Ames Cartographic Technicians Put Soil Surveys on the Web| Iowa NRCS

Dale Ceolla, Assistant State Soil Scientist with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Iowa, holds the Calhoun County Soil Survey and a computer cable signaling the on-line availability of the Calhoun County Soil Survey along with 60 other Iowa counties at: http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/.

The USDA Web Soil Survey is now online allowing the public to access the national soils information system. The internet site provides the public with a new ability to access and analyze soils data that permits users to see what uses tracts of land will best support.

While the website is easy to use, turning the paper soil survey and updating for the web it is not an easy task. It takes a team of USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service soil scientists and cartographic technicians to get the job done.

Currently, eight specialists in a darkened office on the southeast side of Ames are taking the paper soil survey data from each Iowa county and putting it on-line. The office is dark to allow technicians better computer screen visibility in order to do their exacting work. The six cartographic technicians and two student trainees painstakingly match soils data maps to corrected aerial photographs line by line. Then they bring latitude, longitude and elevation data into the new photograph/soil maps. Soil maps are then updated to show the changing landscape and addition or subtraction of land features whether it is the addition of ponds and wetlands or the change in course of a stream. Tables of data are fitted to each soil map so that users can draw up different information as it applies to each field or tract of land.

Their work is then reviewed by a soil scientist for accuracy and their work is certified by the NRCS State Conservationist.

Dale Ceolla, Assistant State Soil Scientist for Iowa, thinks the linked tables of data behind each photo/map are a key benefit. “Having the tables instantly available behind soil map features makes it much easier to extract and analyze soil information," said Ceolla.

A person can go to the new website, type in a street address or zoom in on a field, and get help answering land use questions. For example, does it make sense to build a house, a house with a basement, excavate a pond, put in a septic system or construct a road on a tract of land? What type of crop, range, or forest productivity can I expect from this field? Will the land support different types of recreational uses?

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns says, “Soil surveys are the foundation for land conservation activities as well as private commercial land development. Soil survey maps help to enable agricultural producers, conservationists, engineering firms, county and city planners, and others to make informed decisions concerning land use. Posting soil survey information on the internet is one more step in our effort to make information more accessible to the citizens we serve.”

So far, the Ames team has 61 county soil surveys posted on the web with more to come. Ceolla believes all Iowa counties will have their soil surveys on the web by early 2007.

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Ames Cartographic Technicians Put Soil Surveys on the Web