Madison, USA in 1960, continental and regional maps were presented for South America, Africa South of the Sahara, Asia, the Eastern part of Europe, Southwest Africa and some national maps at scales ranging from 1:5 to 1:10 million. During the meeting, the International Society of Soil Science (ISSS, now International Union of Soil Sciences, IUSS) recommended that an attempt be made to harmonize and synthesize the knowledge acquired on the soils of the world (Dudal and Batisse, 1978). Following that recommendation, an advisory panel met in 1961 at the headquarters of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations in Rome. The panel laid the base for the preparation of an international legend, the organization of eld correlation, and the selection of the topographic base for the soil map of the world. The six objectives of the Soil Map of The World were to (i) make a rst appraisal of the world's soil resources; (ii) supply a scientic base for the transfer of experience between areas with similar environments; (iii) promote the establishment of a generally accepted soil classication system and nomenclature; (iv) establish a common framework for more detailed investigations in developing areas; (v) prepare a document for educational, research, and development activities, and (vi) strengthen international contacts in the eld of

soil science. On behalf of the FAO, the project was coordinated by D.L. Bramo (19611968), L.D. Swindale (19681970) and R. Dudal (from 1970). As a rst step over 10,000 maps, reports and explanatory documents were collected and assembled with the help of soil specialists, national and private geographical institutes, and governments. The maps were highly diverse in format, scale, projection, terminology, and language. There were large gaps in the mapped areas, and FAO staff carried out eld soil surveys in many of these parts of the world between 1961 and 1972. Difcult compromises had to be reached between the different schools of thought and in 1966 general agreement was reached on the principles of the legend. The rst draft of the map was presented at the 9th World Congress of Soil Science in Adelaide, Australia in 1968. The topographic base chosen was from the American Geographical Society at a scale of 1:5 million and the world was divided into 18 sheets. The maps contain over 5000 mapping units which consisted of soil units or associations of soil units occurring within the soil limits of a mappable physiographic entity (Dudal and Batisse, 1978). Heterogeneous mapping units were depicted with dominant and associated soils (> 20% of the area). The legend of the Soil Map of the World had 106 soil units which reected the general processes of soil formation and included the topsoil texture of the dominant soil type (coarse, medium, ne), dominant slope class (08%, 830%, >30%) and soil phase if present (e.g. saline, sodic, petrocalcic). In 1978 the last map sheets were printed and 10 explanatory volumes were published (Fig. 7). From the beginning of the FAOUNESCO project, it was foreseen that soil science would be the immediate and direct beneciary of the World Soil Map. Although the maps could not be used for development projects at the local level, they did provide a framework for further research. However, the most important result was the establishment of a commonly accepted approach to soil classication and nomenclature. The map has been widely used in education; it has

Fig. 4. Map of the world showing six broad soil zones (Simonson, 1957).

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Fig. 5. Hollsteins, (1930) schematic world soil map (scale 1:125 million) from the Handbuche der Bodenlehre edited by E. Blank.

also been used for the assessment of desertication, delineation of major agro-ecological zones, evaluation of global land degradation, calculation of population carrying capacity, creation of a world reference base for soil resources, and the creation of a digital global Soils and Terrain Database (SOTER) that was initiated by the ISSS in 1986. The Soil Map of the World has been recognized as one of the most important initiatives of the ISSS (van Baren et al., 2000). The maps were scanned and digitized in vector format in 1984, and in 1991 the ofcial FAO digitized Soil Map of the World became available followed by 30 30 and 5 5 grid maps in 1995 and 1996 (Nachtergaele, 2002). The map contained the different soil units and their percentages in each cell with derived soil properties. In 2003 a map was produced that showed the world distribution of soil groupings based on the world reference base for soil resources (Fig. 8).

soil climates. Also a 1:5 million map of soil Suborders is available at the USDA web site (Eswaran and Reich, 2005). 4.5. GlobalSoilMap At the end of 2nd Global Workshop on Digital Soil Mapping in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2006, the suggestion was made that the IUSS Working Group initiate a project for the development of a global raster map of soil properties. At the workshop, several soil property maps were presented from all over the world, but there was a need to integrate the work and prepare a common product and with accepted standards. In addition, it was realized that the existing soil map of the world and its derivates (SOTER, HWSD, e-SOTER) were based on soil surveys and technology from the 1960s. Since that time, a wealth of new soil information had become available (Nachtergaele, 2002). In December 2006 the rst meeting was held at Columbia University in New York, and decisions were made on the resolution of the map, the organizational structure (nodes), the use of soil legacy data, and the key soil properties that were to be mapped. The GlobalSoilMap project was ofcially launched in 2009. The overall aim of the project is to produce world soil maps of soil properties (Hartemink et al., 2010). The project will deliver primary soil data in a form that will meet the demands of a broad range of users including governments, natural resource managers, educational institutions, planners, researchers, and agriculturalists. The online system will provide access to the best available soil and land resource information in a consistent format across the globe the level of detail and reliability will depend on the survey coverage and eld data available in each region (Sanchez et al., 2009). The project has two principal objectives (i) to compile the digital soil property map and (ii) to provide a soil information system for

4.4. USDA map of global soil regions Soil Taxonomy was developed through a series of approximations resulting in the seventh approximation in 1960, followed by publication of the rst edition in 1975 (Soil Survey Staff, 1975) and a second edition in 1999 (Soil Survey Staff, 1999). Soil maps were produced with each new version of the classication system. The maps based on the seventh approximation and the rst edition of Soil Taxonomy displayed 10 soil orders. The map published in the second edition of Soil Taxonomy is at a scale of 1:7.5 million and shows two additional soil orders (andisols and gelisols) that were added between 1975 and 1999. In 2006 a global map using the 12 orders of Soil Taxonomy was presented at the 18th World Congress of Soil Science in 2006 (Fig. 8). The map was derived by overlapping the reclassied FAO world soil map and the map of

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Fig. 6. Part of the Europe map of the soils of the world by Papadakis (1969).

Fig. 7. Parts of the European maps: Kovda et al. (1974)1:10 million (left), Glazovskaya and Fridland (1982) 1:15 million (middle), and FAOUNESCO (1981) 1:5 million (right).

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Fig. 8. World soil maps based on FAO-EC-ISRIC, (2003) and Eswaran and Reich, (2005).

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the global scientic community that could be used for modeling and evaluation studies and for improved policy making at all levels of governance. Although GlobalSoilMap is a bottom-up structured project, a global consortium was formed with coordinating institutes (nodes) and centers in each continent. GlobalSoilMap will also provide users with an estimate of the uncertainty of each attribute for each grid cell. In the longer term, new sources of data will feed automatically into GlobalSoilMap and the uncertainties for attributes will decrease. Thus far, several countries have produced national soil property maps (e.g. Australia, USA, South Korea, Denmark, Chile), whereas several other countries are working on regional soil property maps. 5. Discussion and conclusions 5.1. Change of concepts and mapping Soil maps reect the spatial distribution of soils. Soil maps of various scales served different purposes in the past: large-scale maps assisted in tax assessment, the selection of the type of land management, fertilizer application and soil conservation for particular farms,

whereas small-scale maps depicted the soil distribution on the Earth surface just like we have geologic, climatic and vegetation maps. The development of pedology is closely linked with the development of soil mapping, and the mapping of soils followed the basic understanding of soil properties, processes and soil formation (Brevik and Hartemink, in press). Dokuchaev (1883) developed his theory of soil formation while mapping the chernozems of Russia. For example, one of the rst maps he made was a map of organic matter content in the soils of European Russia (Fig. 9). The map showed the areas with the organic matter content within a certain range and resembled the approach of the isotherm map of Alexander von Humboldt. Later on Dokuchaev mapped soil groups rather than soil properties and wondered whether there were rules for the spatial distribution of soil groups and their properties. From his experience in mapping for land evaluation purposes and for the project on the prevention of desertication, he perceived that the pattern of soils in the Russian Plain mainly depended on the climate. Dokuchaev extrapolated his ndings for the whole world and published a map of soil zones of the Northern Hemisphere in 1899 and as the data on the world soils were insufcient a soil-geographical concept was

Fig. 9. Dokuchaev's map of humus content in soils of the European part of Russia (Dokuchaev, 1883).

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developed. During the beginning of the 20th century, there was a discussion in Russia between the followers of V. Dokuchaev and G. F. Nefedov, who stated that soil should be shown by a complex of maps that shows the geographical distribution and the degree of expression of each feature and property separately (Nefedov, 1908). The nal map should represent the areas occupied by soils having uniform or similar properties. Nefedov argued that the properties varied within a wide range for any soil group, and thus the map of soil taxa has little value for practical purposes; he tried the method at a farm and regional scale. His views were not supported by his contemporaries, and at that time there was not enough data for relating separate properties to the known gradients of soil-forming factors. Thus, these maps could be derived only from direct measurements of soil properties. Any map of global coverage had to be based on a certain soil mapping principle; otherwise no extrapolation was possible. The proportion of the content derived from the real data and from conceptual speculation varies in different world soil maps. Soil maps have evolved from being based on theoretical concept to maps that considered soil surveys and eld soil data. Currently, we are facing a challenge to make a global map of soil properties on the next turn of a helix of scientic development. Do we have enough data to provide formal interpolation of these properties to the unsampled areas for the whole globe? For many parts of the world we have sparse data that do not allow for high resolution soil property mapping and uncertainties will be high that may provoke new investments in soil survey and mapping. The second question is if we are ready to develop regional quantitative predictive models for particular soil properties? Much research has been done and is in progress now to develop quantitative models for predicting soil properties (McBratney et al., 2003). In our view, the soil property maps may eventually evolve to new class maps for the entire world.

adjacent geographical database. The shape and framework of such a global classication are under construction (Golden et al., 2010). Will paper soil maps of the world disappear? In the modern scientic world, a soil map of the world is not only a tool for the inventory of soil resources but it is also a convenient mean of educating students. The laws of soil geography are easy to teach using a world soil map even if such maps are depicted on a computer screen or tablet. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank professors Marina Stroganova, Hans-Peter Blume, Dick Arnold and the late Emeritus Professor Gleb Dobrovolski for their valuable advice on the history of soil mapping. Professor Eric Brevik and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for their comments and suggestions to improve this paper. References
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5.2. Future We live in an era of globalization with issues crossing national, international and continental boundaries. Hence we need global information on soil resources. Globally, about two-thirds of the countries have soil maps at a 1:1 million scale or ner, but over two thirds of the total land area has yet to be mapped even at a 1:1 million scale (Nachtergaele and Van Ranst, 2003). Many soil surveys were conducted after World War II and up to the 1980s. Systematic soil mapping more or less stopped in Australia, in the United Kingdom, in The Netherlands, in the Russian Federation and in several other countries. There are large differences among countries not only in the status of mapped areas (extent, scale) but also in the status of scanning and digitizing existing information and combining it with other data layers to produce digital soil maps (McBratney et al., 2003). In many cases electronic soil maps are scanned and digitized copies of the paper maps developed in 19601980s (Rukhovich et al., 2011; Simakova et al., 2012). It is debatable whether national soil survey institutes will undertake detailed national soil mapping that was common in many countries during the 19601980s. Thus, digital soil mapping with reasonable eld verication is a viable option for the future. The idea of Nefedov (1908) to overlap the maps of properties to produce a consolidated map of homogeneous soil taxa may be fullled. On a global scale, the use of the layers of particular soil characteristics may provide a basis for a taxonomic or soil class map. Such a map would be based on the distribution of soils rather than on the scientic speculations of soil geographers. The use of electronic maps would probably allow relieving soil classication from the unnecessary functions to include all possible information in a single soil name, depicted on a map. Future soil classication would be simple and logical, while the list of properties and attributes of a particular prole or polygon will be available in an

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