Digital Soil Mapping

Purpose The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness (OMAFA) is responsible for Ontario’s provincial soil maps and maintains and update them as necessary. Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) is a modern methodology using spatially explicit soils and environmental data to predict soil variation throughout a landscape at a high, consistent resolution. Digital soil maps are being rolled out throughout Ontario’s agricultural land base to update provincial soil maps. ## Reach Provincial soil maps are used in many decision-making processes including: * land use planning * land evaluation * farming practices * best management practices * ecological monitoring * land resource mapping Potential users of this data include: * farmers * certified crop advisors * conservation authorities * academic researchers * land use planners ## Potential impacts Digital soil maps provide more accurate and precise soils data and enables improved management of soil resources across multiple stakeholders. This allows for better decision making to maximize land use efficiency, improve economic efficiency of soil resources and promote soil health and soil conservation. ## Technical description Digital soil mapping combines geo-referenced soil observations with geo-referenced environmental layers to mathematically model soil variation as a function of environment variation. These models are based on well established, but often complex relationships, between soil properties and topography, biology, geology and hydrology.