Does a Raster-Based Soil Survey for an Updated Product Make Sense for the Future of Soil Survey?.

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Interpretations, Standards and Soil Business Branches’ staffs met through teleconference and in person with MLRA office 12-STJ (Essex County, VT) field crew, Region 12 and Region 6 GIS staff and State Soil Scientists to explore the ideas of rasterized interpretations and raster based soil survey’s future with the National Cooperative Soil Survey(NCSS) at a Rasterized Interpretation Workshop Amherst MA March 17-18, 2015.  Topics that were covered were: Limitations of Existing Systems; Acceptance of the Raster data model; Capital Investments; Data Requirements; Software Needs; Validation and Quality Control; and Integrating and using raster data with SSURGO.  The team saw a lot of work for the future but also a lot of promise for new products and perhaps a new focus for the NCSS. Here are some of the concerns and proposals for future work for the NCSS:

1)      Analyze the pros/cons of generating Standard NASIS Interpretations of SSURGO when coupled with external raster data like slope, aspect, climatic, etc.

2)      If raster products are pursued, delivery systems like Web Soil Survey, Soil Data Viewer, CDSI etc. would need the ability to handle raster data as smoothly as they handle vector data

3)      Need an Interpretation generator outside of NASIS---No provisions for raster data in NASIS database

4)      Development of a Standards Document – to start in CY2015

5)      Work on Definitions as part of Standards

6)      Justification to NRCS Leadership for Raster Data and interpretations

7)      NSSC testing of interpretations from raster products

8)      Develop minimum data needs for national and data acquisition priorities

There is a plan to continue and repeat these Workshops in 2015 and 2016 regionally in the North Central, West and South to better conceptualize the threats and opportunities for this paradigm shift and potential new direction in Soil Survey.