Soil Delineations on Public Cadaster Maps as Elements of the Soil–Land Cover Mapping

Abstract

The depiction of soil delineations on a public cadastral map clearly demonstrates the potentialities of large-scale soil mapping. The development of land legislation involves land accounting by land use and the assessment of land quality in accordance with soils. For the full realization of the potential of soil mapping in solving practical problems concerning delineation and evaluation of agricultural land plots, soil maps must contain essential information. Most of the large-scale soil maps for agricultural lands have been created by state institutes for land management (GIPROZEMs). They have errors of the first and second kind of computer science theory (goal omission and false alarm), and problems with soil taxonomy, i.e., missing soil areas, excessive information, and erroneous soil diagnostics. The combination of these errors significantly complicates the practical application of soil maps. On the soil maps, it is impossible to find the boundaries of the territories, where land use changes are related to soil processes. There are also certain diagnostic and taxonomic difficulties in using soil maps for applied purposes. The development of soil cartography in the form of technology of retrospective monitoring of soil and land cover can significantly improve soil mapping and facilitate the transfer of soil mapping units to cadastral maps.