Book Description

The aim of the SOTER project is to utilize current and emerging information technology to produce a world soils and terrain digital database containing digitized map unit boundaries and their attribute data (ISSS, 1986b). The database will be used for improved mapping and monitoring of changes of world soils and terrain resources, and the development of an information system capable of delivering accurate, useful, and timely information about soils and terrain resources to decision-and-policy-makers. The database will: A) have a general average scale or accuracy of 1:1 million, b)be compatible with global databases of other environmental resources, c) be amenable to updating and purging of obsolete and/or irrelevant data, d)be accesible to a broad array of international, regional, and national decisionmakes and policy-makers to provide them with interpretative maps and tabular information assential for development, management, and conservation of environmental resources, and e) be transferable to and useable by developing countries for national database development at larger scales. As can be deducted from these characteristics the SOTER procedures manual should translate the overall objectives into a workable set of arrangements for the collection (from existing sources, or, if necessary, through new field surveys or remote sensing), coding and storing of soils and terrain data. The manual is not intended as guidelines for survey procedures or any other methodology for the collection of field data. It does ...