Soil Survey Observation Point Barnegat Bay, NJ

A subaqueous soil survey was just completed for 71,000 acres of Barnegat Bay New Jersey (USA) - this KMZ provides the partial location of 263 soil observations that were taken during the mapping of the bay along with some data. It is best to view these points along with the SSURGO soils map which can be added using the SoilWeb KML (http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/soil_web/kml/SoilWeb.kmz). The National Cooperative Soil Survey is currently updating soil surveys along the coastal zone (dunes, marshes, and beaches) along with mapping shallow (<5m water depth) sub-tidal subaqueous soils. Additional information is available for Rhode Island (search the ocean forum). 

Attachments:

Barnegat_Bay_Soil_Survey_Observations_Points.kmz (43.04 KB)

Interesting survey and results soilman.

Can you tell us more about what sort of people and industries this information is useful for and how it is used?

Cheers.

Mar 17, 2017 0:35:23 GMT nostranger said:

Interesting survey and results soilman.

Can you tell us more about what sort of people and industries this information is useful for and how it is used?

Cheers.

Not sure where to start! Soil surveys produced as part of the National Cooperative Soil Survey (a partnership which works to cooperatively to investigate, inventory, document, classify, interpret, disseminate, and publish information about soils) are widely used by people to provide soils data, uses of soil, interpretations for over 90 different land (and water) uses, chemical and physical properties of the soils, and ecologic information. Our data available for free on the Web Soil Survey (an via smart phone using SoilWeb) is accessed an average of 8,400 time per day. Soil surveys are one of the top requested resource inventory maps used by planners as they provide a wide variety of data (more info at: www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/soils/survey/partnership/ncss/ ). 

In the 1990's the NCSS began to recognize the need to extend our soil mapping into shallow sub-tidal lands as the definition of "soil" changed to include these shallow water areas (called subaqueous soils). The NCSS also began to provide better mapping and data along the entire coastal zone including dunes, marshes, and beaches in what is now called a Coastal Zone Soil Survey. The subaqueous soil mapping provides baseline data about the soils in these coastal and freshwater ponds, interpretations for over 10 uses such as coastal blue carbon pools, aquaculture and shellfish, seagrass restoration, bottom type, acid sulfate weathering, accretion rates, bearing capacity, ecologic information and numerous other uses have been developed. The soils data provided extends down to 2 meters below the bottom of these ponds and in many of these soil cores there is 20,000 years of geologic record exposed. In Rhode Island, the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service uses these subaqueous soil maps to locate areas to create oyster reefs and conduct restoration projects in the coastal zone. More information on the uses of this data can be found at: nesoil.com/sas/index.htm - let me know if you need more information, map examples, etc.  

That's great soilman, it gives us a much better idea of the whys and hows the data is used.

The links you provided also lead us to how the uses fan out and are used for many varied uses.

I was wondering why all the samples appeared to be in water bodies, that is now explained.

Overall, a huge and essential service.

Thank You