The spatial resolution of this dataset is 50 km.
The Vegetation/Ecosystem Modeling and Analysis Project (VEMAP) was
a multi-institutional, international effort that addressed the response
of biogeography and biogeochemistry to environmental variability in
climate and other drivers in both space and time domains. The objectives
of VEMAP were to study the intercomparison of biogeochemistry models and
vegetation type distribution models (biogeography models) and determine
their sensitivity to changing climate, elevated atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentrations, and other sources of altered forcing.
Soil properties were based on a 10-km gridded EPA soil
database developed by Kern (1994, 1995). Two soil coverages are provided
in the Kern data set: one from the USDA Soil Conservation Service (SCS)
national soil database (NATSGO) and the other from the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization soil database (FAO 1974- 78).
Only the SCS NATSGO soils are included in the VEMAP set.
Physical consistency in soils data was incorporated by representing a
grid cell's soil by a set of dominant (modal) soil profiles, rather than
by a simple average of soil properties. Because soil processes, such as
soil organic matter turnover and water balance, are non-linearly related
to soil texture and other soil parameters, simulations based on dominant
soil profiles and their frequency distribution can account for soil
dynamics that would be lost if averaged soil properties were used.
To spatially aggregate Kern data to the 0.5 degree grid,
luster analysis was used to group the subgrid 10-km elements into up to
4 modal soil catagories (Kittel et al. 1995). In this statistical
approach, cell soil properties are represented by the set of modal
soils, rather than by an "average soil."