Detailed Soil Surveys
GENERAL OVERVIEW
Soil surveys have been published for most of the agricultural areas, and
many surrounding areas, across Canada. Data from these surveys comprise
the most detailed soil inventory information in the NSDB.
The significant characteristics of detailed soil surveys are as follows.
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SCALE: 1:10,000 up to 1:250,000
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COVERAGE: Coverage consists of 1300 map sheets (datasets) mainly
of the significant agricultural areas. Only a small part of the Canadian
land area is covered. For specific coverage, see the metadata.
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SYMBOLIZATION: Within survey projects symbolization and legend is
consistent and correlated between map sheets. Map symbols and the
associated information in the Map Unit
table and the Component Table are
not unique but may be repeated in other map polygons.
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CORRELATION: In general, map edges have not been matched to computer
tolerances and inconsistencies between projects in terms of symbolization
and correlation may make combination of the data quite difficult.
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ATTRIBUTES: For each polygon, the Component
Table typically defines up to three soils and an estimate of the proportion
of each soil within the map unit. Additional soils may have been
identified in the original soil survey, but not included in the digital
attribute tables because of historical file structure limitations.
Each soil referred to in the Component Table
is described further in the Soil Name Table
and the Soil Layer Table.
The relationships of the various files may be understood by examining the
data
model.
Dataset descriptions
Usage
The Component Table and the other attribute
tables that describe the SOIL coverage are in INFO format. These tables
will be found in the INFO directory where the coverage was imported.
In order to display the soil information found in the SOIL coverage, it
should be mapped in conjuction with the HYDRO coverage. The detailed
soil surveys use the same Component Table
concept as the Soil
Landscapes of Canada, and the attributes in this file are mapped in
a similar fashion. For more information, see:
The following ArcView extensions facilitate mapping and analysis of these datasets.
Availability
A number of these datasets are available on the Internet in ARC/INFO EXPORT
format, compressed as *.zip.
PDF files of some of the original soil reports are also available.
You may search for and download these files using any of the following
methods:
