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Soil and Landscape Grid National Soil Attribute Maps - Total Nitrogen (3" resolution) - Release 2

This is Version 2 of the Australian Total Soil Nitrogen product of the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia.<br></br>


It supersedes the Release 1 product that can be found at https://doi.org/10.4225/08/546F564AE11F9 <br></br>


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


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 ( 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&nbsp;m pixels). An additional measure of model reliability is through assessment of model extrapolation risk. This measure provides users a spatial depiction where model estimates are made within the domain of the observed data or not.<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: Total soil nitrogen;</li>

<li>Units: % (percentage of fine soil mass);</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: 24;</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)
2023-11-01
Date (Publication)
2024-01-22
Date (Revision)
2025-12-10
Edition
2

Identifier

Title
DataCite
Code
doi:10.25919/pm2n-ww12
Codespace
http://dx.doi.org

Publisher

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

Author

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

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 total nitrogen 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

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - Malone, Brendan ()
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
1950-01-01 2023-12-01
Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned
GCMD Science Keywords
  • SOILS
  • LAND SURFACE
ANZSRC Fields of Research
  • Agricultural land management
  • Agricultural spatial analysis and modelling
  • Soil sciences
  • Soil sciences not elsewhere classified
TERN Parameter Vocabulary
  • soil total nitrogen content
  • Percent
QUDT Units of Measure
  • Percent
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
  • Nitrogen
  • total soil nitrogen
  • soil nitrogen

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

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

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 - Total Nitrogen, Release 2

OnLine resource
NTO_v2

SLGA Total Nitrogen - v2

OnLine resource
Landscape Data Visualiser - Total Nitrogen, Release 2

OnLine resource
ro-crate-metadata.json

Resource lineage

Statement
A full description of the methods used to generate this product can be found at - https://aussoilsdsm.esoil.io/slga-version-2-products/total-soil-nitrogen<br></br> The first effort to derive national digital soil mapping of total soil nitrogen (expressed as a percentage of fine soil mass) is published and available on the CSIRO Data Access Portal among other places. The present work sought to update this mapping as part of ongoing efforts to expand and improve Australia’s national mapping and characterisation of its soil resources. Collectively these national soil mapping efforts constitute the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia. The original work has been deemed as Version 1 (completed 2015), while the new work logically is Version 2 (completed 2023). This work has been made possible through support and funding from Australia’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) via the Terrestrial and Ecosystem Research Network.<br></br> As with the first effort, digital soil mapping is the underpinning framework for the ultimate creation of soil maps in this instance.<br></br> As with the other more recent national digital soil mapping efforts, the SoilDataFederator (Searle 2020) has been instrumental in the dynamic collation of disparate soil observational datasets from across the country. These data have been sourced mainly from each State and Territory Government departments tasked with soil survey and collection. Plus there are other data contributions from Universities and to a lessor extent individual research groups. The SoilDataFederator also taps into the larger CSIRO developed Natsoil database (CSIRO 2020) which holds the data related to research projects and field stations that CSIRO has managed.<br></br> The improvement in digital soil mapping has come about via several mechanism.<br></br> 1. A huge expansion of the available library of data corresponding to each of the main soil state factors has been made possible (Searle et al. 2022). This is through acquisition of new data sets and improvement of others compared with those used for version 1.<br></br> 2. Adoption of machine learning to derive empirical relationships between target variable (total soil nitrogen content) and various data related to the state factors that help determine and control soil variability across landscapes, here the Australian continent and very nearshore islands. While the adoption of ML is not an entirely new advancement, the coupling of it with additional data, and integration of it within a psedo-3D predictive framework permit an improved ability to spatially and vertically characterise soils than Version 1 did.<br></br> 3. Together with a more powerful and streamlined predictive modelling approach, the quantification of uncertainties draws on the use of the UNEEC (Uncertainty Estimation based on Empirical Errors and Clustering; Shrestha and Solomatine 2006) approach instead of bootstrapping approach so that prediction interval bounds are more custom to the variations in state factor information. Bootstrapping tends to create uniform prediction interval ranges, whereas UNEEC can distinguish areas of relatively lower and higher uncertainties based on differences in soil and landscape characteristics. Therefore, for Version 2, the uncertainties are more custom and tightly defined to the environment they are quantified in.<br></br> 4. An approach to understand and characterise issues of model extrapolation has been developed. This seeks to highlight areas where there is high confidence that models are going be unreliable, because these areas are outside the range of the underpinning data used in modelling. This issue is addressed via combination of data geometric and distance-based techniques.<br></br> The sequence of steps below were carried out to develop the Version 2 products:<br></br> - Prepared point and covariate data, including filtering, cleansing, and harmonisation.<br></br> - Point data intersection with covariates.<br></br> - Creation of model and test data sets.<br></br> - Ranger model hyperparameter value optimisation.<br></br> - Ranger model fitting with best hyperparameters.<br></br> - Spatialisation of ranger models.<br></br> - Uncertainty analysis with UNEEC method including rudimentary optimisation of class number size.<br></br> - Spatialisation of model uncertainties.<br></br> - Model extrapolation work with count of observation and boundary method (point data).<br></br> - Ranger model fitting of extrapolation outcomes.<br></br> - Spatialisation of model extrapolation outcomes.<br></br> - Model evaluations with both test data and against SLGA Version 1 products.<br></br> - Delivery of digital soil mapping outputs and computer code to repository.<br></br>
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Title
Methods Summary - Total Soil nitrogen (%)
Website
https://aussoilsdsm.esoil.io/slga-version-2-products/total-soil-nitrogen

Method documentation

Title
Searle, Ross (2020): TERN Soil Data Federator. v1. CSIRO. Software Collection
Website
http://hdl.handle.net/102.100.100/480151?index=1

Method documentation

Title
CSIRO (2020): CSIRO National Soil Site Database. v9. CSIRO. Data Collection.
Website
https://doi.org/10.25919/c4br-0r30

Method documentation

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/EPSG:4326

Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 2D

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/e9484508-c705-4c23-9195-f26d64b9d4f1

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/e9484508-c705-4c23-9195-f26d64b9d4f1

Point-of-truth metadata URL

Date info (Creation)
2024-09-02T00:00:00.000000+00:00
Date info (Revision)
2025-12-10T10:24:43.997283+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 Soil sciences not elsewhere classified
GCMD Science Keywords
LAND SURFACE SOILS

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Associated resources

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