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ANZSoilML Primer

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Alistair Ritchie edited this page Jan 16, 2019 · 25 revisions

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Further Reading
  3. Core
  4. Soil
  5. Soil Sampling
  6. Soil Landscapes
  7. Global Soil Map
  8. Using ANZSoilML

Introduction

ANZSoilML specifies the set of classes, properties, relationships and supporting vocabularies needed to structure digital information used in the Australian and New Zealand soil sciences. It is primarily concerned with observed properties of soils and their associated landscape features as specified in the:

  • Australian Soil and Land Survey Field Handbook, Third edition, 2009, The National Committee on Soil and Terrain. (CSIRO Publishing)
  • New Zealand Soil Description Handbook, Revised edition, 1995, Milne, J.D.G., Clayden, B., Singleton, P.L., Wilson, A.D. (Manaaki Whenua Digital Library)

ANZSoilML is subdivided into packages according to the parts of the environment the model describes (soil and landscapes) and how soil data are collected and used (soil sampling), with a package of shared components (core) . An additional package, Global Soil Map (GSM), attempts to align the ANZSoilML model with soil property predictions made by the GSM community. To ensure consistency with other environmental datasets it also imports packages from important standards for observation and sampling data (Observations and Measurements 2.0 (O&M)), and geology (GeoScience Mark-up Language 3.0 (GeoSciML)).

IMAGE: ANZSoilML Packages

Figure: Simplified overview of ANZSoilML (green) packages, and imported Observations and Measurements (white) and GeoSciML (blue) packages.

Further Reading

A detailed UML model of ANZSoilML 2.0.1 is published in this repository's archive.

The model is also fully documented in AppInfo elements in the XML Schema Documents

Core

The core package contains a small set of classes that are used by all other ANZSoilML packages:

  • DepthQuantityRange is a data type to capture upper (top) and lower (bottom) depth boundary values. Treated as a special range value for depths or soil layers, horizons and samples.
  • LandscapeFeature is a parent class for all ANZSoilML environmental features (including soils themselves). Provides relationships to classes that support mapping (SpatialEntities) and annotated relationships (LandscapeFeatureRelation).
  • LandscapeFeatureRelation: a class that builds spatial, temporal and physical relationships between LandscapeFeatures. Each participant in a relationship (source and target) can have a specific role (sourceRole and targetRole) according to a formal vocabulary.
  • SpatialEntity is a class that shows the spatial representation of a feature with provenance and accuracy metadata. The same feature can have multiple representations, typically for different presentation purposes (e.g. an precise location or polygon, or a generalised polygon for a simplified map). Based on the GeoSciML MappedFeature.

IMAGE: ANZSoilML - Core

Figure: Simplified overview of ANZSoilML core classes (green).

Soil

The soils package contains classes for the description and classification of mapped or observed bodies of soil and, their component horizons and materials. A large part of the composition model has been adapted from the GeoSciML EarthMaterial package. The model includes an approach for delivering full soil profiles see Soil Sampling below.

  • The core of the model, SoilFeatures, can be broken into the whole Soil, the constituent Horizons and also their surface expression (the SoilSurface). All of these features can described, where appropriate with their constituent roots, voids and mottles.
  • A details description of the composition of a SoilFeature is supported by the SoilMaterial composition classes. These are derived from the GeoSciML CompoundMaterial (an EarthMaterial made up of other EarthMaterials). The CompoundMaterial provides ways of describing particle size and fabric. Not shown in the figures below are a set of useful, physical, GeoSciML EarthMaterials (Minerals, OrganicMaterial etc). The SoilMaterial itself supports the description of a material's consistence, and also the nature of soil structures such as Peds, Segregations and Cutans.
  • SoilFeatures can be classified using the SoilClassification, an annotated reference to a soil classification or horizon designation according to a formal taxonomy (e.g. the USDA Soil Taxonomy or the World Reference Base).
  • SoilFeature geometries are provided as SpatialEntities (for mapped or interpreted distributions) or SoilSamples/ SoilSpecimens (for sampling sites).

IMAGE: ANZSoilML - Soil

Figure: Simplified overview of ANZSoilML soil classes (green) and imported GeoSciML (blue) classes. See the next figure for an expanded view of the soil composition SoilMaterial class and its context.

IMAGE: ANZSoilML - Soil (Composition)

Figure: Simplified overview of ANZSoilML soil composition classes (green) and imported GeoSciML (blue) classes.

Soil Sampling

The soil sampling package is a minimalist extension of Observations and Measurements to capture data about soil sampling in the field and the subsequent storage of samples in an archive. The package also documents the use of O&M Observations and GeoSciML laboratory analysis classes to capture analytical results and metadata.

  • O&M SF_SamplingFeature extensions provide simple location data about where a sample was taken and analysed at the site (a SoilSample); or where a sample was taken for analysis off-site, for example in a lab (SoilSpecimen) - these also record the location of a sample if it has been archived afterwards.
  • A SoilProfile is a special type of sampling feature with data about where it is (SF_SpatialSamplingFeature properties) and a comprehensive description of the soil (Soil). This contrasts with field or laboratory observations (OM_Observations) that capture values for a single property.
  • GeoSciML Laboratory Analysis classes are used to provide metadata about the procedures used to measure soil properties (OM_Observation results).
    • The AnalyticalMethod is a link to a vocabulary or register of documented analytical methods (e.g. New Zealand Soil Bureau Scientific Report 10C, Methods for Physical Analysis of Soils - Bulk Density).
    • The AnalyticalSession provides information about when and where the analysis was run, including the AnalyticalInstrument that was used (both the type and also the specific piece of equipment).

IMAGE: ANZSoilML - Soil Sampling

Figure: Simplified overview of ANZSoilML sampling classes (green) and imported Observations and Measurements (white) and GeoSciML (blue) classes.

Soil Landscapes

NOTE: the Soil Landscapes package is intended to be partly or wholly deprecated in the future. It has been created to fill an existing gap but the ANZSoilML community hope it can be replaced by models created be experts in the appropriate domains (climatologists, ecologists, Randian epistemologists, geomorphologists and so on).

The soil landscape packages provide the classes necessary to capture the landscape observations needed to properly describe a soil site.

  • The SoilLandscape captures the physical character of the landscape and the nature of processes that affect it. Physical characteristics include nature and composition of the Landform and LandSurface - (geo)morphology, relief at micro and macro scales etc captured as observations (e.g. slope and aspect) or according to a classification system (e.g. landform pattern). Processes cover events that change the land surface (channel development/erosion/flooding.)
  • The Climate package supports descriptions of the climate at the site (e.g. annual rainfall and temperature extremes).
  • HumanActivity captures the land use and management practices that were in place around a soil site, and when, and what impacts these have had in terms of the land cover and disturbance of a site.
  • The Vegetation package captures type type, nature, abundance and distribution of vegetation at a site.

IMAGE: ANZSoilML - Landscape

Figure: Simplified overview of ANZSoilML landscape classes (green).

Global Soil Map

The ANZSoilML GlobalSoilMap package is an application Observations and Measurements (O&M) that was been developed by members of the Oceania node of the GlobalSoilMap.net project (http://globalsoilmap.net/). It uses extensions of O&M to create feature types that provide meta-data about:

  • GSM spatial entities as a special type of ANZSoilML SoilProfile (an O&M SF_SpatialSamplingFeature)
  • The depth intervals as a special type of ANZSoilML SoilLayer (an O&M SF_SpatialSamplingFeature)
  • The predicted values as an O&M OM_Measure.

This package conforms to version 2.3 of the GlobalSoilMap.net Specifications (http://globalsoilmap.net/specifications).

IMAGE: ANZSoilML - Global Soil Map

Figure: Simplified overview of ANZSoilML Global Soil Map classes (orange) with related ANZSoilML (green) and Observations and Measurements (white) classes.

Using ANZSoilML

The current version of ANZSoilML can only be formally implemented using GML documents provided via links or OGC Web Feature Services. Future versions will support more encodings and access mechanisms.

Known implementations of ANZSoilML are listed here.

A set of template implementations, including example documents and data requests, are here (pending).

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