Global USDA-NRCS soil texture class map

This resource contains a global map of soil texture classes, derived from SOILGRIDS data (Hengl et al., 2017) using the revised soil texture triangle definitions from Benham et al. (2009). Global maps of sand, silt and clay percentages were downloaded for 7 soil depths (0, 5, 15, 30, 60, 100 and 200 cm) at the native SOILGRIDS resolution of 250 m by 250 m. For each depth, percentages were converted into 1 out of 12 possible soil texture classes. The map in this resource represents the mode soil texture class over the 7 depths at each pixel. In case of a tie on a given pixel (i.e. two or more soil texture classes occur the most often with an equal number of times), the lowest class number is shown. This is a choice of convenience; no physical considerations support this choice.

Soil texture class definitions:
0: no class assigned (source data sand, silt, clay percentages all contain "no data" values)
1: Clay
2: Clay loam
3: Loam
4: Loamy sand
5: Sand
6: Sandy clay
7: Sandy clay loam
8: Sandy loam
9: Silt
10: Silty clay
11: Silty clay loam
12: Silt loam

Source data downloaded on 25-26 April, 2020, from: https://files.isric.org/soilgrids/data/recent/. URL has since changed to: https://files.isric.org/soilgrids/former/2017-03-10/data/. Code used to generate this map can be found in the folder `code` that is part of this resource.