Education & Training

RGIS - Educational Modules, Chesapeake Penn State University

Analysis of SSURGO
Digital Soil Survey Data in ArcGIS – Introduction

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Questions? Contact:

Rick Day, The Pennsylvania State University
116 ASI Building
Geospatial Technology Program, Land Analysis Lab
University Park, Pennsylvania 16802
Email: rday@psu.edu

About This Module

This module introduces GIS users to methods to access and process digital SSURGO soils data in an illustrated, step-by-step instruction manual/course outline. Digital SSURGO soils data is a database that is used for many agricultural, planning, environmental, and economic analyses yet many GIS professionals are not educated in proper access and usage of this complex database. This manual addresses access of SSURGO data, online mapping applications, and GIS manipulation and processing requirements. Topics reviewed in the module include:

Accessing SSURGO through the USDA-Soil Data Mart.
Integrating SSURGO into a personal geodatabase within ArcGIS.
Soil mapunit concepts important to data processing.
Vertical data aggregation methods to evaluate variability among soil horizons.
Horizontal data aggregation methods to evaluate variability within a mapunit.
Online soil analysis using the NRCS Web Soil Survey.
Desktop analysis using the NRCS Soil Data Viewer.

Module Audience

This module’s target audience includes thousands of GIS users of Soil Survey Data at all levels of government, private sectors, and educational institutions.

Module Materials & Tools

Available via website download in PDF format
Data for exercises

Module Software & Hardware Needs

ESRI ArcMap version 8 or later (9.1 is used for all of the illustrations)
Computer

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