07/04/2021
CSIRO-KFRI’s soil profiling experiments in Kerala. Photo: T.Grove/ CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons.
Using data collected over the last three decades, a team of scientists from IIT Kharagpur and other collaborating institutes has created a digital soil map for India. The digitally accessible resource provides information about properties like soil’s pH, texture, and the amount of organic carbon in the soil.
Unlike traditional soil maps that rely exclusively on field surveys and laboratory data, digital soil maps combine field and laboratory data with geographical and environmental information, and eventually use mathematical modelling tools to infer soil properties for a location.