Precise descriptions of soil horizons are required for policy makers, agriculture and many applications in civil engineering. Up to date correct soil horizon annotations require human experts as they follow complex hierarchical taxonomies. We present the SoilNet App, a web-based demonstrator that guides experts through relevant tasks for expert-level soil horizon annotations from soil profile images. To demonstrate the reliability of the SoilNet app we present results of a user study with soil horizon annotation experts, which highlights the difficulty of image-only-based annotation and suggests that collaborating with our model not only increases expert performance but also improves inter-annotator consistency. Our app is publicly accessible (https://soilnet.demo.calgo-lab.de).

ABSTRACT Background The German Soil Systematics is a pedogenetic classification based on the morphological expressions of pedogenic processes and has been developed over several stages since 1952. The system has successfully been in use for soil classification and soil survey for almost 70 years. Pedogenic processes are identified in most cases with parameters recognizable in the field. Almost 20 years after the last edition, a revision of the soil systematics and its horizon definitions has been made.. Aims The revision was done in order to include (i) soil geneses which logically did not fit into the previous structure of the system, e.g. soils with accumulation from lateral influx (Rheosole), (ii) soils resulting from environmental change, e.g. former peat soils whose peat degradation has progressed so far that they are no longer organic soils (Abmoor Subtypes of several mineral soils), and (iii) the Andosole and Umbrisole (similarly defined as in the WRB). Besides, some logical inconsistencies should be addressed. Guiding ideas for the rearrangement and additions were to make the pedogenetic principles better visible, to have a more homogeneous, balanced structure, and to cover all soils relevant for soil survey and mapping. Results The pedogenic processes that formed the soil are identified in most cases with parameters recognizable in the field and encoded with an extensive system of horizon symbols. The presence and (to some extent: the absence) of certain horizons in a certain depth in the profile and some thickness criteria are used to class the soil in a seven‐level Soil Systematics with: Divisions (2, mineral and organic soils), Subdivisions (7, related to water and oxygen availability), Classes (23, main genetical pathways), Types (56, genesis and intensity of processes), Subtypes (ca. 300, including Norm, Deviating and Transitional Subtypes), Varieties (2000, qualitatively diverging from their subtypes) and Subvarieties (quantitative additions to the Variety information). The logical inconsistencies were resolved by dissolving some former Classes and Types into now Types or Subtypes. The number of Types did not increase. Conclusions A new, consistent structure with all required new entitities could be achieved that will serve current and future needs. To include more objective criteria in the delimitation of soil systematic units is a common endeavor of the development of many national systems. A closer proximity to WRB was not a primary goal here, in contrast to other national system updates of the last years. This was to keep the clear advantages of the German Soil Systematics, some of them setting it apart from WRB and/or US Soil Taxonomy, in particular a more consistent justification for its higher‐level classes.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), in particular foundation models, have improved the state of the art in many application domains including geosciences. Some specific problems, however, could not benefit from this progress yet. Soil horizon classification, for instance, remains challenging because of its multimodal and multitask characteristics and a complex hierarchically structured label taxonomy. Accurate classification of soil horizons is crucial for monitoring soil condition, which directly impacts agricultural productivity, food security, ecosystem stability and climate resilience. In this work, we propose SoilNet - a multimodal multitask model to tackle this problem through a structured modularized pipeline. In contrast to omnipurpose AI foundation models, our approach is designed to be inherently transparent by following the task structure human experts developed for solving this challenging annotation task. The proposed approach integrates image data and geotemporal metadata to first predict depth markers, segmenting the soil profile into horizon candidates. Each segment is characterized by a set of horizon-specific morphological features. Finally, horizon labels are predicted based on the multimodal concatenated feature vector, leveraging a graph-based label representation to account for the complex hierarchical relationships among soil horizons. Our method is designed to address complex hierarchical classification, where the number of possible labels is very large, imbalanced and non-trivially structured. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a real-world soil profile dataset and a comprehensive user study with domain experts. Our empirical evaluations demonstrate that SoilNet reliably predicts soil horizons that are plausible and accurate. User study results indicate that SoilNet achieves predictive performance on par with or better than that of human experts in soil horizon classification. All code and experiments can be found in our repository: https://github.com/calgo-lab/BGR/.

In 2023, the European Commission released a legislative proposal for a Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience which aims to define a legal framework to achieve healthy soils across the European Union (EU) by 2050. A key component of the initial Directive is the mandate for Member States to establish basic geographic soil governance units, referred to as soil districts, and appoint a district-specific authority to oversee the implementation of soil health assessments. This paper proposes an operational definition of the districts following the conditions outlined in the proposal for the Directive and discusses various attention points for their implementation. Tentative districts were developed for seven EU countries, considering soil type, climate, topography, and land cover factors, starting from the smallest existing administrative unit (i.e. municipalities). Experts were asked to report on the applicability of the proposed districts within well-known pedo-ecological regions and discuss the relevance of the districts for establishing an EU-wide monitoring network and reporting on soil health and degradation. The outcomes highlight the need for detailed soil maps to account for specific soil types when stratifying countries into soil districts. The soilscape approach allows for a consistent method to defining soil districts across Member States. This enables contrasting soils within a district to be managed in a similar manner, with soil degradation/health thresholds applied to each district based on land cover. However, it is unclear whether soil districts as currently formulated in the Directive are in fact the right tool to support local soil management and monitoring of soil health. Districts can help ensure that all soil conditions are covered in a monitoring system, but they may not provide support for soil management or monitoring at a local scale due to short-scale soil variability and threats affecting soil management within the same soilscape. Beyond the use of districts for designing a European/national scale monitoring system, the districts can help create animations and other educational tools to promote soil literacy and connectivity of users to soils locally.

Soil classification systems give an idea which soils are similar regarding their morphology (often developed through pedogenesis) and therefore assigned to the same class, and which are dissimilar and therefore assigned to another class. The morphological criteria are often selected along pedogenetic lines of thinking. Soil functions however often depend on other physical and chemical properties not covered in the same consistent and balanced way, for example neither in World Reference Base for Soil Resources nor US Soil Taxonomy. By using the concept of substrate, a concise and hierarchical soil solid material classification that can be used in parallel to a morphological or morphogenetic soil classification is described. It includes parent material genesis (geogenesis), fine earth texture, coarse fragments, lime and lithic carbon content, and rock type and enables to characterize the soil horizon material-as a complement to the pedogenetic horizon designation-and the entire soil profile-as a complement to the (genetic) soil type. The system covers natural and anthropogenic substrates (as found, e.g., in urban areas, on landfills, etc.). Its hierarchical approach can be used in single profile descriptions, but also in soil mapping, for which it provides a framework for delineation and rule-based aggregation of spatial soil units.

INSPIRE provides the framework for the establishment of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure. The cross-border use and applicability of data requires that specific standards and rules are fulfilled by data providers. Such rules are currently being developed as data specifications. Soil as a theme in the INSPIRE annex III is included in this process, and was selected as the target theme for the EU best practice network GS SOIL "Assessment and strategic development of INSPIRE compliant Geodata-Services for European soil data". The project contributes to the harmonization and provision of interoperable soil geodata in Europe. The main deliverable of the project is the web portal http://gssoil-portal.eu/, which provides information, data management tools and links to data sources. Examples are the soil specific multilingual thesaurus, a metadata editor and catalogue service, provision of WMS and prototype WFS.

Die internationale Bodenklassifikation World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) wird in der internationalen fachlichen wie administrativen Arbeit zur Benennung von Boden verwendet. Die Klassifizierung erfolgt nicht wie in der deutschen Bodensystematik aufgrund der Folge der im Profil vorkommenden morphogenetischen Horizonte, sondern durch Betrachtung des Gesamtprofils hinsichtlich unterschiedlicher Eigenschaften. Dies fuhrt zu Problemen mit in Datenbanken abgelegten Bodendaten, die allgemein neben den Profilmerkmalen morphogenetische Horizonte beschreiben. Einige dieser Probleme werden beispielhaft vorgestellt, darunter die Festlegung der Grenzen diagnostischer Horizonte, sei es wegen der Art der Beschreibung der Horizontgrenzen, unscharfer Definitionen in der WRB oder wegen der Datenstrukturen der Bodendatenbanken, und die Problematik des abrupten Bodenartenwechsels. Es wird ein algorithmen-basierter Ansatz vorgestellt, mit dem die diagnostischen Horizonte, Materialien und Eigenschaften der WRB sowie die fur die Benennung benotigten Namensbestandteile Referenzbodengruppe, Qualifier und Specifier aus den Profilbeschrieb-Daten nach KA5 und Labordaten ermittelt werden konnen. Die Algorithmen sind so angelegt, dass die Einzelparameter in absteigender Reihenfolge der Zuverlassigkeit fur die Ableitung abgefragt werden. Mithilfe von im Gelande nach KA5 beschriebenen und nach WRB klassifizierten Fahlerdeprofilen aus Brandenburg wird die Zuverlassigkeit der Ableitungen gepruft. In einem Ausblick sollen mogliche Konsequenzen der Arbeiten fur eine Verbesserung der Klassifikation ebenso diskutiert werden wie Vorschlage zur Verbesserung der Datenaufnahme, um eine Klassifizierung nach WRB zu vereinfachen.

A methodology using digital soil mapping has been developed to improve the reconnaissance mapping 1:200.000. It combines soil data from different sources in order to develop a seamless, nation-wide, consistent soil geometric and semantic database. The use of legacy data involves some challenges coming from differing datasets, soil descriptions, mapping strategies and data gaps which are typical for mapping campaigns which last over few decades. These problems have to be solved by applying and developing extensive semantic harmonization and quality control procedures. Digital soil mapping techniques are considered to be a powerful tool to harmonise data from different data sources, filling gaps in existing soil maps and cross-validation. The model and methodical pathway presented here has been developed as a hybrid approach, combining (a) classification tree analysis of existing soil maps and auxiliary data (elevation models, geological maps, climatic data, etc.) as regionalisation method for discrete soil classes, and (b) the integration of knowledge about regional soil forming processes through expert-based rules. As the final product, predictive conceptual soil maps are generated. The methodology can be used to harmonize soil data from different sources and to speed up the mapping process in areas with a lack of soil mapping data.

Der Austausch von Bodendaten auch zwischen automatisierten Systemen bedarf eines Formats, das strukturelle und inhaltliche Kompatibilitat zwischen dem sendenden und dem empfangenden System sicherstellt. Arbeiten an einer KA5-Datenstruktur, einem internationalen Standard zum Bodendatenaustausch und die Erfordernisse der EU-Richtlinie INSPIRE werden vorgestellt bzw. diskutiert.

Ancient dunes of the Sahel reflect lengthy arid climatic phases in which the desert margin of the Sahara extended southwards over a distance of several hundred kilometers from its present position. During the following semi-humid to humid climatic phases the dunes and sediments were fixed by vegetation and soil formation. The extent and duration of the humid phases determined depth and intensity of weathering and soil formation. In order to show the relationship between degree of soil development and age of the ancient dunes, soil profiles in the Sahel of Mauretania, Niger and Chad were investigated pedologically and by OSL dating. Due to the limited number of investigated sites and dated samples, general conclusions concerning the stratigraphy of ancient Sahel dunes are not possible. However, the examples described in this paper show that a relationship exists between dune age and depth and intensity of soil formation. The sedimentation of the Upper Pleistocene dunes of the Sahel in Niger started at least around 30 ka and ceased at similar to 10 ka with the transition from the Upper Pleistocene to the Holocene, while the Middle Holocene dunes in Chad and Mauritania were sedimented between similar to 5 and similar to 3,5 ka. Due to the accumulated processes in the humid periods of the Early Holocene and the Mid-Holocene during soil formation on Upper Pleistocene dunes, the rubefication, accumulation of fines and leaching depth of soluble salts is much more pronounced than on Middle Holocene dunes, which were only affected by weathering from the Mid-Holocene until present. The alkaline pH values of the soils reveal that under recent climatic conditions in the Northern and Central Sahel, with annual precipitation up to 400-500 mm a(-1) and deposition of dust containing carbonates and soluble salts, the progress of silicate weathering is inhibited. Only under higher precipitation in the southern Sahel weathering of silicates proceeds due to stronger soil acidity. Therefore the soils on ancient dunes of the Northern and Central Sahel are today relict soils, which mainly weathered in periods with conditions of higher precipitation than similar to 500 mm a(-1) during the Early and Middle Holocene humid periods.

Fur die Bodenubersichtskarte von Deutschland 1 : 200.000 (BUK 200) werden Bodendaten aus den Bundeslandern, die uber mehrere Jahrzehnte erhoben wurden, zu einer blattschnittfreien, einheitlichen Ubersichtskarte und Bodendatenbank zusammengefuhrt. Dafur muss historisch bedingt auf eine sehr heterogene Datenbasis zuruckgegriffen werden. Das macht umfangreiche Qualitatskontrollen und Harmonierungsschritte erforderlich, wobei fur jedes Blatt aufgrund der unterschiedlichen Datengrundlagen neue Anforderungen auftreten. Im von der BGR initiierten Projekt SIAM (Soil Inference and Mapping Project) werden Methoden aus dem Bereich der digitalen Bodenkartierung entwickelt und getestet, die als Werkzeuge fur die Qualitatssicherung und Datenharmonisierung eingesetzt werden konnen. Das hier entwickelte Verfahren zum Aufbau eines Boden-Landschaftsmodells ermoglicht es, an Referenzblattern kalibrierte Modelle zur Bodenformenvergesellschaftung abzuleiten, um Bodenkarten unterschiedlicher Masstabe und Qualitat nach objektiveren Kriterien zu vereinheitlichen. Die Prognosekarten zeichnen generelle Verteilungsmuster nach, solange sich Beziehungen zwischen kartierten Bodeneinheiten und dem Relief bzw. Ausgangsgestein finden lassen. Generalisierungsnotwendigkeiten lassen Ubereinstimmungen der Prognose mit grosermasstabigen Vergleichskarten von ca. 50 % angemessen erscheinen.

An annotated medium-scale vegetation map (1:60000) of the Batura Valley, Hunza Karakorum (Pakistan, Northern Areas) is presented. The study area covers ca. 700 km(2) (between 36 degrees 27'N/74 degrees 30'E and 36 degrees 40'N/74 degrees 54'E) along the Batura Glacier, one of the largest outlet glaciers outside the polar regions, and ranges in altitude from 2,450 m (Passu Village) to 7,785 m (Batura I). The upper limit of vascular plant life is situated at 5,000-5,200 m. Due to the subtropical latitude and generally arid climate, the Batura Valley presents a desert or steppe aspect. Vast expanses of glacial ice, rock and mobile scree are virtually devoid of plant life along the elevational gradient. Vegetation covers only ca. ten percent of the study area and is comprised of ca. 380 vascular plant species. 26 vegetation units are mapped. Open herbaceous or dwarf-shrub vegetation predominates. Fragments of forest, denser scrub and turf communities are confined to small areas. Despite its generally depauperate, fragmented and patchy character, the vegetation of the Batura Valley displays considerable local diversity and reflects a huge elevational gradient, ranging from warm-temperate (submontane) to alpine and subnival situations. The phytogeographic and ecological overview is augmented by a discussion of the present status and future prospects of the human impact on the vegetation of the Batura Valley. The human impact on the vegetation cover, mainly through grazing of domestic stock, is generally high. However, the exact nature and specific effects of anthropo-zoogenic interference vary and are also subject to recent socio-economic changes in the region.