This map displays the distribution of organic soils in the agricultural region of Alberta. Organic soils consist of layers of material with greater than 30 percent organic matter and a total thickness of greater than 40 cm. Organic soils are generally saturated with water for most of the year unless drained. Saturation inhibits decomposition and encourages continued accumulation of organic material. Drainage of these soils can result in a rapid increase in decomposition and a reduction in the thickness of the organic material. This resource was created in 2002 using ArcGIS.

The Significant Landforms of Alberta dataset contains significant (provincially, nationally or internationally) geomorphic features within the province of Alberta, for distribution external to the Government of Alberta. These data have been assembled by Alberta Parks, in collaboration with the Alberta Geological Survey (AGS), with contributions from other subject matter experts in Alberta.

This map displays the distribution of Solonetzic soils in the agricultural region of Alberta. Solonetzic soils have developed on saline parent material that is high in sodium and have a characteristic hardpan layer that has formed in the subsoil. This hardpan is very hard when dry and has low permeability when wet. This results in restricted root and water penetration that may limit the productivity of these soils. Solonetzic soils occur in association with Chernozemic soils and, to a lesser extent, with Luvisolic soils.The Agricultural Region of Alberta Soil Inventory Database (AGRASID) soil landscape polygons that contained soils belonging to the Solonetzic Order were identified, and the areal extent of these soils was represented as a percentage of the total area using the following classes: greater than 30, 10 to 30 and less than 10. This resource was created in 2002 using ArcGIS.

This data set provides a digital map of soil orders for the Ji-Parana River Basin, in the state of Rondonia, Brazil (Western Amazonia). Soil orders were manually digitized from a 1:500,000 map from EMBRAPA originally published in 1983. Oxisols and Ultisols are the predominant soil types in the basin, encompassing 47% and 24% of the total drainage area, respectively. Entisols cover 14%, Alfisols 13% and Eptisols 2% of the basin (Ballester et al., 2003). One data file is provided in ESRI ArcGIS Shapefile format compressed into a single zip file (*.zip).

The data represents the occurrence of saline soils in the agricultural area of Alberta. A Saline Soils is a non-alkali (pH less than 8.5 and exchangeable-sodium less than 15%) soil containing soluble salts in great enough quantities that they interfere with the growth of most crop plants. This resource was created in 2002 using ArcGIS.

The SCA Map of Alberta reflects the integration of inherent agroclimatic conditions that exist across Alberta with soil development, use and management practices. The SCA boundaries coincide to a large degree with recognized climate zones in Alberta. These boundaries also generally agree with accepted ecoregion boundaries. In the agricultural portion of Alberta, SCA's correlate strongly with soil zone lines with further subdivisions reflecting recognized agroclimate zones.

This data set is a subset of a global vegetation and soils data set by Wilson and Henderson-Sellers (1985a). The subset was created for the study area of the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) in South America (i.e., 10° N to 25° S, 30° to 85° W). The data are in ASCII GRID format.The original global data set (Wilson and Henderson-Sellers 1985a) is an archive of soil type and land cover data derived for use in general circulation models (GCMs). The data were collated from maps depicting natural vegetation, forestry, agriculture, land use, and soil, and they were archived at a resolution of 1° latitude by 1° longitude. The data set indicates soil type, soil data reliability, primary vegetation, secondary vegetation, and land cover data reliability. Approximately 50 land cover classifications are used, including categories for agricultural and urban uses. The inclusion of secondary vegetation type is particularly useful in areas with cover types that may have a fragmented distribution, such as in areas of urban development. The soil type data are classified according to climatically important properties for GCMs, and they indicate color (light, medium, or dark), texture, and drainage quality of the soil. The land cover data are compatible with the soils data, forming a coherent and consistent data set. The reliability of the land cover data is ranked on a scale of 1 to 5 (high to low). The reliability of the soil data is ranked as high, good, moderate, fair, or poor.Recommendations for the use of these data, as well as more detailed information can be found in Wilson and Henderson-Sellers (1985b).Further data set information can be found at ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/lba/land_use_land_cover_change/wilhend/comp/wilhend_readme.pdf.LBA was a cooperative international research initiative led by Brazil. NASA was a lead sponsor for several experiments. LBA was designed to create the new knowledge needed to understand the climatological, ecological, biogeochemical, and hydrological functioning of Amazonia; the impact of land use change on these functions; and the interactions between Amazonia and the Earth system. More information about LBA can be found at http://www.daac.ornl.gov/LBA/misc_amazon.html.