Modern Trends and Problems of Soil Mapping

The main trends in the development of soil mapping methods are discussed, and the major problems are identified. By the present time, the transition from the paper-based soil maps to digital soil-geographical databases has already been completed. The digital mapping of soils and their properties is now accepted as the main method at all the levels of generalization. The approaches of digital soil mapping, as well as of the traditional one, are based on the ideas of V.V. Dokuchaev about the dependence of soils on soil-forming factors. However, in digital soil mapping, new achievements of mathematical statistics and mathematical modeling are being widely applied. This provides for a greater objectivity and reproducibility of the digital soil maps in comparison with the traditional soil maps. At the same time, all unsolved problems of soil cartography related to the lack of field observation data, scale, soil taxonomy, spatial microheterogeneity, and mapping of individual soil properties are preserved. Partially, these problems can be solved by using remote sensing data. When the soil geographical information is used to assess the quality of soil resources, the interpretation of remote sensing data for mapping purposes seems to be more preferable in comparison with the methods of digital soil mapping.