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The task group assembled a reliable and accessible data set on pedosphere properties on a global scale. The data are sufficiently detailed to support rigorous analysis, and accessible to and understandable by soil scientists and non-soil scientists alike. The immediate goal was to supply pedosphere information to global change researchers, but the unification and distribution of the existing soils data bases will be of great benefit to all researchers, not only those directly involved in global change studies. The task was enabled by the active participation of the principal international custodians of pedosphere data.
The operation and algorithms of the SoilData System are fully explained in the accompanying on-line help manual. This manual resides in the file "SoilData.hlp", which is a Rich Text format (RTF) file that can be imported and printed from any standard word-processing package.
The SoilData system uses data derived from the global pedon database developed by ISRIC. More information on this database can be obtained at http://www/isric.nl/.
SoilData also uses image files taken directly from the FAO/UNESCO Digital Soil Map of the World (1995). More information on this product is available at http://www.fao.org.
Cite this data set as follows (citation revised on October 24, 2002):
Global Soil Data Task. 2000. Global Soil Data Products CD-ROM (IGBP-DIS). CD-ROM. International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, Data and Information System, Potsdam, Germany. Available from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. [http://www.daac.ornl.gov].
Batjes, N. H. (ed.) 1995 A homogenized soil data file for global environmental research: A subset of FAO, ISRIC and NRCS profiles (Version 1.0). Working Paper and Preprint 95/10b. International Soil Reference and Information Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Carter, A. J., and R. J. Scholes, 2000. SoilData v2.0: Generating a Global Database of Soil Properties CSIR Environmentek, Pretoria, South Africa.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 1995. Digital Soil Map of the World, Version 3.5. FAO, Rome, Italy
Scholes, R. J., D. Skole, and J. S. Ingram (eds.). 1995. A Global Database of Soil Properties: Proposal for Implementation. IGBP-DIS. IGBP-DIS Working Paper # 10a. Report of the Global Soils Task Group, International Geosphere-Biosphere Progr amme - Data and Information System (IGBP-DIS). University of Paris, France.