Soil Landscapes of Canada: Building a National Framework for Environmental Information

Abstract

The Soil Landscapes of Canada (SLC) is a national soil map and accompanying database of environmental information for all of Canada, produced and maintained by the Canadian Soil Information Service (CanSIS) which is a part of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The SLC maps were originally published as a set of paper products for individual provinces and regions. The maps were digitized in CanSIS, using one of the first geographic information systems in the world, and linked to soil and landscape attribute tables to serve an evolving variety of spatial modelling applications. The SLCs form the lowest level of the National Ecological Framework for Canada. The latest public release of the SLC is version 3.2, which provides updated soil and landscape information for the agricultural areas of Canada. The SLC v3.2 digital coverage includes an extensive set of relational data tables. The component table lists the soil components in each agricultural polygon along with their predicted dominant slope, class, and extent. The soil component codes are also linked to soil attribute tables which define fundamental soil properties, such as classification and parent material, as well as a description of the soil horizons and key soil attributes to a depth of 100 cm. SLC v3.2 adds a new set of landform tables which identify the major landform type in each polygon and indicates the most likely soil components in the upper, mid slope, lower slope, and depressional positions. These soil and landform attributes are designed to support a wide variety of national and international environmental modelling applications, such as the prediction of soil quality change, soil carbon sequestration, and land productivity for different agricultural crops in response to agricultural policy, land management, and climate change scenarios. Future versions of the SLC are under development that will have improved spatial resolution and include soils data for areas beyond the present agricultural zone of Canada.