Africa Zobler Soils (Texture Classes, Slope, Phases), 1987

The Zobler soil datasets were developed by the World Data Center-A
(WDC-A) for Solid Earth Geophysics, operated by the U.S. National
Geophysical Data Center (NGDC). The data set is part of the World Data
Bank II and is part of "The Global Change Data Base". The World Data
Bank II is part of a larger project called "Global Ecosystems Database
Project". The project was a joint effort between the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NGDC and the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). The National Center for Geographic
Information and Analyses (NCGIA) in Santa Barbara, California joined
the project to assist with training and evaluation. A nominal 10
arc-minute scale was chosen to provide compatibility with other scales
and because this corresponds closely with the resolution of global
AVHRR coverage. All data are provided in geographic
(longitude/latitude) projection. The dataset is accompanied by an
ASCII documentation file which contains information necessary for use
of the dataset in a GIS or other software.

The texture data is based on the FAO Soil Map of the World, and
compiled into digital form by Zobler. Each matrix element represents
the near-surface texture (upper 30 cm) of the dominant soil unit in a
one-degree square cell of the earth's surface. The data conforms in
location, and nominal classification (land, land-ice, water) to
Matthew's vegetation data set.

References:
FAO. FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World (1974). Scale 1:5000000. UNESCO,
Paris.
Staub, Brad and Cynthia Rosenzweig. Global Digital Data Sets of Soil
Type, Soil Texture, Surface Slope, and other properties: Documentation
of Archived Tape Data. NASA Technical Memorandum No.100685.
Henderson-Sellers, A., M.F. Wilson, G. Thomas, R.E. Dickinson. Current
Global Land Surface Data Sets for Use in Climate-Related
Studies. (1986).
Matthews, E. Global vegetation and land use: New high resolution data
bases for climate studies (1983). J. Clim. Appl. Meteor., vol.22,
pp.474-487.
Vegetation, Land-use and Seasonal Albedo Data Sets: Documentation of
Archived Data Tape (1984). NASA Technical Memorandum. No.86107.
Wilson. M.F. and A. Henderson-Sellers. A global archive of land cover
and soils data for use in general circulation climate models
(1985). Journal of Climatology, vol.5, pp.119-143.

Source map :FAO/UNESCO Soil Map of the World
Publication Date :1987
Projection :lat/lon
Type :Raster
Format :IDRISI