Chapter 9 The Development of a Quantitative Procedure for Soilscape Delineation using Digital Elevation Data for Europe

Abstract

Abstract Until recently, manual methods were used for delineating soilscapes. The use of digital data sources, such as digital elevation models (DEMs) and satellite data, can speed up the completion of digital soil databases and improve the overall quality, consistency and reliability of the database. Our approach uses DEM for soilscape delineation based on the terrain classification system of the SOTER “Procedures Manual” and Edwin Hammond's landform classification methods, published in 1954. In this study, the goal was to use a quantitative method to derive terrain classes that match the criteria of the “Georeferenced Soil database for Europe (GSDBE)” procedural Manual and to create a DEM-derived polygon (soilscape) system for Europe. Four terrain attributes were used to define the soilscape: hypsometry (combination of elevation and relief intensity), slope percentage (SP), relief intensity (RI) and dissection (potential drainage density, PDD). The SRTM30 database was used as a base DEM and for the derivation of the SP, RI and PDD layers. Erdas Imagine 8.5, Arc/Info and ArcView 3.2 software were used to handle the data. We concluded that no major modification is required for the procedures to incorporate information that is derived quantitatively from digital data sources. The resulting database will have all the advantages of quantitatively derived databases, including consistency, homogeneity and reduced data generalisation and edge-matching problems.