A public access georeferenced soil database to initialize 3-PG forest growth model for regional applications

This database contains the fertility rating (FR), textural class, and maximum available soil water (MaxASW) values for each soil unit corresponding to a photo point of the Portuguese National Forest Inventory (created in 2005 for IFN5 and used since then). The soil cartographic information was obtained from the SNIS (National Soil Information System) and the EPIC WebGIS Portugal. Descriptive reports of the different soil maps associated with each cartographic source were used simultaneously. The soil data presented here are required for initializing the 3PG process-based forest growth model. Initially, data required by 3PG was estimated to be used by colleagues calibrating the 3PG model for some of the most common forest species in Portugal. Later, interest arose in expanding these estimates to mainland Portugal, thus providing a set of information that enables regional forest growth simulations. The methodology used to estimate the three aforementioned soil parameters is described in Jorge et al. (submitted) There are six datasets – One for the IFN photo points (“fp_su.csv”), and 5 for characterization of the different soil units (“csp_su.csv”; “FAO_87_su.csv”; “FAO_88_su.csv”; “WRB_98_su.csv”; “WRB_98_su_eq.csv”). Please refer to the "Metadata.pdf" file for a more detailed list and description of the variables in each data file.