Frequently Asked Questions
General Issues
Question |
Answer |
When will Web Soil Survey have soil information for my particular county? |
All data available in Web Soil Survey is stored in the NRCS Soil Data Mart. Each state is responsible for
populating the Soil Data Mart for all counties in that state. For information about when data will be available
for your county, contact your State Soil Scientist.
This link is also available from the Contact Us link. |
When was Web Soil Survey first released? |
Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns announced the launch of the USDA Web Soil Survey site on August 16, 2005.
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How can I get help using Web Soil Survey? |
You can access context-specific online help throughout Web Soil Survey,
by clicking the question-mark icon.
This opens up help for the particular feature or group of features where the icon is located.
When you open a help item, the question-mark icon turns upside-down:
.
To close the help item, you can click the upside-down question mark icon,
or click the Close button at the upper right of the open help item.
Many help items are divided into sections, which can be opened and closed.
To open a closed section, click the plus-sign icon,
and to close an open section, click the minus-sign icon.
If you need additional assistance, click the Contact Us link in the navigation bar,
click the soilshotline@lin.usda.gov link,
and we’ll be glad to help you.
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How can I find such-and-such in Web Soil Survey? |
Use the Search panel, in the upper left corner of each tab in Web Soil Survey.
Enter keywords or phrases, and use the Advanced Search options if needed, and click Search.
The search results are links that navigate to the the places in Web Soil Survey that match your search items.
For more information, click the icon in the Search panel.
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Area of Interest and Quick Navigation
Question |
Answer |
How do I select the area for which I want to get soil information? |
Here are some basic instructions to get started using Web Soil Survey:
- On the left side of the screen in the Quick Navigation panel, click on one of the selection
methods. For example, open State/County, select your state and county, and click View.
- After the map updates, click the Zoom In tool
. Then click and drag a rectangle on the
map to zoom to an area. Zoom in as close as you need to so you can see streets and landmarks you
recognize.
- After the map updates, click the AOI Rectangle tool .
- Click and drag a rectangle around the area of the map you wish to set as your Area of Interest.
- The application will create the AOI you have specified. Now you can navigate to the Soil Map or
Soil Data Explorer tabs and start getting soil information.
If the area you are interested in is not rectangular, you can use the AOI Polygon tool
.
Click points on the map to define your AOI. Double-click or CTRL-click the final point to finish.
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Why am I limited to an area of interest of 10,000 or fewer acres? Will this limit be removed at some
point? |
For performance purposes, in release 2.1 of Web Soil Survey, a restriction is required on the size of the
AOI. This will likely be increased in a future release. |
I want to get an exact definition of a subject property to match the Assessor’s Parcel Map for a soil survey.
Is there a way that I can pinpoint an exact parcel number or property for a soil survey? |
This feature is not supported in the current release. |
Can I use 911 addresses (physical address on county roads) in the address search feature? |
This feature is not supported in the current release. |
Can I import a shapefile into Web Soil Survey in order to define an area of interest? |
This feature is not supported in the current release. |
How can I bookmark or save my AOI so I can come back to it? |
This feature is not supported in the current release. |
My land contains more than one irregular-shaped field area of tillable land that is surrounded by
non-tillable land. Is it possible to draw each area of tillable land as separate sub-parts of the AOI so the
software can summarize each soil type from the total of field areas of tillable land that has been sketched? |
This feature is not supported in the current release.
Workaround: Create each sub-part as a separate AOI. |
When I’m drawing an AOI, sometimes I make an error and want to stop in the middle of drawing it and
start over, or after I’ve drawn it, I want to delete the AOI and start over. Is there a way to do
this? |
To stop in the middle of drawing an AOI and start over, when using the AOI Rectangle tool,
press the Esc key without releasing the mouse
button.
To start over when using the AOI Polygon tool, just press the Esc key.
To delete an AOI after drawing it, click the Clear AOI button in the Area of Interest
Properties panel.
|
Interactive Map
Question |
Answer |
The aerial photos are too dark or look like patchwork. Is there anything I can do to make this more
readable? |
Though the aerial photography layer is much improved in release 2.1,
there is no adjustment to improve the appearance of the aerial photos.
However, you can turn off the aerial photography layer —
Click the Legend tab, scroll the Legend down to the “Aerial Photography” layer, and uncheck it. |
Why are the water and road lines so far off the photo image? |
The base map data layers used by Web Soil Survey come from multiple sources and were compiled at various scales,
generally at a much coarser resolution than the soils data or the aerial photos,
and they don’t always match perfectly. New map data layers have been integrated with Web Soil Survey in release 2.1,
in order to align better with the soils data and the imagery. |
Why can’t the Web Soil Survey development staff fix problems with these map data layers? |
Web Soil Survey is only displaying these data layers to assist with navigation
and as auxiliary information to the soils data.
These layers are supplied by third parties, and NRCS does not have the authority to edit them.
NRCS is only responsible for the soils data layers. |
How can I find the source of the map data layers displayed in Web Soil Survey? |
To see all available information on a map data layer:
- Zoom the map to a scale where the layer you are interested in is visible.
- Open the Legend tab.
- Right click the name of the layer to pop-up the context menu.
- Click View Layer Descriptions.
- All available information about the source of the data layer is displayed.
In some cases, the source of the data layer is not known, and No descriptions available is displayed.
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How can I find the date of aerial photography used in Web Soil Survey? |
To get the date of the aerial photography for a particular spot:
- Click the Identify tool on the map tool bar.
- Open the Legend tab.
- Set the “Aerial Photography” background layer as the
active layer, by clicking the layer name (leave the checkbox checked, and just click the
name “Aerial Photography”).
- Then click on the map. In the Identify panel below the map, you
will see the date that the aerial photo you clicked was made.
The aerial photography date(s) are also included on the Legend page of printable maps.
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Soil Data Explorer
Question |
Answer |
How do I print or download the soil data maps and tables? |
Here are some basic instructions to get soil data from Web Soil Survey:
- First, create an area of interest (AOI). (See “How do I select the area for which I want to get soil information?” above.)
- Then, click the Soil Map tab.
- You will see the Soil Map for your AOI. Click the Printable Version button, and press View
to create a PDF that you can download or print. For additional help, press the
question-mark icon in the Printable Version form.
- Then, click the Soil Data Explorer tab.
The Soil Data Explorer tab contains five inner tabs:
- Intro to Soils
- Suitabilities and Limitations for Use (the default)
- Soil Properties and Qualities
- Ecological Site Assessment
- Soil Reports
On the left side Suitabilities and Limitations for Use tab are a number of “Folders”, which you can click to open.
You can find the data you want most easily using the Search feature, at the upper left corner of all Web Soil Survey tabs.
- Open Recreational Development, for example.
- The folders contain forms which you can fill out to get “Soil Ratings” (on the other inner tabs, other kinds of soil data are available).
Click Playgrounds to open it.
- You can click View Description to see a description of this rating.
- Click View Rating to run the rating and view the data map and/or tables.
- Click the Printable Version button, and press View
to create a PDF of the soil rating map and/or tables that you can download or print.
- Help for the Suitabilities and Limitations for Use tab, and for all the inner tabs, is available by clicking the
question-mark icon at the upper right of the folder panel.
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How do I get the description of a soil map unit without printing a soil map? |
Define your area of interest, then navigate to the Soil Map tab. On the left side, find your soil map
unit in the Map Unit Legend. Click on the map unit name to display the description for that map unit in a
dialog. The Map Unit Description dialog also contains a Printable Version button.
You can also view and print a report containing all Map Unit Descriptions for your AOI. Navigate to the
Soil Data Explorer tab, then the Soil Reports inner tab. On the left side, in the AOI
Inventory folder, view the Map Unit Description report.
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What is the source of the data presented in Web Soil Survey? |
The data presented by Web Soil Survey comes from the Soil Data
Mart, which serves the official NRCS soil data for the U.S. |
How can I get soil tabular and spatial data in a database format? |
This data is available in various forms, depending on your needs:
Scope |
Link |
Scale |
Data Format |
User-specified AOI, up to 10,000 acres |
Web Soil Survey
— click the Download Soils Data link in the main navigation bar. |
SSURGO (1:24,000) |
Spatial:
Tabular:
|
Soil Survey Area2 |
Soil Data Mart |
SSURGO (1:24,000) |
Spatial:
- ESRI Shapefile
- ESRI ArcInfo Interchange
- ESRI ArcInfo Coverage
Tabular:
|
Geospatial Data Gateway |
State, or entire U.S. |
Soil Data Mart - U.S. General Soil Map |
STATSGO (1:250,000) |
Spatial:
Tabular:
|
Geospatial Data Gateway |
User-specified AOI, up to 2,500,000 acres |
Soil Data Access3 |
SSURGO (1:24,000) |
Spatial:
Tabular:4
|
Entire U.S. |
We can provide a backup copy of the entire Soil Data Mart database.3
Contact us at soilshotline@lin.usda.gov |
SSURGO (1:24,000) |
Microsoft SQL Server and ESRI ArcSDE |
Notes:
- Soil tabular data in an ASCII format
that can be imported into a Microsoft Access “SSURGO Template Database”.
You can download the national SSURGO Template Database,
or for some states, a custom SSURGO Template Database.
- You can determine data availability for soil survey areas using the
Soil Survey Area Data Availability Status Map.
- The Soil Data Access and SDM backup copy options require considerably more technical expertise than the others.
- For details, refer to the Soil Data Access Query Guide.
To utilize this data, you will need:
- For the spatial data, ArcGIS or other software that can read shapefiles.
- For the tabular data, Microsoft Access.
- To use the spatial data in conjunction with the tabular data,
the Soil Data Viewer application.
- For a Soil Data Mart backup copy, Microsoft SQL Server and ESRI ArcSDE.
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Printable Maps and Reports
Question |
Answer |
I cannot produce a printable version of the soil map. I have tried several times, and each time it says
“Generating printable version...”, but when it’s done, no printable version appears. |
You may have a popup blocker installed. See “Web Soil Survey
doesn’t work if you have popups blocked” on the Known Problems page. |
What is the difference between Printable Version and Add to Shopping Cart? |
You can print or save soils data on a page-by-page basis using the Printable Version feature.
You can also add maps and data to a “Shopping Cart” for inclusion in a single Custom Soil Resource Report.
It’s an easy way to get one polished report containing all relevant information for your area of interest.
Any custom report you create on your Shopping Cart is free of charge — we just used the well-known internet
shopping analogy for collecting and ordering your information.
To try out this feature, define your area of interest (AOI), and navigate to the Shopping Cart tab.
In the Table of Contents panel, notice several report items available by default: Cover, Preface, Contents,
How Soil Surveys Are Made, Soil Map, Map Unit Legend, Map Unit Descriptions, and References.
You can preview items in your Shopping Cart by clicking the item’s title in the Table of Contents.
To make the preview go away, click the title again.
You can add additional information to your report as desired.
From the inner tabs of the Soil Data Explorer tab, view information and then click Add to Shopping Cart.
In this way, you can assemble a report customized to your needs.
When you have collected all the data you want in your report,
press the Check Out button and choose Get Now or Download Later.
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