Soil Survey: Beyond the Symposium.

The National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) faces changing technologies (proximal sensing), societal demands (soil health, environmental degradation) and scientific priorities (climate change). This symposium focuses on the perspectives of a diverse group of Soil Survey users including the type and presentation of soil information needed in the future, as well as, current needs. Despite the changes and challenges the NCSS must address, several key attributes and fundamental concepts, which must be maintained, underpin the scientific value and utility of soil surveys and must be. The spatial soil distribution and patterns inherent in soil surveys allow for upscaling of quantitative data from pedons to hillslope and/or regional scales. Soil landscape models form the basis for both conceptual understanding of soils and hypothesis testing for computer generated soil maps and models. Digital soil information requires a transition from polygon-based soil data for both spatial and attribute data to a pixel or raster-based data. The soil landscape models that underlie current soil surveys need to be maintained and updated as raster-based soil information becomes the dominant means for communicating soil information.