Abstract
The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), within the context of the U.S. National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS), is working to integrate digital soil mapping methods with existing soil survey procedures. As this effort moves forward, it must address technological, managerial, and political challenges. To better understand these challenges and potential solutions, NRCS is establishing Digital Soil Mapping Operational Initiatives. These projects aim to demonstrate the utility of digital soil mapping in a production setting, provide training to soil scientists in digital soil mapping methods, contribute to completion of the initial soil survey or update of existing surveys, develop detailed instructions for implementing digital soil mapping methods, provide useful soil information products to complement existing soil survey data, and document methods and results. The first Operational Initiative was initiated at the Victorville, California Major Land Resource Area (MLRA) Soil Survey Office (SSO), which is responsible for the soil survey of Mojave Desert region. The immediate focus of this office is completing the initial soil survey for Joshua Tree National Park and adjacent private lands. Under the operational initiative umbrella, detailed digital data sets including IFSAR digital elevation models and an ASTER mosaic have been compiled. Derivatives from these and other data sets are being used to stratify the project area for sampling and modeling, and as inputs into continuous soil property predictive models. Model outputs will be used to develop Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) data products. Technical support for this project is provided by digital soil mapping soil scientists at the MLRA SSO the California State Office, and the National Geospatial Development Center, as well as other NRCS staff and NCSS cooperators.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Beven, K.J., and Kirkby, M.J., 1979. A physically based, variable contributing area model of basin hydrology. Hydrological Sciences Bulletin 24:43–69.
Blinn, C., 2008. 3rd Quarter, FY 2008 Progress Report. Digital Soil Mapping Operational Initiative – Mojave Desert Region. Submitted to NRCS-National Geospatial Development Center in July 2008.
Gallant, J.C., and Dowling, T.I., 2003. A multiresolution index of valley bottom flatness for mapping depositional areas. Water Resources Research 39:ESG41–ESG413.
Hatfield, D., 1996. Slopeposition AML. USDA Forest Service, Portland, OR.
Howell, D., Kim, Y., Haydu-Houdeshell, C., Clemmer, P., Almaraz, R., and Ballmer, M., 2007. Fitting soil property spatial distribution models in the Mojave Desert for digital soil mapping, pp. 465–475. In: Lagacherie, P., McBratney, A.B., and Voltz, M. (eds.), Digital Soil Mapping: An Introductory Perspective. Developments in Soil Science, Vol. 31. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Howell, D., Kim, Y., and Haydu-Houdeshell, C., 2008. Development and application of digital soil mapping within traditional soil survey: What will it grow into? pp. 43–51. In: Hartemink, A., McBratney, A.B., and Mendonça-Santos, L. (eds.), Digital Soil Mapping with Limited Data. Springer, Dordrecht.
Neild, S.J., Boettinger, J.L., and Ramsey, R.D. 2007. Digitally mapping gypsic and natric soil areas using Landsat ETM data. Soil Science of America Journal 71:245–252.
NPS (U.S. National Park Service). 2008. Joshua Tree National Park- Mojave Desert, http://www.nps.gov/jotr/naturescience/ (last verified 2 September 2008).
NRCS Staff, 2007. Mojave Desert Digital Soil Mapping Operational Initiative Project Plan, https://sharepoint.ngdc.wvu.edu/sites/digital_soils/mojave/Shared%20Documents/Mojave_DSM_plan_v2%20091207%20California.doc (last verified 8 September 2008).
Riley, S.J., DeGloria, S.D., and Elliot, R., 1999. A terrain ruggedness index that quantifies topographic heterogeneity. Intermountain Journal of Sciences 5:23–27.
Schmidt, J., and Hewitt, A., 2004. Fuzzy land element classification from DTMs based on geometry and terrain position. Geoderma 121:243–256.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Moore, A., Howell, D., Haydu-Houdeshell, C., Blinn, C., Hempel, J., Smith, D. (2010). Building Digital Soil Mapping Capacity in the Natural Resources Conservation Service: Mojave Desert Operational Initiative. In: Boettinger, J.L., Howell, D.W., Moore, A.C., Hartemink, A.E., Kienast-Brown, S. (eds) Digital Soil Mapping. Progress in Soil Science, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8863-5_28
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8863-5_28
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8862-8
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-8863-5
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)