Spatial resolution of the gSSURGO datsets

[KristenHychka]

Hello,

I was very pleased to see that the Living Atlas of the World hosts some data derived from SSURGO-level soils data for the U.S. I am curious, though, why the horizontal resolution is 30-m in the continental U.S. (CONUS)? It looks like the data was originally created in 2017, but updated in 2019 when the USDA released higher resolution (10m) gSSURGO data for the CONUS. Does anyone know why this is? Is it just a storage issue or is there an intention of updating these layers? In the data description, it says the data is 30m resolution in the CONUS and 10m elsewhere, which I believe is the reverse of what is available from USDA gSSURGO (see quoted text below from the Hydric Class dataset).

Thanks, Kristen

https://ccegeomaps.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=2be45af986af4624839cedae883faf47

"This layer is derived from the 2019 version of the gSSURGO 30m (contiguous U.S.) and 10m rasters (all other regions) produced by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The value for hydric class is derived from the gSSURGO map unit aggregated attribute table field Hydric Classification - Presence (hydclprs)."

[KristenHychka]

I meant there should be 10-m resolution data available for the Conterminous U.S. not Continental (so not Alaska). Here's the USDA document that discusses the resolution of the 2019 release gSSURGO.

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/home/?cid=nrcs142p2_053628

[KristenHychka]

Also, if there is somewhere else I should be asking this question, could someone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

[RichNauman · Accepted solution]

Hi Kristen,

We base our SSURGO derived imagery layers on the gSSURGO 30m raster. NRCS also produces a 10m raster that is included with gSSURGO. We originally published these layers before gSSURGO was available and made our own rasters at 30m to match our other services like NLCD and NED that were typically 30m.

We would consider publishing the layers using the 10m gSSURGO raster if there is a good use case for it. My understanding is that the 10m was primarily designed for cartography while the 30m better captures the data collection scale.