Abstract
Much older soils information, collectively known as legacy soils data lies idle in libraries or in the personal collections of retired soil scientists. The probability is very high for this legacy data to be lost or destroyed. We demonstrate the stepwise process of bringing legacy soils data “back to life” using the Reconnaissance Soil Survey of the Busia Area (quarter degree sheet No. 101) in western Kenya as an example. The first step, site identification, involves meeting and deliberating with key institutions to identify a setting for the study. The second step, data archeology, involves locating and cataloging legacy soil data from key institutions, which often requires numerous site visits and the assistance of individuals familiar with the target data. The third step, data rescue, involves converting paper copies of data into a digital format by scanning the maps, narrative descriptions, and tables, and storing the information in a database. The fourth step, data renewal, consists of bringing the data to modern standards by taking advantage of technological and conceptual advances in geoinformation technology. In our example, the resulting digital (scanned) soil map of the Busia Area is a significant upgrade from the fragile paper map. The fifth step, data interpretation, entails careful interpretation of the soil information available within the legacy soil survey to provide additional agronomic information. This allowed us to produce 10 land quality maps showing the ability of the land to perform specific agronomic functions, and 18 different crop suitability maps that were not previously available. The rescued maps and their associated tabular and narrative data also provide crucial inputs for generating more detailed soil maps using digital soil mapping techniques that were unavailable when the original mapping was conducted.
Highlights
Most soil resources exist as traditional soil maps, soil survey reports, soil survey manuals, land evaluation frameworks, soil profile descriptions, and farm management handbooks, collectively known as legacy soil data [1]
Meetings with Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), and the Kenya Soil Survey resulted in choosing the Busia Area as the setting for this study (Figure 2)
This is because: [1] it has accessible detailed legacy soil data at a scale of 1:100,000 [42]; [2] agriculture is the main economic activity in the area [50]; [3] it has high population and poverty densities, and provision of agronomic information is needed to revitalize agriculture in the area [51]; [4] it has high rates of HIV/AIDS infections [52]; and [5] the main author is from the study area and is familiar with it [13, 14]
Summary
Most soil resources exist as traditional soil maps, soil survey reports, soil survey manuals, land evaluation frameworks, soil profile descriptions, and farm management handbooks, collectively known as legacy soil data [1]. These soil resource inventories have been widely used as meaningful sources of soil information to support soil conservation or as major components of national environmental monitoring [2,3,4] and could still be useful as the demand for soil data is soaring [5]. Most of the legacy soil data was left unused and stored in library shelves, some were in private collections of retired soil scientists, and those in digital format were largely underused or used only internally
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