Welcome to the UC Davis Soil Resource Laboratory. Our research covers many aspects of soil science including:

• Soil genesis and morphology
• Water quality and constructed wetlands
• Colaboration with NRCS and NPS staff
• Soil-landform relationships and modeling
• Watershed-scale soil survey studies
• Soil science educational material
• Soil survey related outreach, including one of the first online soil surveys (see below)

For more information about the people in our lab, please click on the "People" link at the top of the page.The content on this website is frequently updated. Please utilize our RSS feeds to stay informed of progress. Here is a list of RSS aggregator software packages.

SSURGO Map Units

STATSGO Map Units

Our online soil survey can be used to access NRCS-NCSS 1:24,000 scale detailed soil survey data (SSURGO) in many parts of California, Arizona, and Nevada. Where this data is not yet available, 1:250,000 scale generalized soils data (STATSGO) can be accessed instead. An interactive map interface allows for panning and zooming, with highways, streets, and aerial photos to assist navigation (Figure 1). Soil polygons become visible near a scale of 1:30,000. Alternatively, a GPS point, CA Zip code, or a street address can be used to zoom in on a specific location. General usage notes and information on how our online soil survey work can be found here. Statistics on who is using our online soil survey can be found here.

 
New Features and Work in Progress

• Our online soil survey, Soil-Web, will be used as the foundation for a new educational website on the soils of Pinnacles National Monument, CA. Details on this project can be found on this page.
• A Text-only interface to SSURGO
• Working on a flexible API for specialized queries. Some examples:
  1. WMS queries (access our data in QGIS etc.)
     • WMS GetCapabilities request
     • example of retrieving an image chunk based on a boundingbox in our coordinate system (custom AEA, NAD83)
     • example of retrieving an image chunk based on a boundingbox in UTM Zone 10 (NAD83) coordinates
     • example of retrieving an image chunk based on a boundingbox in Lon/Lat (NAD83, GRS80) coordinates
  2. Text-based queries
     • map unit lookup based on single lon/lat coordinate pair
     • map unit lookup based on lon/lat bounding box
     • map unit lookup based on lon/lat bounding box, with grouped legend
     • graphical map unit summary
  3. Google Maps interface
  4. Google Earth Interface [Some Details]