Redistribution of the shapefile of the digital soil map of the Flemish Region (status 2017-06-20)

This is a redistribution of the shapefile of the 'Digitale bodemkaart van het Vlaams Gewest: bodemtypes, substraten, fasen en varianten van het moedermateriaal en de profielontwikkeling' (digital soil map of the Flemish Region: soil types, substrates, phases, variants of the parent material, and profile development), originally published by 'Databank Ondergrond Vlaanderen’ (Subsurface Database of Flemish Region, DOV) under a CC-BY compatible license. Its shapefile has been redistributed as the soilmap data source, used in reproducible, analytical workflows on Flemish Natura 2000 habitats and regionally important biotopes. These workflows rely on a stable, clean (datafile-only) and uniform representation of each data source version, represented by a Zenodo DOI.

The Belgian soil map was drawn up by intensive soil mapping from the 1950s to 1970s (Dudal et al., 2005). The map is based on the Belgian soil classification system. It is a national system that was set up exclusively for Belgian soils. The digital soil map of the Flemish Region is documented by Van Ranst & Sys (2000). Each spatial polygon, accurately digitized from the soil map sheets (published at map scale 1:20000) at scale 1:5000, includes information on soil types, substrates, phases, variants of the parent material and profile development. If available, the general characteristics and photos of a representative soil profile and environment can be obtained for each soil type. Finally, for each location it is possible to call in a scan of the analog soil map sheet, the corresponding explanation booklet and the basic maps on a 1: 5000 scale. The digital soil map was updated in 2017 with information from several military domains, a uniform soil type was generated for the polder area, and several mistakes were corrected.

The data source is owned by ‘Vlaams Planbureau voor Omgeving’ (Flemish Planning Bureau for Environment, Department of Environment of the Flemish government).