The soil in terrestrial and blue carbon ecosystems (BCE; mangroves, tidal marshes, seagrasses) is a significant carbon (C) sink. National assessments of C inventories are needed to protect them and aid nature-based strategies to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide. We harmonised measurements from Australia's terrestrial and BCE and, using consistent multi-scale spatial machine learning, unravelled the drivers of soil organic carbon (SOC) variation and digitally mapped their stocks. The modelling shows that climate and vegetation are continentally the primary drivers of SOC variation. But the underlying regional drivers are ecosystem type, terrain, clay content, mineralogy, and nutrients. The digital soil maps indicate that in the 0-30 cm soil layer, terrestrial ecosystems hold 27.6 Gt (19.6-39.0 Gt), and BCE 0.35 Gt (0.20-0.62 Gt). Tall open eucalypt and mangrove forests have the largest mean SOC per unit area. Eucalypt woodlands and hummock grassland, which occupy vast areas, store the largest total SOC stock. These ecosystems constitute important regions for conservation, emissions avoidance, and preservation because they also provide additional co-benefits.

This is Version 1 of the Soil Organic Carbon Fractions product of the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia.<br></br> <p>The Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia has produced a range of digital soil attribute products. This product contains six digital soil attribute maps for each of three depth intervals, 0-5&nbsp;cm, 5-15&nbsp;cm, 15-30&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).</p> <p>These maps are generated using Digital Soil Mapping methods.</p> <ul style="list-style-type: disc;"><li>Attribute Definition: Soil Organic Carbon Fractions : mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC), particulate organic carbon (POC) and pyrogenic organic carbon (PyOC) (Units: Various);</li> <li>Period (temporal coverage; approximately): 1950-2022;</li> <li>Spatial resolution: 3 arc seconds (approximately 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>Total size before compression: about 8GB;</li> <li>Total size after compression: about 4GB;</li> <li>Format: Cloud Optimised GeoTIFF.</li>

These datasets consist of soil maps generated to assess baselines, drivers and trends for soil health and stability within the NSW Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) regions. <br> The maps are organised into empirical soil maps, digital soil maps, and data cube maps. <br> Empirical soil maps consists of four products. Maps include topsoil pH, carbon, Emerson Aggregate Stability and Soil Profile Quality Confidence. Each map consists of 2,162 units. Maps were generated using the most representative soil profile for each unit available within the Soil and Land Information System (SALIS). The 2008 woody vegetation coverage was used as baseline. Maps reflect values when the sampling occurred with temporal changes not being accounted for. Locations with missing or of poor quality data are identified, providing a confidence rating map as part of the evaluation process.<br> Digital soil maps include map products of key soil condition indicators covering the Regional Forest Agreement regions of eastern NSW. Raster maps of key soil indicators, such as soil carbon, pH, bulk density, hillslope erosion and others, were created at 100 m resolution. For each key soil indicator, maps include baseline (approximately 2008) levels as well as trends of change resulting from different human and natural disturbances such as forest harvesting, uncontrolled stock grazing, climate change and bush fire. <br> Data cube maps include time series of soil organic carbon (SOC) between January 1990 and December 2020 for the Regional Forest Agreement regions of eastern NSW. Products provide estimates of SOC concentrations and associated trends through time. Modelling was carried out using a data cube platform incorporating machine learning space-time framework and geospatial technologies. Important covariates required to drive this spatio-temporal modelling were identified using the Recursive Feature Elimination algorithm (RFE). <br> A web mapping application on the NSW Spatial Collaboration Portal depicts these datasets. Access the webapp through the link below:<br> https://portal.spatial.nsw.gov.au/portal/home/item.html?id=af9c71935f024f4a8f64cb39f5eba007

This data contains soil physico-chemical characteristics collected at 33 one hectare plots in the Karawatha Peri-Urban site in 2007.

The forest fuel survey dataset comprises site-level summary data from the well-designed fuel load surveys across 48 AusPlots Forests- 1-ha monitoring plots across Australia. Data presented here includes data on the surface, near-surface, and elevated fuel loads for each of the Forest Ausplots. It includes iButton data on 1) temperature and humidity, 2) data on litterfall and 3) decomposition rates. We also provide additional information on soil nutrient data, species composition of the understorey and midstorey, and panorama photos from the plot centre. This dataset is the second version of the <i> AusPlots Forest Fuel Survey site-level data summary, 2014 - 2015. Version 1.0.0. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network.</i> (dataset). <em>https://doi.org/10.25901/efnh-sk06</em>

Plant material decomposition in soil was investigated using two types of tea bags (Green and Rooibos) buried to 8 cm for 80-90 days across seven TERN Ecosystem Process monitoring sites between 2016 - 2017. The sites included: Great Western Woodlands, Robson Creek Rainforest, Samford Peri-Urban, Cumberland Plain, Cape Tribulation, Warra Tall Eucalypt and Tumbarumba Wet Eucalypt sites. Weight loss of tea bags was determined and contextual data collected.

This data contains soil physico-chemical characteristics collected at the Daintree Rainforest, Cape Tribulation site between 2007 - 2015.

This data contains soil physico-chemical characteristics collected at the Robson Creek Rainforest site between 2011 - 2014.

The dataset accompanies the paper by Zemunik et al. (2016), which used the Jurien Bay dune chronosequence to investigate the changes in the plant community diversity and turnover in response to long-term soil development. The Jurien Bay chronosequence is located in the Southwest Australian biodiversity hotspot, in an area with an extremely rich regional flora. The dataset consists of both flora and soil data that allows all analyses presented in the paper (Zemunik et al. 2016) to be independently investigated. The dataset is an update to that previously supplied for a prior study (Zemunik et al. 2015; DOI 10.4227/05/551A3DDE8BAF8). The study used a randomised stratified design, stratifying the dune system of the chronosequence into six stages, the first three spanning the Holocene (to ~6.5 ka) and oldest spanning soil development from the Early to Middle Pleistocene (to ~2 Ma). Floristic surveys were conducted in 60 permanent 10 m × 10 m plots (10 plots in each of six chronosequence stages). Each plot was surveyed at least once between August 2011 and March 2012, and September 2012. To estimate canopy cover and number of individuals for each plant species within the 10 m × 10 m plots, seven randomly-located 2 m × 2 m subplots were surveyed within each plot. Within each subplot, all vascular plant species were identified, the corresponding number of individuals was counted and the vertically projected vegetation canopy cover was estimated. Surface (0-20 cm) soil from each of the 420 subplots was collected, air dried and analysed at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, for a range of chemical and physical properties: total and resin soil phosphorus; total nitrogen and dissolved organic nitrogen; soil total and organic carbon; exchangeable calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn) and sodium (Na); Mehlich-III extractable iron, magnesium, copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn); and pH (measured in H20 and CaCl2). Nutrient-acquisition strategies were determined from the literature, where known, and from mycorrhizal analyses of root samples from species with poorly known strategies. Most of the currently known nutrient-acqusition strategies were found in the species of the chronosequence. Previous studies in the Jurien Bay chronosequence have established that its soil development conforms to models of long-term soil development first presented by Walker and Syers (1976); the youngest soils are N-limiting and the oldest are P-limiting (Laliberté et al. 2012). However, filtering of the regional flora by high soil pH on the youngest soils has the strongest effect on local plant species diversity (Laliberté et al. 2014). The update involved modification to species names due to taxonomic changes and the inclusion of additional soil analyses, not present in Zemunik et al. (2015). The additional soil variables (additional to DOI 10.4227/05/551A3DDE8BAF8) were exchangeable Ca, K, Al, Mg, Mn and Na, measured for all 420 subplots; and Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn, extracted in Mehlich III solution, for each of the 60 plots. References Laliberté, E., Turner, B.L., Costes, T., Pearse, S.J., Wyrwoll, K.H., Zemunik, G. & Lambers, H. (2012) Experimental assessment of nutrient limitation along a 2-million-year dune chronosequence in the south-western Australia biodiversity hotspot. Journal of Ecology, 100, 631-642. Walker, T.W. & Syers, J.K. (1976) The fate of phosphorus during pedogenesis. Geoderma, 15, 1-19. Zemunik, G., Turner, B.L., Lambers, H. & Laliberté, E. (2015) Diversity of plant nutrient-acquisition strategies increases during long-term ecosystem development. Nature Plants 1, Article number: 15050, 1-4. Zemunik, G., Turner, B.L., Lambers, H. & Laliberté, E. (2016) Increasing plant species diversity and extreme species turnover accompany declining soil fertility along a long-term chronosequence in a biodiversity hotspot. Journal of Ecology.

This data contains soil physico-chemical characteristics collected at the Great Western Woodlands site in 2012 and 2014.