Iowa Soil Bulk Density – 1/3 Bar Maps [gSSURGO]
Author: Meyer Bohn
Author: Meyer Bohn
Bulk density, one-third bar, is the oven-dry weight of the soil material less than 2 mm in size per unit volume of soil at water tension of -0.33 bar (-33 kPa), expressed in grams per cubic centimeter. Bulk density data are used to compute linear extensibility, shrink-swell potential, available water capacity, total pore space, and other soil properties. The moist bulk density of a soil indicates the pore space available for water and roots. Depending on soil texture, a bulk density of more than 1.4 can restrict water storage and root penetration. Moist bulk density is influenced by texture, kind of clay, content of organic matter, and soil structure.
The zip file contains the base GeoTIFF soil property rasters, OVR pyramid files (reduced resolution for faster display), AUX auxiliary files (Raster color map, statistics, histogram, table, pointer to pyramid file, coordinate system, transformation, projection information), TFW world files (GeoTIFF coordinate system information), and a LYRX file (stored symbology for viewing in ArcGIS Pro v 2.2 or later) and a LYR file (stored symbology for viewing in ArcGIS for Desktop), and associated metadata in a RTF file.
Produced by: Meyer Bohn, Joshua McDanel, and Bradley Miller January (2019)
Created with the gSSURGO mapping toolset for ArcGIS for Desktop 10.6. Available for download at:
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/geo/?cid=nrcs142p2_053628
Raster Format: 10-m resolution GeoTIFF, 32-bit floating point
Projection: NAD83 UTM Zone 15N
Extent – West: -96.801571 East: -90.007463 North: 43.644364 South: 40.302683
Soil Survey Staff. 2018. Natural Resources Conservation Service. United States Department of Agriculture. Gridded Soil Survey Geographic (gSSURGO) Database for Iowa. Accessed 27 Oct 2018.
Use limitations: See “Sources of Apparent Error on Existing Soil Maps”. Soil Survey Staff. 2018. Soil Survey Manual – Ch. 4: Soil Mapping Concepts. Natural Resources Conservation Service. United States Department of Agriculture. Available at:
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/ref/?cid=nrcs142p2_054254#quality
Scale Range: Not intended for use at scales larger than an order 2 Survey (1:12,000 to 1:31,680).