LWF Soil Morphology: Forest Soil Properties from Swiss Monitoring Campaign

A 1994-1999 monitoring campaign documented morphological soil properties for genetic horizons down to parent material across heterogeneous plots in Swiss forests. The dataset was collected by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) and ETH Zurich. Results and a detailed manual are available in German via the provided links.

Use Cases

• Parameterize water balance models based on root distribution data
• Interpret chemical soil status based on soil hydromorphy features
• Assess soil variability across forest plots using multiple profile descriptions

Strengths

• Data collection spans a 5-year period (1994-1999)
• Properties were described for all genetic horizons down to parent material
• Multiple soil profiles were described per plot to assess variability

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Last updated 2019-01-01 00:00:00; freshness should be verified
• Primary documentation and results are in German

Provenance

Source

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) and ETH Zurich

Collection Method

Field descriptions of soil pits and profiles during a monitoring campaign.

Time Range

1994-1999

Geography

Switzerland (likely, inferred from organization and manual language)