Southern Africa Soil Properties Derived from ISRIC-WISE Database

Over 4300 soil profiles collected mostly between 1950 and 1995 form the basis for this derived dataset of soil properties for southern Africa. The ISRIC-WISE database was used to generate uniform data for 106 global soil units, linked to a 0.5-degree gridded version of the Soil Map of the World to create GIS raster files. The dataset includes variables like total available water capacity, soil organic carbon density for two depth ranges, soil carbonate carbon density, and soil pH for two depth ranges.

Use Cases

• Modeling regional soil carbon stocks for climate studies using soil organic carbon density columns for 0-30 cm and 0-100 cm depth ranges.
• Assessing agricultural water availability by analyzing the total available water capacity (mm water per 1 m soil depth) variable.
• Studying soil acidity and its impact on ecosystems using the soil pH columns for the 0-30 cm and 30-100 cm depth ranges.
• Estimating inorganic carbon storage in soils via the soil carbonate carbon density (kg C/m**2 for 0-100 cm depth range) data.

Strengths

• Derived from a substantial foundational database of over 4300 global soil profiles.
• Provides spatially explicit, gridded data at a 0.5-degree longitude by latitude resolution.
• Offers multiple key soil variables (carbon, pH, water capacity) across standardized depth ranges.

Limitations

• Underlying soil profile data is historical, collected mostly between 1950 and 1995, which may not reflect current conditions.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates exist between sources (1995-12-31 vs. 2026-03-12), creating uncertainty about dataset currency.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and detailed column metadata are unavailable from the provided sources.

Provenance

Source

ISRIC-WISE global database, subset for southern Africa.

Collection Method

Soil profile data was statistically summarized for 106 FAO soil units and linked to a gridded digital soil map to generate raster files.

Time Range

1950 to 1995

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:17:59.072901

Geography

Southern Africa