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Soil and Landscape Grid National Soil Attribute Maps - Depth of Regolith (3" resolution) - Release 2

This is Version 2 of the Depth of Regolith product of the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia (produced 2015-06-01).<br><br>


The Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia has produced a range of digital soil attribute products. The digital soil attribute maps are in raster format at a resolution of 3 arc sec (~90 x 90&nbsp;m pixels).<br><br>


<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"><li>Attribute Definition: The regolith is the in situ and transported material overlying unweathered bedrock;</li>

<li>Units: metres;</li>

<li>Spatial prediction method: data mining using piecewise linear regression;</li>

<li>Period (temporal coverage; approximately): 1900-2013;</li>

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

<li>Total number of gridded maps for this attribute: 3;</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>Variance explained (cross-validation): R^2 = 0.38;</li>

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

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

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2015-06-01
Date (Publication)
2015-07-29
Date (Revision)
2025-12-10
Edition
2

Identifier

Title
DataCite
Code
doi:10.4225/08/55C9472F05295
Codespace
http://dx.doi.org

Publisher

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

Author

Geoscience Australia - Wilford, John ()
101 Jerrabomberra Avenue, Symonston, 2609, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Symonston
Australian Capital Territory
2609
Australia

Author

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - Searle, Ross (Senior Experimental Scientist)
147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, 6014, Western Australia, Australia
Floreat
Western Australia
6014
Australia

Author

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - Thomas, Mark ()
147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, 6014, Western Australia, Australia
Floreat
Western Australia
6014
Australia

Author

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - Grundy, Mike (Research Director – Soil and Landscapes)
147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, 6014, Western Australia, Australia
Floreat
Western Australia
6014
Australia

Collaborator

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

Collaborator

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

Funder

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

Funder

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

Funder

Australian Government
17 Sir Thomas Blamey Square, Russell, 2600, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Russell
Australian Capital Territory
2600
Australia
Website
https://www.tern.org.au/

Purpose
The Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia is a comprehensive fine spatial resolution grid of functional soil attributes and key landscape features across Australia. The landscape attributes are derived from the data collected by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, whilst the soil attribute surfaces are modelled from existing soils information. These surfaces provide a consistent base upon which a broad range of analyses can be conducted. This provides essential information, not previously available, that is needed for modelling and managing Australian landscapes and ecosystems.
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>
Status
Completed

Point of contact

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - Searle, Ross (Senior Experimental Scientist)
147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, 6014, Western Australia, Australia
147 Underwood Avenue
Floreat
Western Australia
6014
Australia

Spatial resolution

Spatial resolution
90
Topic category
  • Environment
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

Description
Australia
N
S
E
W


Temporal extent

Time period
1900-01-01 2013-12-31
Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned
GCMD Science Keywords
  • SOILS
  • LAND SURFACE
ANZSRC Fields of Research
  • Soil sciences not elsewhere classified
TERN Parameter Vocabulary
  • soil depth
  • Metre
QUDT Units of Measure
  • Metre
GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
  • 30 meters - < 100 meters
GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
  • Decadal
Keywords (Discipline)
  • TERN_Soils
  • TERN_Soils_DSM
  • Raster
  • Continental DSM
  • Global Soil Map
  • Spatial modelling
  • 3-dimensional soil mapping
  • Soil Maps
  • Digital Soil Mapping
  • SLGA
  • DSM
  • visible-near infrared spectroscopy
  • spatial uncertainty

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}.
Other constraints
All Rights (including copyright) CSIRO 2015.

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 - Depth of Regolith, Release 2

OnLine resource
Landscape Data Visualiser - Depth of Regolith, Release 2

OnLine resource
DER_v2

SLGA Depth of Regolith - 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
The methodology consisted of the following steps: (i) drillhole data preparation, (ii) compilation and selection of the environmental covariate raster layers and (iii) model implementation and evaluation.<br><br> Drillhole data preparation:<br> Drillhole data was sourced from the National Groundwater Information System (NGIS) database. This spatial database holds nationally consistent information about bores that were drilled as part of the Bore Construction Licensing Framework (http://www.bom.gov.au/water/groundwater/ngis/). The database contains 357,834 bore locations with associated lithology, bore construction and hydrostratigraphy records. This information was loaded into a relational database to facilitate analysis.<br><br> Regolith depth extraction:<br> The first step was to recognise and extract the boundary between the regolith and bedrock within each drillhole record. This was done using a key word look-up table of bedrock or lithology related words from the record descriptions. 1,910 unique descriptors were discovered. Using this list of new standardised terms analysis of the drillholes was conducted, and the depth value associated with the word in the description that was unequivocally pointing to reaching fresh bedrock material was extracted from each record using a tool developed in C# code.<br><br> The second step of regolith depth extraction involved removal of drillhole bedrock depth records deemed necessary because of the “noisiness” in depth records resulting from inconsistencies we found in drilling and description standards indentified in the legacy database.<br><br> On completion of the filtering and removal of outliers the drillhole database used in the model comprised of 128,033 depth sites.<br><br> Selection and preparation of environmental covariates<br> The environmental correlations style of DSM applies environmental covariate datasets to predict target variables, here regolith depth. Strongly performing environmental covariates operate as proxies for the factors that control regolith formation including climate, relief, parent material organisms and time.<br><br> Depth modelling was implemented using the PC-based R-statistical software (R Core Team, 2014), and relied on the R-Cubist package (Kuhn et al. 2013). To generate modelling uncertainty estimates, the following procedures were followed: (i) the random withholding of a subset comprising 20% of the whole depth record dataset for external validation; (ii) Bootstrap sampling 100 times of the remaining dataset to produce repeated model training datasets, each time. The Cubist model was then run repeated times to produce a unique rule set for each of these training sets. Repeated model runs using different training sets, a procedure referred to as bagging or bootstrap aggregating, is a machine learning ensemble procedure designed to improve the stability and accuracy of the model. The Cubist rule sets generated were then evaluated and applied spatially calculating a mean predicted value (i.e. the final map). The 5% and 95% confidence intervals were estimated for each grid cell (pixel) in the prediction dataset by combining the variance from the bootstrapping process and the variance of the model residuals. Version 2 differs from version 1, in that the modelling of depths was performed on the log scale to better conform to assumptions of normality used in calculating the confidence intervals. The method to estimate the confidence intervals was improved to better represent the full range of variability in the modelling process. (Wilford et al, in press)
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Title
Kuhn, M., Weston, S., Keefer, C., Coulter, N., Quinlan, R. (2013). Package ‘Cubist’: rule- and instance-based regression modelling.
Website
http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Cubist/Cubist.pdf

Method documentation

Title
Team, R. C. (2014). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. 1(1).
Website
https://www.r-project.org/

Method documentation

Title
Wilford, J., & Thomas, M. (2013). Predicting regolith thickness in the complex weathering setting of the central Mt Lofty Ranges, South Australia. Geoderma, 206, 1–13.
Website
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2013.04.002

Method documentation

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/EPSG:4326

Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 2D

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/b078fbe6-daac-4b16-a733-103d758f4554

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/b078fbe6-daac-4b16-a733-103d758f4554

Point-of-truth metadata URL

Date info (Creation)
2024-09-02T00:00:00.000000+00:00
Date info (Revision)
2025-12-10T09:50:28.643415+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
Soil sciences not elsewhere classified
GCMD Science Keywords
LAND SURFACE SOILS

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Associated resources

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