Soil Associations and Carbon Demand Index for Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony

49 soil mapping units from a German soil map are summarized into six soil associations for three federal states. The dataset includes clay and silt content information for assessing soil organic matter and a calculated Carbon Demand Index (CDI) to identify hotspots for carbon sequestration. It was compiled by Uwe Franko using the Revised FAO Legend (1990) and German soil mapping guidelines.

Use Cases

• Modeling soil organic matter turnover based on clay and silt content data.
• Identifying regional hotspots for carbon demand using the calculated Carbon Demand Index (CDI).
• Analyzing the spatial distribution of soil types, particularly loess-derived soils covering 31.9% of the study area.
• Grouping soils for regional analysis based on parent material and formation conditions (genetic-oriented approach).

Strengths

• Includes data for 49 distinct soil mapping units aggregated from a national map with 72 total units.
• Provides specific texture data, with clay and silt contents ranging from over 50 to 90% for loess-area soils.
• Quantifies the coverage of loess sediments, which account for 31.9% of the study area.
• Derives soil texture using established national guidelines for soil mapping (Eckelmann et al., 2005).

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Uwe Franko, based on the German soil map (BUEK1000) and the Revised FAO Legend (1990).

Collection Method

Soil mapping units were summarized into genetic-oriented soil associations. Texture data was derived from characteristic soil profiles using national mapping guidelines.

Geography

The German federal states of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony.