WMS - Background Values of Soils in Saxony, Germany

WMS - Background values of soils is a geospatial service from the German Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG). It contains two layers: one for inorganic substances, derived from analysis data for 16 elements from about 19,000 sites with up to 40,000 samples, and another for organic substances, based on spatial categories from Saxony's 2013 state development plan and up to 2,300 samples. The data is licensed under Data licence Germany – attribution – Version 2.0.

Use Cases

• Establishing regional soil quality baselines based on inorganic element concentrations.
• Modeling spatial distribution of organic contaminants using the spatial category framework.
• Assessing soil contamination by comparing site-specific measurements against the provided background values.

Strengths

• The inorganic layer is based on a substantial sample size of up to 40,000 samples from about 19,000 sites.
• Analysis covers 16 distinct inorganic elements, providing a multi-parameter baseline.
• The organic layer uses a defined spatial categorization framework from an official state development plan.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• The geographic scope for the organic layer appears to be limited to the German state of Saxony.

Provenance

Source

Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG)

Collection Method

Aggregated from the SIS soil database and spatial planning categories.

Geography

Germany, with specific focus on Saxony for the organic layer.