National Research and Development

Institute for Soil Science, Agro-chemistry

and Environment, Romania
From the SelectedWorks of Ruxandra Vintila

January 1, 2018

First steps in Romania converging

toward the GlobalSoilMap
specifications
Ruxandra Vintila
Cristina Radnea

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/ruxandra_vintila/

3/
First steps in Romania converging toward the GlobalSoilMap
specifications
R. Vintilă & C. Radnea
National Research and Development Institute for Soil Science, Agrochemistry and Environment
(ICPA Bucharest), Romania

ABSTRACT: In the first part of this voluntary exercise, we have produced a topsoil organic carbon (OC)
content map of Romania converging toward a GlobalSoilMap Tier 2 product, thanks to legacy vector maps,
generated bottom-up starting from the studies of the Soil Survey County Offices. Also, we have used a set of
pedotransfer rules, previously developed based on a vast archive of soil profile data. The uncertainty sources
affecting this map have been identified and ranked for future improvements. Meanwhile, we have noticed that
for croplands, grasslands, and woodlands, the area-weighted values of the topsoil OC content as per this map
are slightly higher, as compared to the recent information coming from the LUCAS survey of the year 2012.
In the second part of this exercise, we have provided feedback on two maps of Romania - produced by the Joint
Research Center of Ispra (Italy), as the GSM node for the Eurasia part - namely, the USDA topsoil textural
classes map and the topsoil clay content map. For this purpose, we have used legacy vector maps again.
Moreover, we have developed a method that minimizes the errors introduced during the processing.

1.2 Pressing issues in Romania & GSM relevance

1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Pertinent country-specific information
Across Romania, the soil cover patterns - as first
defined by Fridland in 1972 - manifest a high
complexity. This statement may become quickly
obvious if analyzing the national soil map in vector
format SIGSTAR-200 (Vintilă et al. 2004).
Specifically, this map consists of many tens of
thousands of polygons of different size and shapes,
described by a legend of 475 soil units and
associations of soil units (Florea et al. 1963-1994,
Vlad et al. 2012). SIGSTAR-200 manages soil data
and information about 238,391 sq. Km, of which
31.5% are mountains (a part of the Carpathians), 36%
are hills and plateaus, while the rest of 32.5%
represents plains, water meadows, and the Danube
Delta (Romanian Statistical Yearbook 2016).
At the same time, the distribution of the main land
cover classes, in 2012, for example, was as follows:
32.8% cropland, 31.5% woodland, 28.1% grassland,
1.2% wetland, 1.8% shrub land, 0.8 % bare land,
1.7% water, and 2.1% artificial land (European Office
of Statistics 2016).
Accordingly, the raster soil maps of Romania
contributing to the GlobalSoilMap (GSM) would
have about 22,885,500 cells of 100m x 100m to
comply with the GSM specifications (GSM Science
Committee 2015), i.e., after masking the cells with
more than 50% non-soil materials (which include
permanent water bodies, bare rocks, and the sealed
surfaces within urban areas).
The negative effects of global climate change are
already present throughout this country. In this
regard, since 1961, the temperature has registered
significant increases within the whole of Romania
during the summer and spring (Dumitrescu et al.
2015). Along this period, the continuous rise of
evapotranspiration rates from May until September
has negatively affected the agricultural yields all over
the country. Moreover, since 1985, certain aspects of
human health have seriously worsened during the
summer, and Dobrinescu et al. (2015) have
demonstrated their relation to the ever-escalating
thermal stress.
In fact, since 1961 the mean annual temperature
has increased by 0.14°C to 0.3°C per decade, with a
median slope of 0.23°C, which may indicate, as stated
by Marin et al. (2014) and consistent with other
studies, a general warming trend over the entire
region.
Recently, Prăvălie et al. (2017) have reinforced
these findings, warning against the susceptibility to
large-scale degradation / desertification in southern
and central southeastern Europe, which would be
approximately 75% higher than the current estimates.
In particular, Romania would have around 170%
more dry lands.
In this context, our participation in the
GlobalSoilMap has become even more pressing,
making possible in-depth studies of the soil functional
properties at 100m resolution (Arrouyas et al. 2014),
and thus ensuring better-informed decisions at this
level.
1.3 Outlook on the level of technical readiness agricultural lands, by expert-based generalization of
maps at the scale 1:50,000, compiled at their turn
To actively contribute to the GSM, the academic
from the survey studies carried out at the scale
community of Romania should acquire specific
1:10,000 by the Soil Survey County Offices; (ii) for
expertise, hence it should soundly build on the skills
the rest of the territory, by generalization of maps at
demonstrated in previous successful projects.
1:100,000. The coordinate system of SIGSTAR-200
Actually, the digital soil mapping era in Romania
is the Romania’s official projection Stereo-1970
had its first major achievement at the end of 1999,
(Mugnier 2001) that preserves angles.
when the first version of the Geographical
Turning to the raster model, we have generated a
Information System of the Soil Resources of
grid at 500m resolution of near one million cells
Romania, called SIGSTAR-200, was delivered
covering Romania, projected in the coordinate system
(Vintilă et al. 2004). Since then, this system has
ETRS89-LAEA and aligned with the GSM 100m grid
become the base source of digital information
and the European grid reference system for Reporting
concerning Romania’s soils for national and
and Statistical Analysis
international projects.
(https://inspire.ec.europa.eu/Themes/131/2892).
Among other relevant achievements, which
ETRS89-LAEA preserves areas, thus is the most
conversely could benefit in the future from the GSM
suited to applications that require a true area
products, are the following: (i) development of digital
representation (e.g., the work of the statistical offices
methods for mapping soil and soil-forming factors
and subsequent policies). Significantly, Bauer-
properties (Vasiliniuc et al. 2013, Grozavu et al.
Marschallinger et al. (2015) have demonstrated that
2017); (ii) satellite image processing to support soil
for spatial processing, such as the derivation of soil-
digital mapping (Drăguţ & Dornik 2016); (iii) proxy
forming factors from digital elevation models, the
sensing for effective soil characterization (Duda et al.
best projections are those that preserve distances.
2017); (iv) assimilation of satellite data within
Consequently, the recent Global Soil Information at
agronomic models (Baret & Vintilă 2003, Vintilă
250m resolution is in the Equi7 GRID projection
2012).
(Hengl et al. 2017), which preserves distances.
Yet, the optimization of global grids goes well
1.4 Current stage and objectives beyond the interest of digital soil mapping.
Irrespective of the future solutions, we are facing the
We have taken the first steps in the GSM project
errors introduced by the coordinate transformations,
within the frame of a voluntary exercise, which we
because now, the available digital information at
present in this paper.
country level consists of maps, and not of the original
We have chosen to begin with the generation of a
soil point data. In particular, in the case of vector
topsoil organic carbon (OC) content map, converging
maps, the coordinate transformations affect the
toward a Tier 2 product (GSM Science Committee
geometry, but keep the same attribute values. On the
2015), because of the negative effects of climate
other hand, in the case of raster maps, excepting very
change, along with the fact that one of the most severe
high spatial resolutions, these transformations may
threats to the soils of Romania is the loss of organic
substantially change the cell attribute values. The
matter (Vintilă et al. 2015). However, constrained by
cause lies in the fact that the coordinate
the resource availability, we have produced this map
transformations always involve resampling the cell
at a 500m spatial resolution (i.e., blocks of 25ha) for
values (e.g., Steinwand et al. 1995) without
the depth interval 0-20cm, only.
considering the attribute spatial variability. Indeed,
Additionally, these first steps have also led to our
the usual resampling algorithms are the following:
feedback on two tentative maps of Romania, which
nearest neighbor, bilinear interpolation, and cubic
had been generated by the Joint Research Centre of
convolution, illustrated in Figure 1 and described
the European Commission, as the GSM node for the
elsewhere (e.g., Richards & Jia 2006).
Eurasia part, namely, the USDA topsoil textural
Therefore, we have transformed our legacy data,
classes map, and the topsoil clay content map, both at
from the very beginning, from the native projection
500m resolution for the depth interval 0-20cm.
Stereo-1970 to the projection ETRS-LAEA, to keep
the attributes unchanged at this step, and to minimize
the errors induced by further processing in the
2 MATERIAL AND METHODS
attribute final values. Subsequently, we have applied
one single mask over the cells representing areas with
We first introduce the common steps to approach the
more than 50% non-soil materials, which we had
objectives related to the three maps mentioned in
generated by upscaling to 500m spatial resolution the
§1.4. We have mostly relied on SIGSTAR-200,
most recent digital information provided by the
which includes information collected from 50 legacy
European Copernicus land monitoring services
soil map sheets (Florea et al. 1963-1994), having been
(http://land.copernicus.eu/pan-european/high-
produced bottom-up, as follows: (i) for the
resolution-layers/).
Figure 1. Change of the cell attribute values in the case of raster
data, as a result of the coordinate system transformation.
2.1 Algorithm to produce a raster topsoil organic
carbon (OC) content map of Romania
To produce the raster topsoil organic carbon content
map at 500m resolution, we have used a set of
pedotransfer rules developed at ICPA-Bucharest by
Canarache (2003) valorizing a vast archive of legacy
soil profile data (1960-2000) and environmental
covariates. Nonetheless, we have lacked the
information to evaluate the uncertainties related to the
topsoil OC estimation, although Canarache had
established the pedotransfer rules as a result of
statistical processing, performed on the data specific
to each combination of input types and classes.
Our selection has been motivated, firstly, by the
lack of other available digital data sets to estimate the
topsoil OC content in near one million blocks of 25
ha, and, secondly, by the reputation of Canarache,
whose other pedotransfer rules & functions
(Canarache, 2009) are frequently used in Romania,
and also cited (e.g., Wösten et al. 2001, McBratney et
al. 2002, Dexter 2004).
All along the years, in Romania the soil OC
content values were determined following the
Walkley-Black method (e.g., Van Reeuwijk 2002)
slightly modified in 1959 by Gogoaşă for higher
reproducibility (Danieliuc 1964).
Figure 2 illustrates the general algorithm we have
implemented. Specifically, for the conversion from
vector to raster format, we have used the maximum
combined area criterion (http://desktop.arcgis.com/)
to minimize the errors affecting the attribute values.
In each grid cell, we have applied the pedotransfer
rules, which use as input (Figure 2): (i) information
on soil types, topsoil texture classes, and erosion
hazard classes, all from SIGSTAR-200; (ii)
information on the environmental covariates (relief,
climate, and vegetation) from the Pedo-climate-relief
micro-zones of Romania map (Florea et al. 1988) and
also from the Land use map.
Figure 2. Algorithm for the production of a topsoil organic
carbon content map of Romania at 500m spatial resolution.
2.2 Algorithm to compare cell attribute values to
legacy data stored in other coordinate systems
In 2015, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) produced a
set of harmonized raster topsoil properties maps for
37 European countries, converging toward the GSM.
The JRC used advanced spatial statistical methods
and soil-forming environmental covariates, as well as
soil point data measured in 2009 during the LUCAS
survey (Ballabio et al. 2016). In a second stage, the
results were extrapolated in case of several countries
not surveyed for the soil in LUCAS-2009, among
which, Romania. Finally, JRC solicited feedback on
the maps from each concerned country.
We provided feedback on two maps of Romania
(see §1.4), for which we were able to check some
necessary conditions in the sense of the mathematical
implication.
We first focus on the USDA topsoil textural
classes map, which we could assessed thanks to the
pedotransfer rules linking the USDA and Romanian
textural classifications (Canarache 2009). Figure 3
shows the method proposed by Vintilă et al. (2016) to
compare categorical attribute values of raster soil
maps at medium resolution to categorical attribute
values (legacy data) stored in vector maps, when the
coordinate systems differ. To minimize the errors, the
application of the pedotransfer rules for comparison
takes place in the coordinate system of the raster map,
in each polygon of the vector map.
 3 RESULTS

3.1 A tentative topsoil organic carbon content map

We have generated a tentative topsoil organic carbon
(OC) content map of Romania at 500m resolution on
a grid aligned with the GSM 100m grid (Figure 5).
We have noticed that for croplands, grasslands,
and woodlands, the area-weighted values of the
topsoil OC content as per this map are slightly higher
as compared to the recent information coming from
the LUCAS survey of the year 2012
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31927624
5_Tendinte_generale, Vintilă et al. 2015).
Nevertheless, as stated in §2.1, we have lacked the
information to generate an associated map of
uncertainties. Instead, we have filled in the
uncertainty matrix shown in Table 1, to get a better
understanding of the sources of uncertainties and their
importance (Refsgaard et al. 2007), both for using this
topsoil OC map and for sorting out the improvement
priorities.
Table 1. Provisional uncertainty matrix for the topsoil organic
carbon content map of Romania at 500m spatial resolution.
Figure 3. Algorithm for feedback on the USDA topsoil textural Source of uncertainty Qualitative Importance
classes map of Romania generated using the LUCAS-2009 data
uncertainty (weighting)
set.
I. Environmental context
We now turn to the topsoil clay content map of 1. Future agriculture medium medium
Romania, which we could assessed following the practices (large)
same approach, adapted for raster maps with 2. Future climate large large
continuous attribute values (Vintila et al. 2017). (large)
Beside SIGSTAR-200, we have also used statistical II. Input data
information, computed from soil point data located in 1. Soil types small small
the south and southeast of Romania (Figure 4). (large)
2. Topsoil texture classes small small
(large)
3. Water erosion hazard medium medium
classes (large)
4. Wind erosion hazard medium medium
classes (large)
III. Parameter uncertainty
1. Land use classes small small
(large)
2. Pedo-climate-relief medium medium
micro-zones (large)
IV. Pedotransfer rules
1. Structure (conceptual) medium large
(large)
2. Technical (ICT) Small small
(small)
V. Nature
1. Stochastic medium large
(natural variability) (large)
2. Epistemic medium medium
(large)
Figure 4. Algorithm for feedback on the topsoil clay content 3. Narrative ambiguity small small
map of Romania generated using the LUCAS-2009 data set. (small)
Figure 5. The topsoil organic carbon content map of Romania at 500m spatial resolution.
3.2 Feedback on two soil physical properties maps
JRC produced the maps of Romania by extrapolating
the results exposed by Ballabio et al. (2016), that is,
without soil point data from this country.
For the USDA topsoil textural classes map, the
pedotransfer rules are fulfilled (this being the
necessary condition checked, see Figure 3) in 49.3%
polygons of SIGSTAR-200, which are likely to be
classified coherently in the USDA and Romanian soil
textural classifications (Vintilă et al. 2016).
For the second JRC map, the topsoil clay content
values are included in the valid “min-max” ranges
(this being the necessary condition checked, see
Figure 4) in 32.5% polygons of SIGSTAR-200. We
have noticed that the statistical information did not
increase this percentage (Vintila 2017).
An explanation of the result obtained for the first
map, as compared to the second one, is the optimistic
scenario taken into consideration. Accordingly, rarely
occurring pedotransfer rules linking the USDA and
Romanian soil textural classes have always been
considered to be valid.
4 CONCLUSION
The participation of Romania in the GSM initiative
would be of great value for this country, ensuring
better-informed decisions, all the more necessary in
the global change context.
At the same time, to estimate the cell attributes
with reasonable necessary accuracy (to be defined
through sensitivity analyses conducted for various
applications), we need a huge volume of digital soil
point data properly accounting for the variability.
For that reason, we consider that our work should
be continued within funded programs by a large
academic community across the country and PhD
students, engaged, inter alia, in coordinated actions
dedicated to soil legacy data rescue for their specific
region.
REFERENCES
Arrouays, D., Grundy, M. G., Hartemink, A. E. et al. 2014.
GlobalSoilMap: Toward a fine-resolution global grid of soil
properties. Advances in agronomy 125: 93-134.
Ballabio, C., Panagos, P. & Monatanarella, L. 2016. Mapping
topsoil physical properties at European scale using the
LUCAS database. Geoderma 261: 110-123.
Baret, F. & Vintilă, R. 2003. Satellite derived leaf area index
derived from SPOT time series in the ADAM project. Proc.
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS'03
(Toulouse, 21-25 July 2003), Vol. 1: 155-157.
Bauer-Marschallinger, B., Sabel, D. & Wagner, W. 2014.
Optimisation of global grids for high-resolution remote
sensing data. Computers & Geosciences 72: 84-93.
Canarache, A. 2003. Micro-zoning of the land rating marks and
the soil degradation and desertification processes across the
agricultural lands of Romania. Research Report:D3,
Bucharest: ICPA, 93 pp. (unpublished, in Romanian).
Canarache, A. 2009. Pedotransfer functions for physical
properties estimation of the soil, limiting factors, degradation
processes, soil workability and soil trafficability. In Metode
de analiză utilizate în laboratorul de fizică a solului: 283-
319. Craiova: Sitech (in Romanian).
Danieliuc, D. 1964. Humus determination. In G. Obrejanu (ed),
Metode de cercetare a solului: 403-419. Bucharest: Editura
Academiei RPR (in Romanian).
Dexter, A. R. 2004. Soil physical quality: Part I. Theory, effects
of soil texture, density, and organic matter, and effects on
root growth. Geoderma 120(3): 201-214.
Dobrinescu, A., Busuioc, A., Bîrsan, M. V. et al. 2015. Changes
in thermal discomfort indices in Romania and their
connections with large-scale mechanisms. Climate Research
64 (3): 213-226.
Drăguţ, L. & Dornik, A. 2016. Land-surface segmentation as a
method to create strata for spatial sampling and its potential
for digital soil mapping. International Journal of
Geographical Information Science 30 (7): 1359-1376.
Duda, B. M., Weindorf, D. C., Chakraborty, S. et al. 2017. Soil
characterization across catenas via advanced proximal
sensors. Geoderma 298: 78-91.
Dumitrescu, A., Bojariu, R., Bîrsan, M. V. et al. 2015. Recent
climatic changes in Romania from observational data (1961-
2013). Theoretical and Applied Climatology 122: 111-119.
Florea, N., Bălăceanu, V., Munteanu, I. et al. (coordinators).
1963-1994. The Soil Map of Romania at the scale 1:200,000.
Publishers - Bucharest: Institutul Geologic al Romîniei &
IGFCOT (50 sheets & Legend in Romanian).
Florea, N., Untaru, G., Berbecel, O. et. al. 1988. Pedoclimate
micro-zoning of the Romania’s territory. Analele Institutului
de Cercetari pentru Pedologie şi Agrochimie XLIX: 11-37,
Bucharest: ICPA (in Romanian).
Fridland, V. M. 1972. Soil cover patterns, Moscow: Mysl’
424pp (in Russian).
GSM Science Committee. 2015. Specifications. Tiered
GlobalSoilMap products. Release 2.4. 52pp.
(http://www.globalsoilmap.net/)
Grozavu, A., Patriche, C. V. & Mihai, F. C. 2017. Application
of the AHP method for mapping slope geomorphic
phenomena. Proc. SGEM2017-Informatics, Geoinformatics
and Remote Sensing (Albena, Bulgaria, 29 June-5 July
2017), Vol. 17(23): 377-384.
Hengl, T., de Jesus, J. M., Heuvelink, G. B. et al. 2017.
SoilGrids250m: Global gridded soil information based on
machine learning. PloS ONE: 12(2) e0169748.
Marin, L., Bîrsan, M. V., Bojariu, R. et al. 2014. An overview
of annual climatic changes in Romania: trends in air
temperature, precipitation, sunshine hours, cloud cover,
relative humidity and wind speed during the 1961–2013
period. Carpathian Journal of Earth and Environmental
Sciences 9(4):253-258.
McBratney, A. B., Minasny, B., Cattle, S. R. & Vervoort, R. W.
2002. From pedotransfer functions to soil inference systems.
Geoderma 109(1): 41-73.
Mugnier, C.J. 2001. Grids & Datums: Romania.
Photogrammetry Engineering and Remote Sensing 67(545):
547-548.
Prăvălie, R., Patriche, C. & Bandoc, G. 2017. Quantification of
land degradation sensitivity areas in Southern and Central
Southeastern Europe. New results based on improving
DISMED methodology with new climate data. Catena 158:
309-320.
Refsgaard, J. C., van der Sluijs, J. P., Højberg, A. L. &
Vanrolleghem, P. A. 2007. Uncertainty in the environmental
modelling process–framework and guidance. Environmental
modelling & software 22(11): 1543-1556.
Richards, J. A. & Jia, X. 2006. Correction of geometric
distortion. Resampling. In Remote Sensing Digital Image
Analysis: 48-50, Berlin Heildelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Steinwand, D. R., Hutchinson, J. A. & Snyder, J. P. 1995. Map
projections for global and continental data sets and an
analysis of pixel distortion caused by reprojection.
Photogrammetry Engineering and Remote Sensing
61:1487–1497.
Van Reeuwijk, L. P. 2002. Procedures for Soil Analysis (6th
edition). Wageningen: ISRIC, Technical Paper 9: 5.22-5.23.
Vasiliniuc, I., Patriche, C. V., Pîrnău, R. & Roşca, B. 2013.
Statistical spatial models of soil parameters – an approach
using different methods at different scales. Environmental
Engineering and Management Journal 12 (3): 457-464.
Vintilă, R., Munteanu, I., Cojocaru, C. et al. 2004. The
Geographic Information System of Soil Resources of
Romania “SIGSTAR-200”: Development and main types of
applications. Proc. XVII-th Nat. Conf. of Soil Science
(Timişoara, 25-30 Aug 2003), Vol. 34A: 439-449 (in
Romanian).
Vintilă, R. 2012. Kalideos Adam: Synthèse et retour
d'expérience. Revue Française de Photogrammétrie et de
Télédétection 197: 112-118.
Vintilă, R., Vişan, A.N., Balotă, L.O. et al. 2015. Contribution
to the use of freely-available data for the prediction of topsoil
properties and generation of INSPIRE-compliant maps at
medium spatial resolutions. Proc. SGEM2015- Informatics,
Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing (Albena, Bulgaria, 18-
24 June 2015), Vol. II: 779-786.
Vintilă, R., Vişan, A.N, Vlad, V. et al. 2016. Feedback on the
Topsoil Textural Classes Map for Romania derived using the
LUCAS-2009 dataset. Proc. SGEM2016 - Informatics,
Geoinformatics and Rem Sensing (Albena, Bulgaria, 30
June-6 July 2016), Book2, Vol. III: 223-230.
Vintilă, R. 2017. A national-scale assessment of the topsoil clay
content map derived from the LUCAS survey. Proc.
SGEM2017 - Informatics, Geoinformatics and Remote
Sensing (Bulgaria, 29 June-5 July 2017), 17 (23): 359-367.
Vlad, V., Florea, N., Toti, M. et al. 2012. Definition of the soil
units of the ‘1:200,000 Soil Map of Romania’ using an
extended terminology of the World Reference Base System.
Annals of the University of Craiova – ‘Agriculture, Mountain
Science, and Cadastral Surveying’ Series, ISSN 1841-8317,
Vol. XLII(1): 615-639.
Wösten, J.H.M., Pachepsky, Y.A. & Rawls, W.J. (2001).
Pedotransfer functions: bridging the gap between available
basic soil data and missing soil hydraulic characteristics.
Journal of Hydrology 251(3): 123-150.