What is this data ?

The soil map includes soil classes according to the Icelandic Soil Classification System. The map was created by the Icelandic Agricultural University (IAU, former Rala) from various sources: wetlands are redrawn from vegetation maps published by the IAU and the Icelandic Institute of Natural History (IINH) in scale 1:500 000, boundaries between vegetated and non–vegetated land were based on an erosion map published by the IAU and the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) (Arnalds et al., 1997) in the scale 1:10 000 and the ´vegetation image´ created by the National Land Survey (NLS), definition of the distribution of different wetland soil classes was performed by analysing carbon content in soil samples sampled along transects in NW– and W–Iceland (Arnalds and Óskarsson, 2009). The scale of the soil map is estimated to be ranging from 1:100 000–250 000.

Where is it available ?

The data is viewable through the website of the Nytjaland project (The Icelandic Farmland Database) here.  Along with the soil map, the referred erosion map is also opional for viewing,  along with the general vegetation map from the Nytjaland project, land use classification and more.

References:

• Arnalds, Ó., and Óskarsson, H., 2009. Íslenskt jarðvegskort. Náttúrufræðingurinn 78 (3–4), 107–121.
• Arnalds, Ó., Óskarsson, H., Gísladóttir, F., Grétarsson, E., 2009. Jarðvegskort af Íslandi. Landbúnaðarháskóli Íslands, Reykjavík. www.lbhi.is/jardvegsstofa
• Arnalds, Ó., Þórarinsdóttir, E.F., Metúsalemsson, S., Jónsson, Á., Grétarsson, E., Árnason, A., 1997. Jarðvegsrof á Íslandi (Soil erosion in Iceland). Landgræðsla ríkisins and Rannsóknastofnun landbúnaðarins.

 Users: