THE NEW DIGITAL MAP OF SALTED SOILS OF SOUTH SIBERIA IN RUSSIA

ABSTRACT

To create a digital map of soil salinization in southern Siberia, a GIS project was developed based on systematization, georeferencing, superposition, and handling of available cartographic and attribute information. According to the earlier proposed method, the GIS project corrected and created electronic maps of salt-affected soils in southern Siberia. The major stages and methodology of this work, the problems encountered by the authors, and the ways of their solution with the use of GIS technologies in the ArcInfo environment are described. All available cartographic materials, GIS “Soils of Russia” project, digital elevation model (DEM), remote sensing materials, and original field and laboratory data and published materials on 143 soil profiles were used in our study. It is argued the maps of soil salinization created exceptionally on the basis of remote sensing materials may contain serious errors and be misleading.

Keywords: GIS project, digital map, salinization, chemical composition, Southern Siberia