Projet WalRB : traduction de la légende de la Carte des Sols de la Belgique dans le système World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB)

• Main Authors: Bouhon, A., Brahy, V., Engels, P., Chapelle, J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Presses Agronomiques de Gembloux 2011-01-01
• Series: Biotechnologie, Agronomie, Société et Environnement
• Subjects: Soil Map of Belgium; WRB; soil database; PostgreSQL; Belgian Soil Profile
• Online Access: http://www.pressesagro.be/base/text/v15ns2/743.pdf

WalRB project: translation of the legend of the soil map of Belgium into World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). Soil maps are among the most important reference maps in environmental and agriculture fields. Determination of land, agricultural potential, erosion thread, land management or soil pollution are some topics that need spatial soil data. Attention to cross-border environmental matters, such as soil protection, has become an international concern that requires harmonized soil information. This is why the World Reference Base for Soil Resources has been selected by European Union as official soil classification system (IUSS Working Group WRB, 2007). Belgium is one of the first nations to have achieved the whole country soil survey at large scale (1:20,000). The legend of the soil map of Belgium is based on three or four main soil specifications, texture, drainage class, profile development and stoniness nature (for stony soil), each one represented by a letter. Those three or four letters all together form the main soil series. Prefix and suffix may be added to further detail it. The WRB system based on soil morphology is formed of two levels, 32 Reference Soil Groups (RSGs), and various qualifiers (prefix, suffix or both). A common methodology between Flanders, Luxembourg and Wallonia (that use the same soil map legend) is requested to carry out the translation. Data from different databases, digital soil maps, soil profile descriptions, soil analytical data, Digital Elevation Model, other thematic maps (e.g. flooding hazard areas) are collected and organized under a common PostgreSQL database [Belgian Soil Profile Database (BSP)], with PostGIS geographical extension, hosted under a dedicated server. Data validation is proposed to be done under the auspices of National Soil Committee of Royal Academy for Sciences and Arts of Belgium. Algorithms are implemented in Perl and R languages.