Soil class map of the Rio Jardim watershed in Central Brazil at 30 meter spatial resolution based on proximal and remote sensed data and MESMA method

Abstract

Geospatial soil information is critical for agricultural policy formulation and decision making, land-use suitability analysis, sustainable soil management, environmental assessment, and other research topics that are of vital importance to agriculture and economy. Proximal and Remote sensing technologies enables us to collect, process, and analyze spectral data and to retrieve, synthesize, visualize valuable geospatial information for multidisciplinary uses. We obtained the soil class map provided in this article by processing and analyzing proximal and remote sensed data from soil samples collected in toposequences based on pedomorphogeological relashionships. The soils were classified up to the second categorical level (suborder) of the Brazilian Soil Classification System (SiBCS), as well as in the World Reference Base (WRB) and United States Soil Taxonomy (ST) systems. The raster map has 30 m resolution and its accuracy is 73% (Kappa coefficient of 0.73). The soil legend represents a soil class followed by its topsoil color. Keywords: Digital soil mapping, Soil management, Agricultural planning, Soil classification system, Landsat