Soil and Landscape Grid National Soil Attribute Maps - Organic Carbon (1" resolution) - Release 1
This is Version1 of the Australian Soil Organic Carbon product of the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia at 30 m resolution.<br /><br />
The map gives a modeled estimate of the spatial distribution of total organic carbon 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 cm, 5-15 cm, 15-30 cm, 30-60 cm, 60-100 cm and 100-200 cm. These depths are consistent with the specifications of the GlobalSoilMap.net project- https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SLGA/Resources/GlobalSoilMap_specifications_december_2015_2.pdf . The digital soil attribute maps are in raster format at a resolution of 3 arc sec (~90 x 90 m pixels).</p>
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: Mass fraction of carbon by weight in the < 2 mm soil material as determined by dry combustion at 900 Celsius;</li>
<li>Units: %;</li>
<li>Period (temporal coverage; approximately): 1970-2021;</li>
<li>Spatial resolution: 1 arc seconds (approx 30 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>Target data standard: GlobalSoilMap specifications;</li>
<li>Format: Cloud Optimised GeoTIFF.</li></ul>
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2022-07-27
- Date (Publication)
- 2022-10-31
- Date (Revision)
- 2025-12-10
- Edition
- 1.0
Identifier
Publisher
Author
University of Sydney - Wadoux, Alexandre ()
City Road, Camperdown, New South Wales, 2050, Australia
Camperdown
New South Wales
2050
Australia
Co-author
Sydney Institute of Agriculture, University of Sydney - Dobarco, Mercedes ()
380 Werombi Road, Camden, New South Wales, 2570, Australia
Camden
New South Wales
2570
Australia
Co-author
CSIRO Land and Water (2014-2022) - Malone, Brendan ()
147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, 6014, Western Australia, Australia
Floreat
Western Australia
6014
Australia
Co-author
Sydney Institute of Agriculture, University of Sydney - Minasny, Budiman ()
380 Werombi Road, Camden, New South Wales, 2570, Australia
Camden
New South Wales
2570
Australia
Co-author
Sydney Institute of Agriculture, University of Sydney - McBratney, Alex (Director - Sydney Institute of Agriculture, Professor of Digital Agriculture & Soil Science)
380 Werombi Road, Camden, New South Wales, 2570, Australia
Camden
New South Wales
2570
Australia
Co-author
CSIRO Agriculture and Food - Searle, Ross (Senior Experimental Scientist)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
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 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.
- 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
University of Sydney - Wadoux, Alexandre ()
City Road, Camperdown, New South Wales, 2050, Australia
City Road
Camperdown
New South Wales
2050
Australia
Spatial resolution
- Spatial resolution
- 30
- Topic category
-
- Environment
- Geoscientific information
Extent
N
S
E
W
))
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 1970-01-01 2022-07-27
- Title
- Wadoux, A. M. J. C., Román Dobarco, M., Malone, B., Minasny, B., McBratney, A. B., & Searle, R. (2023). Baseline high-resolution maps of organic carbon content in Australian soils. Scientific Data 2023 10:1, 10(1), 1–10.
- Website
-
Wadoux, A. M. J. C., Román Dobarco, M., Malone, B., Minasny, B., McBratney, A. B., & Searle, R. (2023). Baseline high-resolution maps of organic carbon content in Australian soils. Scientific Data 2023 10:1, 10(1), 1–10.
Related documentation
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
- GCMD Science Keywords
- ANZSRC Fields of Research
- TERN Parameter Vocabulary
- QUDT Units of Measure
- GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
- GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
- Keywords (Discipline)
-
- TERN_Soils
- TERN_Soils_DSM
- Raster
- Attributes
- Continental
- Australia
- DSM
- Global Soil Map
- spatial modelling
- 3-dimensional soil mapping
- spatial uncertainty
- Soil Maps
- Digital Soil Mapping
- SLGA
- Organic Carbon
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
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
- CC-BY
- Edition
- 4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- <br></br>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. 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 <br><br> 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
-
SOC_30m_v1
SLGA Organic Carbon (1" resolution) - Release 1
- 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 Convention
Resource lineage
- Statement
- Data on total organic carbon (TOC) concentration (%) was extracted with the Soil Data Federator- https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SoilDataFederator/SoilDataFederatorHelp.html managed by CSIRO. The Soil Data Federator is a web API that compiles soil data from different institutions and government agencies throughout Australia. The laboratory methods for total organic carbon included in the study are 6A1, 6A1_UC, 6B2, 6B2b, 6B3, 6B3a. We selected TOC data from the period 1970-2020 to get a compromise between representativity of current TOC concentration and spatial coverage. The data was cleaned and processed to harmonize units, exclude duplicates and potentially wrong data entries (e.g. missing upper or lower horizon depths, extreme TOC values, unknown sampling date). Additional TOC measurements from the Biome of Australian Soil Environments (BASE) contextual data (Bisset et al., 2016) were also included in the analyses. TOC concentration for BASE samples was determined by the Walkley-Black method (method 6A1). Upper limits for TOC concentration by biome and land cover classes were set according to published literature, consistent datasets (Australian national Soil Carbon Research Program (SCaRP) and BASE, and data exploration to exclude unrealistic TOC values (e.g. maximum TOC = 30% in temperate forests, maximum TOC = 14% in temperate rainfed pasture). Since TOC concentration in Australian ecosystems has been underestimated by previous SOC maps, we did not set conservative TOC upper limits, knowing that machine learning model would likely underestimate high SOC values.<br></br> <p>The equal-area quadratic spline function were fitted to the whole collection of pre-processed TOC data, and then values extracted for the 0-5 cm, 5-15 cm, 15-30 cm, 30-60 cm, 60-100 cm, and 100-200 cm depth intervals, following GlobalSoilMap specifications (Arrouays et al., 2014) Boxplots with TOC values by biome and land cover after data cleaning and depth standardization are shown in Figure 1.</p> <p>Covariates: We collected a set of 57 spatially exhaustive environmental covariates covering Australia and representing proxies for factors influencing SOC formation and spatial distribution: soil properties, climate, organisms/vegetation, relief and parent material/age. The covariates were re-projected to WGS84 (EPSG:4326) projection and cropped to the same spatial extent. All covariates were resampled using billinear interpolation or aggregated to conform with a spatial resolution with grid cell of 90 m x 90 m.</p> Mapping: The spatial distribution of soil TOC concentration is driven by the combined influence of climate, vegetation, relief and parent materials. We thus modelled TOC concentration as a function of environmental covariates representing biotic and abiotic control of TOC. The measurement of SOC and their corresponding value of environmental covariate at same measurement locations were used to fit the mapping model. For the mapping we used a machine learning model called quantile regression forest.<br></br> <p>Mapping is made with Quantile regression forest, which is similar to the popular random forest algorithm for mapping. Instead of obtaining a single statistic, that is the mean prediction from the decision trees in the random forest, we report all the target values of the leaf node of the decision trees. With QRF, the prediction is thus not a single value but a cumulative distribution of the TOC prediction at each location, which can be used to compute empirical quantile estimates.</p> All processing for the generation of these products was undertaken using the R programming language. R Core Team (2020).<br></br> <ul style="list-style-type: disc;"><li>Code - <a href="https://github.com/AusSoilsDSM/SLGA">https://github.com/AusSoilsDSM/SLGA</a></li> <li>Observation data - <a href="https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SoilDataFederator/SoilDataFederator.html">https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SoilDataFederator/SoilDataFederator.html></a></li> <li>Covariate rasters - <a href="https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SLGA/GetData-COGSDataStore.html">https://esoil.io/TERNLandscapes/Public/Pages/SLGA/GetData-COGSDataStore.html</a></li></ul>
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Title
- Methods Summary - Total Soil Organic Carbon Content
- Website
-
https://aussoilsdsm.esoil.io/slga-version-2-products/total-soil-organic-carbon-content
Method documentation
- Title
- Arrouays, D., McBratney, A. B., Minasny, B., Hempel, J. W., Heuvelink, G. B. M., MacMillan, R. A., ... & McKenzie, N. J. (2014). The GlobalSoilMap project specifications. GlobalSoilMap: Basis of the global spatial soil information system, 9-12.
- Website
-
https://www.fao.org/3/br957e/br957e.pdf
Method documentation
- Title
- R Core Team (2020). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria
- Website
-
https://www.R-project.org/
Method documentation
- Title
- Bissett, A., Fitzgerald, A., Meintjes, T., Mele, P. M., Reith, F., Dennis, P. G., ... & Young, A. (2016). Introducing BASE: the Biomes of Australian Soil Environments soil microbial diversity database. GigaScience, 5(1), s13742-016.
- Website
-
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13742-016-0126-5
Method documentation
Reference System Information
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG/EPSG:4326
- Reference system type
- Geodetic Geographic 2D
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/99220138-019d-4157-abcb-07a3678f0e19
- Title
- TERN GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Point of contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
- Metadata linkage
-
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/99220138-019d-4157-abcb-07a3678f0e19
Point-of-truth metadata URL
- Date info (Creation)
- 2021-08-10T00:00:00.000000+00:00
- Date info (Revision)
- 2025-12-10T10:07:44.432635+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
Overviews
thumbnail
Spatial extent
N
S
E
W
Provided by
Associated resources
Not available