SADCC Soils: Digitized Soil Maps for Southern Africa, 1:2M Scale

Soil maps for the entire Southern African Development Community region, covering Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The maps were compiled and digitized from national survey maps as part of the Regional Inventory of Agricultural Resource Base for the SADCC Food Security Programme. Several sheets were originally compiled between 1965 and 1977 and revised between 1981 and 1986.

Use Cases

• Regional agricultural resource planning based on unified soil classification across national borders.
• Historical land use analysis based on soil maps compiled and revised between 1965 and 1986.
• Cross-border environmental modeling based on digitized physiography and drought security layers.
• Assessing soil characteristics for drought security programs based on the digitized map features.

Strengths

• Covers the entire SADCC region across seven countries.
• Maps were digitized from source materials at scales including 1:2 million and 1:1 million.
• National classification systems were unified into one common system for cross-border consistency.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• The description does not specify the current file formats or data accessibility.

Provenance

Source

SADCC Food Security Programme, based in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Collection Method

Compiled from original national survey maps, redrawn, digitized in AUTOCAD, and unified into a common classification system.

Time Range

Sheets compiled between 1965 and 1977, revised between 1981 and 1986.

Geography

Southern African Development Community region: Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe.