State of soil resources largely determines the efficiency of agricultural production and significantly affects the environmental condition of lands. Soil Map of the RSFSR published in 1988 and its digitized original “Unified State Register of Soil Resources of Russia” were used as the basis for analysis of soil resources so far, at a country level. The aim of the research was to transform this map into digital product based on modern techniques of digital soil mapping. The map units were disaggregated using the method of the minimum Mahalanobis distance and map representation in digital form was 500 m of a pixel size on the ground. The map content was translated into taxonomic units of the Classification and Diagnostics of Soils in Russia (2004). Additionally, it was detailed by adding information about disturbed and urban soils, agrogenically transformed soils, and by clarifying the display of water bodies on the map. As a result, the unified digital model of Russian soil cover contains information about 3788 soils (including data on soil-forming and underlying rocks). Selective validation of the model based on regional soil maps showed that the coincidence of the predominant and associated soils of the original map and the model at the type level was 70%, the coincidence of the predominant and associated soils at the subtype level was 37%, which indicates a fairly good quality of the constructed model.
Ivanov et al. (Fri,) studied this question.