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Soil geomorphic unit and ecological site group maps for the rangelands of the Upper Colorado River Basin region

Metadata Updated: October 29, 2025

This data release includes maps characterizing soil geomorphic units (SGUs), climate zones, and ecological site groups that classify landscapes by ecological potential and behavior for use in land management in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) region. Soil geomorphic units were created by analysis and grouping of ecological sites (ESs), a more detailed local system of ecological units managed by the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS). Vegetation reference community production data of ESs were analyzed to determine discrete rules based on field soils data linked to the soil survey geographic (SSURGO) database of the USA to determine SGUs. Then both reference production data and state and transition model (STM) state attribution data were used to optimize combination of potential climate zone breaks with SGUs to determine final ecological site groups (ESGs). A non-parameteric Manova framework was used for all analysis in creating SGUs and ESGs to find groupings that best discerned differences in reference production and STMs. These groups, and the associated climate zones are mapped at 30m resolution for this data release. Mapping was done using a digital soil mapping workflow that linked field soil descriptions keyed to SGU to environmental raster covariates (e.g. digital elevation model) to create a predictive mapping model. The ESGs were then created by overlaying various climate surfaces with the SGUs to reclassify pixels. The SGU predictions are provided as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most probable class for each pixel based on the underlying random forest model probabilities.

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 September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5f76119e82cef8d1839c681d
Data Last Modified 2021-07-19T00:00:00Z
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 3ac7e977-c9f0-4d8e-9e6d-95dd609e125d
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -114.114, 33.87, -105.68, 43.5
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d3330e39b07a451580a5eac9d0ab94d58262a9f9e8c77cbb3599dc9765ec1e62
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -114.114, 33.87, -114.114, 43.5, -105.68, 43.5, -105.68, 33.87, -114.114, 33.87}

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