Collect resources describing geomorphology

[planetirf]

Aggregate Soil Geomorphic Relationship Resources:

USDA-NRCS, Field book for Describing and Sampling Soils (Version 3.0) Page 3-1:

The field book contains (The Red Book) the comprehensive list of short codes used in the soil survey process.

Geomorphic Description System

• Part 1: Physiographic Location
  (A) Physiographic Division
  (B) Physiographic Province
  (C) Physiographic Section
  (D) State Physiographic Area
  (E) Local Physiographic / Geographic Name

• Part 2: Geomorphic Description
  (A) Landscape
  (B) Landform
  (C) Microfeature
  (D) Anthropogenic Features

• Part 3: Surface Morphometry
  (A) Elevation
  (B) Slope Aspect
  (C) Slope Gradient
  (D) Slope Complexity
  (E) Slope Shape
  (F) Hillslope - Profile Position
  (G) Geomorphic Component
  1. Hills
  2. Terraces, Stepped Landforms
  3. Mountains
  4. Flat Plains
  (H) Microrelief
  (I) Drainage Pattern

Each subsection for each part (1-3) typically uses a 2-3 letter shortcode for data entry.

Part 2: Geomorphic description codes at each level A-D, are not always exclusive for each category. For example, Caldera (shortcode: CD) is a term listed for both Landscapes (Part 2-A) and Landforms (Part 2-B).

Additionally, Part 2: Geomorphic descriptions at each level (A-D) may be grouped by geomorphic processes or other groupings. (Field book for Describing and Sampling Soils (Version 3.0) Page 3-10)

• Geomorphic Environments

  1. Coastal Marine and Estuarine
  2. Lacustrine
  3. Fluvial
  4. Solution
  5. Eolian
  6. Glacial
  7. Periglacial
  8. Mass Movement
  9. Volcanic and Hydrothermal
  10. Tectonic and Structural

• Other Groupings
  11. Slope
  12. Erosional
  13. Depressional
  14. Wetlands
  15. Water Bodies
  16. Subaqueous Features

The USDA Soil Survey Manual Chapter (The Green Book) Chapter 2 subsection: "Consistently Describing Landscapes, Landforms and Geomorphology"

World Reference Base?

Australian Soil Survey?

Canadian Soil Survey?

Others?

[brownag]

Hey @planetirf -- sad to hear I missed a good discussion today! I want to get more involved on this GitHub repo. Glad to hear you were there and brought up this important discussion. We have a hierarchical system in the US for describing soil-landform-landscape relationships.

There are two authoritative documents of interest. I don't want to discount the value of the field book and manual, but they would be secondary to (derived from) the following two:

1. National Soil Survey Handbook (NSSH) Part 629 Part 629 is Soil Survey Field Procedures Glossary Of Landform and Geologic Terms Part A and Part B

2. Geomorphic Description System (GDS) https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs142p2_051068.pdf

Basically, the NSSH defines the terms, and the GDS provides narrative and structure/hierarchy to the terms.

I have started some work on creating a machine-readable version of the USDA soil survey standards related to geomorph, but have not got too far.

"SoilKnowledgeBase" is a repository I have set up to build data sets (targeting text based, usually JSON, formats). Most of these are based in some way on the NSSH standards which are delivered in PDF format and maintained through our eDirectives system. ncss-tech/SoilKnowledgeBase#9. The whole NSSH has been parsed so that theoretically sections and individual clauses can be specifically referenced. As far as the GDS, I got as far as parsing the structure you posted there -- essentially the overall hierarchy. Much more to do on this front: https://github.com/ncss-tech/SoilKnowledgeBase/tree/main/inst/extdata/GDS