C. Conception and handling of soildatabases

摘要

Soil information systems (databases) have been developed and improved since the mid-1970's. Most countries now have national databases of soil profiles and properties. Some are better populated than others and many have poor geo-graphic referencing which is a problem for Digital Soil Mapping. Also, there is no particular standard for these databases. Increasingly, international databases are required for solving large-scale environmental problems or looking at food-security issues. The future development of soil databases should not be per-formed without consideration of the spatial infrastructures that are being de-veloped everywhere in the world, and Digital Soil Mapping must take in consideration the standards that are proposed, and interact with the data that proposed spatial infrastructure could provide. Part C illustrates some of these aspects.