I haven't listened to the podcast.

There is a world map of soils. I'm staring at it as I type. Granted it shows soil orders, not types. So, it's very coarse compared to SSURGO, available in the US.

Like Dylan said, in order to map the world at the scale we have in the US. It would take a very long time.

As for the link on soil mapping. The DSM, in particular SoLIM is a great tool to aid traditional mapping. It has issues, like, in areas with little to no slope. The output is ok, not great. It's seems to work better in areas with alot of slope or variations of slopes.

One great thing about DSM, the soil line output is raster. Traditional soil surveys have been vector. With raster, the "real-world" can be more accurately represented than using vector. It is very, very, very rare to have a definite boundary between soils.

At least here in the US. Approx 95% of private land has been "gone over" at least once. While there are significant areas of public land which still need to be “gone over” once. The DSM will be a great tool to assist first time “go overs” or even updating the done areas. Especially with the continued decrease in funding and man-power.

And another thing about DSM. It helps take the “human element” out of soils mapping. Potentially one soil scientists can map a particular area differently than another soil scientists.


KoS