NEW - Soil Map 1:25.000

Soil is a fundamental, non-renewable natural resource that sustains life on Earth. Understanding the qualities of our soils is essential for rational land-use planning. As the U.S. Soil Conservation Service has noted, "Of all nature's gifts, none is more indispensable to man than the soil. This complex mixture of animal, vegetable, and mineral matter, which covers the Earth's rocky core at varying depths, is one of the four primary elements essential for life. Along with sunlight, air, and water, soil nourishes plant life and sustains all living beings. Without it, our planet would be as barren as the Moon."

Despite its importance, soil mapping in the Spanish context presents particular challenges linked to a lack of basic information (such as climatic and topographic data, as well as geological, geomorphological, surface formation, and land-use mapping). The publication of the first 49 sheets of the Soil Map of the Principality of Asturias at a 1:25,000 scale represents a qualitative leap that places our autonomous community at the forefront of map production in Spain.

The project began early in this century as part of the thematic mapping plan that the Government of the Principality has been developing since the 1980. Soil science data were considered essential to this plan, complementing the mapping already completed or currently underway of land use, soil potential and capability (agrological and agroecological), vegetation, and environmental factors in the broad sense.

The dataset now being incorporated into the SITPA-IDEAS platform, which comprises soil-type mapping at a 1:25,000 scale, covers approximately 50% of the region's surface area. It includes revisions made subsequent to the original project over the past few years as part of the effort to standardize 1:25,000 scale soil mapping. This process involved reviewing and updating mapping units and their coding, based on the creation of a single, uniform soil-type legend for the entire mapped area.

This classification of soil types utilizes the criteria of the United States Department of Agriculture's "Soil Taxonomy" system, while also indicating the correspondence with the FAO-UNESCO system. The technical standards of the 1996 National Plan for Environmental Thematic Mapping, issued by the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and the Environment, were adopted as the methodological basis for the project. These standards served as a reference framework to harmonize spatial data from soil inventories conducted for Spain (S.E.C.S., 2000), thereby enabling the integration of this information into the Georeferenced Soil Database for Europe, developed by the Scientific Committee of the European Soil Bureau.

In addition to the map unit layer, this dataset is complemented by an information layer showing the geographic distribution of soil sampling points obtained during the project; this layer includes soil profile descriptions and analytical results for samples collected in the field and subsequently analyzed in the laboratory.

The future applications of this mapping are extensive, proving highly useful for subsequent work in areas such as land management, agriculture, and environmental studies. Immediate applications include spatial planning, agronomic assessment, evaluation of the land's productive potential, and agroforestry projects, as well as any activities that, directly or indirectly, impact the soil, whether as a resource base or as a foundation for operations. The aim is for the data to be usable by a wide range of users, not necessarily soil science experts, but individuals familiar with the physical environment and its cartographic representation. With this objective, the storage and processing of the map data have been designed around a Geographic Information System (GIS), thereby enhancing the potential for analyzing and utilizing the information.

Since its inception, this mapping project has been carried out under the direction and supervision of the Cartography Service, currently attached to the General Direction for Urban Planning within the Department of Spatial Planning, Urban Planning, Housing, and Citizen Rights. However, a project of this magnitude, so complex and long-term in nature, requires a multidisciplinary approach. Consequently, it has involved a wide range of professionals (directors, coordinators, scientific advisors, soil scientists, technicians, experts in design, editing, and layout, photographers, IT support staff, administrative personnel, field workers, etc.) whose contributions were essential to ensuring a successful outcome, and to whom we extend our appreciation.

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