Elaboration and applications of spatial soil information systems and digital soil mapping at Research Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Hungary has long traditions in soil survey and mapping. Large amount of soil information is available in various dimensions and generally presented in maps, serving different purposes as to spatial and/or thematic aspects. Increasing the proportion of soil-related data has been digitally processed and organized into various spatial soil information systems (SSISs). The most current countrywide ones have been elaborated by and available at Research Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (RISSAC HAS). The existing maps, data and systems served the society for many years; however, the available data are no longer fully satisfactory for the recent needs of policy making. There were numerous initiatives for the digital processing, completion, improvement and integration of the existing soil datasets. In our paper, we briefly present the national SSISs developed and maintained by our institute and some examples are given regarding how their functionality was extended by digital soil mapping for the solution of specific soil-related demands.

Keywords:

• database integration
• digital soil mapping
• monitoring
• soil database
• soil information demand
• spatial soil information system

Acknowledgements

Our activities were supported by the Hungarian National Scientific Research Foundation (OTKA, Grant Nos. K60896, NK73183), WateRisk Project (TECH_08-A4/2-2008-0169), ONTTECH Project (TECH-08-A3/2-2008-0379) and GSSoil project (ECP-2008-GEO-318004). We are grateful to Judit Matus, Szilvia Vass-Meyndt and Zita Krammer for their indispensable contribution.