Global Distribution of Plant-Extractable Water Capacity of Soil
Updated 2mo ago
7filesBIN
Available on 2 platforms
Sign in to view source links and access this dataset
Description
8.6 cm is the global average plant-extractable water capacity of soil, excluding Greenland, Antarctica, and bare soil areas. This dataset provides a global estimate at a 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid resolution, derived from FAO/Unesco soil maps, climate-based organic matter estimates, and vegetation rooting depths. The estimates reflect the combined influence of soil texture, organic content, and plant root or profile depth.
Use Cases
Modeling evapotranspiration demands based on spatially-variable soil water capacity.
Assessing regional agricultural drought risk using integrated soil texture and root depth data.
Validating land surface models that assume invariant soil water parameters.
Studying the global distribution of soil water resources available to vegetation.
Strengths
Provides a global estimate with a specific reported average of 8.6 cm.
Quantifies spatial distribution, stating estimates are less than 5 cm over approximately 30% of vegetated area.
Limitations
Key metadata conflicts: 'last updated' dates are 1996-12-31 on one platform and 2026-04-10 on another, creating uncertainty about data currency.
Specific column names and dataset size (rows, file size) are not provided in any source.
The description notes the root depth parameter, which limits the calculation, is the most influential and uncertain.
Provenance
Source
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Collection Method
Representative soil profiles were created for FAO/Unesco soil units; soil organic matter was estimated from climate data; rooting depths were obtained from a vegetation dataset.
Freshness
Conflicting: 1996-12-31 (nasa_earthdata) and 2026-04-10 (datagov).
Geography
Global (0.5 x 0.5 degree grid), excluding Greenland, Antarctica, and bare soil areas.
License is listed as 'other-license-specified' on datagov but 'None' on nasa_earthdata; users should verify terms. Data is provided in an ASCII array format.