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NRCS FY2018 Soil Properties and Interpretations, Derived Using gSSURGO Data and Tools

Metadata Updated: January 9, 2026

These data depict the western United States Map Unit areas as defined by the USDA NRCS. Each Map Unit area contains information on a variety of soil properties and interpretations. The raster is to be joined to the .csv file by the field "mukey." We keep the raster and csv separate to preserve the full attribute names in the csv that would be truncated if attached to the raster. Once joined, the raster can be classified or analyzed by the columns which depict the properties and interpretations. It is important to note that each property has a corresponding component percent column to indicate how much of the map unit has the dominant property provided. For example, if the property "AASHTO Group Classification (Surface) 0 to 1cm" is recorded as "A-1" for a map unit, a user should also refer to the component percent field for this property (in this case 75). This means that an estimated 75% of the map unit has a "A-1" AASHTO group classification and that "A-1" is the dominant group. The property in the column is the dominant component, and so the other 25% of this map unit is comprised of other AASHTO Group Classifications. This raster attribute table was generated from the "Map Soil Properties and Interpretations" tool within the gSSURGO Mapping Toolset in the Soil Data Management Toolbox for ArcGIS™ User Guide Version 4.0 (https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/PA_NRCSConsumption/download?cid=nrcseprd362255&ext=pdf) from GSSURGO that used their Map Unit Raster as the input feature (https://gdg.sc.egov.usda.gov/). The FY2018 Gridded SSURGO Map Unit Raster was created for use in national, regional, and state-wide resource planning and analysis of soils data. These data were created with guidance from the USDA NRCS. The fields named "*COMPPCT_R" can exceed 100% for some map units. The NRCS personnel are aware of and working on fixing this issue. Take caution when interpreting these areas, as they are the result of some data duplication in the master gSSURGO database. The data are considered valuable and required for timely science needs, and thus are released with this known error. The USDA NRCS are developing a data release which will replace this item when it is available. For the most up to date ssurgo releases that do not include the custom fields as this release does, see https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/home/?cid=nrcs142p2_053628#tools For additional definitions, see https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/geo/?cid=nrcs142p2_053627.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date January 9, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 9, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date January 9, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 9, 2026
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/USGS_5fb2b26bd34eb413d5e088cf
Data Last Modified 2020-11-20T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 569f697c-a6b6-4bbb-9850-23d7d10194c0
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -127.8881, 29.2515, -101.3595, 51.4320
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 54e855245994a95006bfb7945247616234e068b3160ac7bb30991dffda791286
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -127.8881, 29.2515, -127.8881, 51.4320, -101.3595, 51.4320, -101.3595, 29.2515, -127.8881, 29.2515}

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