Irish Soil Information System

Soils Guide - How it works

The soils guide has a panel to the left showing various hierarchical groupings of soils while the panel on the right displays further detail on the members of any selected element of a chosen soil grouping. On opening, the screen shows all the soil associations recognised on the map. Soil associations are grouped together and assigned colours which are are the same colours used on the map legend. Below this initially open left panel is an 'accordion box' dialogue allowing you to switch between the associations, soil series (soil types), and the higher categories of soil, the Subgroup and Great Group.

All soil types belong to a SubGroup and so in turn to one of the 11 soil Great Groups. Great Groups and SubGroups are a hierarchical arrangement of soils used for taxonomical classification. At 1:250,000 scale it is impossible to show individual soil types on the map. The soil association concept therefore represents a cartographic grouping of local soils. The polygons on the soil map show soil associations, the groups of soil types that commonly occur together in the landscape. The database that sits behind the map allows you to 'drill down' into the data to see the soil types linked with a given association and their relative rankings in terms of typical extent.