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Soil and Landscape Grid National Soil Attribute Maps - Bulk Density - Whole Earth - Release 2

This is Version 2 of the Australian Soil Bulk Density - Whole Earth product of the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia.<br></br>


It supersedes the Release 1 product that can be found at <a href=" https://doi.org/10.4225/08/546EE212B0048 "> https://doi.org/10.4225/08/546EE212B0048 </a><br></br>


The map gives a modelled estimate of the spatial distribution of Bulk Density in soils across Australia.<br></br>


<p>The Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia has produced a range of digital soil attribute products. Each product contains six digital soil attribute maps, and their upper and lower confidence limits, representing the soil attribute at six depths: 0-5&nbsp;cm, 5-15&nbsp;cm, 15-30&nbsp;cm, 30-60&nbsp;cm, 60-100&nbsp;cm and 100-200&nbsp;cm. These depths are consistent with the specifications of the GlobalSoilMap.net project - <a href=" https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SLGA/Resources/GlobalSoilMap_specifications_december_2015_2.pdf ">GlobalSoilMaps</a>.

The digital soil attribute maps are in raster format at a resolution of 3 arc sec (~90 x 90&nbsp;m pixels).<br></br>


Detailed information about the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia can be found at - <a href=" https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SLGA/index.html ">SLGA</a><br><br>


<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"><li>Attribute Definition: Bulk Density of the whole soil (including coarse fragments) in mass per unit volume by a method equivalent to the core method;</li>

<li>Units: g/cm3;</li>

<li>Period (temporal coverage; approximately): 1950-2021;</li>

<li>Spatial resolution: 3 arc seconds (approx 90&nbsp;m);</li>

<li>Total number of gridded maps for this attribute: 18;</li>

<li>Number of pixels with coverage per layer: 2007M (49200 * 40800);</li>

<li>Data license : Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY);</li>

<li>Target data standard: GlobalSoilMap specifications;</li>

<li>Format: Cloud Optimised GeoTIFF.</li></ul>

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
1950-01-01
Date (Publication)
2023-06-19
Date (Revision)
2025-12-10
Edition
2

Identifier

Title
DataCite
Code
doi:10.25919/gxyn-pd07
Codespace
http://dx.doi.org

Publisher

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Author

CSIRO Environment - Malone, Brendan ()
Clunies Ross Street, Black Mountain, 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Black Mountain
Australian Capital Territory
2601
Australia

Collaborator

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, 6014, Western Australia, Australia
Floreat
Western Australia
6014
Australia

Collaborator

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia
Indooroopilly
Queensland
4068
Australia

Collaborator

University of Sydney
City Road, Camperdown, New South Wales, 2050, Australia
Camperdown
New South Wales
2050
Australia

Collaborator

Geoscience Australia
101 Jerrabomberra Avenue, Symonston, 2609, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Symonston
Australian Capital Territory
2609
Australia

Collaborator

Department of Land Resource Management (2012-2016), Northern Territory Government
25 Chung Wah Terrace, Palmerston, Northern Territory, 0830, Australia
Palmerston
Northern Territory
0830
Australia

Collaborator

Office of Environment and Heritage (2011-2019), New South Wales
4 Parramatta Square, 12 Darcy Street, Parramatta, 2150, New South Wales, Australia
Parramatta
New South Wales
2150
Australia

Collaborator

Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts (2012-2015), Queensland Government
400 George Street, Brisbane, Queensland, 4000, Australia
Brisbane
Queensland
4000
Australia

Collaborator

Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (2012-2018), South Australian Government
81-95 Waymouth Street, Adelaide, South Australia, 5000, Australia
Adelaide
South Australia
5000
Australia

Collaborator

Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, Tasmanian Government
59 Liverpool Street, Hobart, Tasmania, 7000, Australia
Hobart
Tasmania
7000
Australia

Collaborator

Department of Environment and Primary Industries (2013-2015), Victorian Government
8 Nicholson Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Melbourne
Victoria
3000
Australia

Collaborator

Department of Agriculture and Food (2006-2017), Western Australian Government
3 Baron-Hay Court South Perth Western Australia 6151, Australia
South Perth
Western Australia
6151
Australia
Website
https://www.tern.org.au/

Purpose
The map gives a modelled estimate of the spatial distribution of Bulk Density in soils across Australia.<br> The aim is to operate an open national capability that provides access to verified, science-quality land surface dynamics data and soils information layers, plus high-end data analytics tools that integrated with other TERN observations can meet the needs of ecosystem researchers and actionable information for policy makers and natural resource managers.<br>
Credit
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Credit
<p></p>This work was jointly funded by CSIRO, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) and the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).<br> We are grateful to the custodians of the soil site data in each state and territory for providing access to the soil site data, and all of the organisations listed as collaborating agencies for their significant contributions to the project and its outcomes.<br>
Status
Completed

Point of contact

CSIRO Environment - Malone, Brendan ()
Clunies Ross Street, Black Mountain, 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Clunies Ross Street
Black Mountain
Australian Capital Territory
2601
Australia
Topic category
  • Environment
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

N
S
E
W


Temporal extent

Time period
1950-01-01 2023-06-01
Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned
GCMD Science Keywords
  • LAND SURFACE
  • AGRICULTURE
  • SOIL BULK DENSITY
ANZSRC Fields of Research
  • Soil sciences
  • Agricultural land management
  • Agricultural spatial analysis and modelling
TERN Parameter Vocabulary
  • soil bulk density
  • Gram per Cubic Centimetre
QUDT Units of Measure
  • Gram per Cubic Centimetre
GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
  • 30 meters - < 100 meters
GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
  • Decadal
Keywords (Discipline)
  • TERN_Soils
  • TERN_Soils_DSM
  • Soil
  • TERN
  • Raster
  • Attribute
  • Bulk Density
  • Continental
  • DSM
  • Global Soil Map
  • Spatial modelling
  • 3-dimensional soil mapping
  • Spatial uncertainty
  • Soil Maps
  • Digital Soil Mapping
  • SLGA

Resource constraints

Use limitation
The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
File name
88x31.png
File description
CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
File type
png
Linkage
https://w3id.org/tern/static/cc-by/88x31.png

Title
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
Alternate title
CC-BY
Edition
4.0
Website
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints
TERN services are provided on an "as-is" and "as available" basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. <br />Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN. <br /><br />Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting
Other constraints
Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}.

Resource constraints

Classification
Unclassified

Distribution Information

Distribution format

Distributor

Distributor

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia
Indooroopilly
Queensland
4068
Australia
OnLine resource
Cloud Optimised GeoTIFFs - Bulk Density, Release 2

OnLine resource
Landscape Data Visualiser - Bulk Density, Release 2

OnLine resource
BDW_v2

SLGA Bulk Density - v2

OnLine resource
BDW_v2

SLGA Bulk Density - v2

OnLine resource
ro-crate-metadata.json

Distribution Information

Distribution format

Distributor

Distributor

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, 6014, Western Australia, Australia
Floreat
Western Australia
6014
Australia
OnLine resource
File Naming Conventions

Resource lineage

Statement
An attempt was made to update digital soil mapping of whole soil bulk density for Australia. This was an update of first attempt by Viscarra Rossel et al. (2014). Based on model evaluations using a dataset not included in any modelling, the updated version (2nd Version) represents a demonstrable improvement on the 1st version.<br></br> Since the first version, more measured site data has been made available and retrievable via the Australian SoilDataFederator. In 2014 there were 3776 sites with measured whole soil bulk density. For the new update, 6116 sites had measured data. Because of usually strong empirical relationships between bulk density, soil texture and soil carbon, the use of pedotransfer functions (to predict bulk density from soil texture and soil carbon) was performed with the intention of increasing data density and spatial coverage of data that would ultimately improve digital soil mapping prediction skill. This added a further 15735 sites after building a spatial pedotransfer function using a dataset of 12308 cases (3939 sites with bulk density, soil carbon and soil texture data).<br></br> The basic steps of the work entailed:<br><br> <ul style="list-style-type: disc;"><li>Use soil data federator to get pertinent soils observation data.</li> <li>Develop spatial pedotransfer function prediction whole soil bulk density using soil carbon and texture data.</li> <li>Compile measured and inferred whole soil bulk density data (86306 cases), then setting aside a dataset of 7500 cases for external model evaluation.</li> <li>Predictive models using random forest algorithm with 78806 data cases fitted. To account for uncertainties in pedotransfer function inferred data, Monte Carlo simulations were performed from the pedotransfer function model. Simulation was repeated 100 times.</li> <li>Predictive model uncertainties quantified using UNEEC approach (Uncertainty Estimation based on local errors and Clustering).</li> <li>Quantification of model extension limits derived using hybrid method involving multivariate convex hull analysis and count of observations.</li> <li>Digital soil maps with quantified uncertainties (5th and 95th prediction interval limits) and assessment of model extrapolation risk were produced at 90&nbsp;m resolution for the following depths: 0-5&nbsp;cm, 5-15&nbsp;cm, 15-30&nbsp;cm, 30-60&nbsp;cm, 60-100&nbsp;cm, 100-200&nbsp;cm.</li><br> All processing for the generation of these products was undertaken using the R programming language (R Core Team, 2020).<br> <ul style="list-style-type: disc;"><li>Code - https://github.com/AusSoilsDSM/SLGA</li> <li>Observation data - https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SoilDataFederator/SoilDataFederator.html</li> <li>Covariate rasters - https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SLGA/GetData-COGSDataStore.html</li>
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Title
Malone, B. P., Minansy, B., & Brungard, C. (2019). Some methods to improve the utility of conditioned Latin hypercube sampling. PeerJ, 7, e6451. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6451
Website
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6451

Method documentation

Title
Methods Summary for modelling of Whole Soil Bulk Density
Website
https://aussoilsdsm.esoil.io/slga-version-2-products/whole-soil-bulk-density

Method documentation

Title
R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
Website
https://www.r-project.org/

Method documentation

Title
Searle, R., Malone, B., Wilford, J., Austin, J., Ware, C., Webb, M., Roman Dobarco, M., Van Niel, T., (2022). TERN Digital Soil Mapping Raster Covariate Stacks. v2. CSIRO. Data Collection. https://doi.org/10.25919/jr32-yq58
Website
https://doi.org/10.25919/jr32-yq58

Method documentation

Title
van den Hoogen, J., Robmann, N., Routh, D., Lauber, T., van Tiel, N., Danylo, O., & Crowther, T.W., (2021). A geospatial mapping pipeline for ecologists. bioRxiv 2021.07.07.451145
Website
https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.07.451145

Method documentation

Title
Viscarra Rossel, R., Chen, C., Grundy, M., Searle, R., Clifford, D., Odgers, N., Holmes, K., Griffin, T., Liddicoat, C., & Kidd, D.,(2014). Soil and Landscape Grid National Soil Attribute Maps - Bulk Density - Whole Earth (3" resolution) - Release 1. v6. CSIRO. Data Collection. https://doi.org/10.4225/08/546EE212B0048
Website
https://doi.org/10.4225/08/546EE212B0048

Method documentation

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/EPSG:4326

Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 2D

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/95978aec-6ba8-446b-a721-2b875d9f61a8

Title
TERN GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Point of contact

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Type of resource

Resource scope
Dataset
Metadata linkage
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/95978aec-6ba8-446b-a721-2b875d9f61a8

Point-of-truth metadata URL

Date info (Creation)
2024-07-18T00:00:00.000000+00:00
Date info (Revision)
2025-12-10T10:08:59.827920+00:00

Metadata standard

Title
ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
Edition
1

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
Edition
1.0

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
Edition
1.0
Title
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
Date (published)
2021
Edition
1.0

Identifier

Code
10.5281/zenodo.5652221
Website
https://github.com/ternaustralia/TERN-ISO19115/releases/tag/v1.0

 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

ANZSRC Fields of Research
Agricultural land management Agricultural spatial analysis and modelling Soil sciences
GCMD Science Keywords
AGRICULTURE LAND SURFACE SOIL BULK DENSITY

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