Coordinate soil classifications

[pbuttigieg]

There are several systems out there, and they may be talking about the same soil using somewhat different criteria. To avoid representing the classification rather than the soil, we'll try to be conservative and use synonyms until there's good reason to believe the systems are referencing truly different entities.

I'm merging #331 #332 and #330 into this issue:

[pbuttigieg]

@celineaubert provided the following in the merged issues:

USDA orders of soil taxonomy are used in USA to classify soil.
Could you please add the 12 orders of soil taxonomy : Alfisol Andisol Aridisol Entisol Gelisol Histosol Inceptisol Mollisol Oxisol Spodosol Ultisol Vertisol. Definitions are here or here. COuld you also add the in-subset USDA order of soil taxonomy for these classes? Thanks.

Two of the FAO soil classes are not listed in ENVO: greyzem and podzoluvisol (different from podzol). link to the definition: [http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/soils/docs/isricu_i9264_001.pdf]

The World Reference Base (WRB) is the international standard for soil classification system that replaced the FAO soil classification. The WBR soil groups are already in ENVO. Could you please add an in-subset World Reference Base soil groupfor the following soil groups: Acrisol Albeluvisol Alisol Andosol Anthrosol Arenosol Calcisol Cambisol Chernozem Cryosol Durisol Ferralsol Fluvisol Gleysol Gypsisol Histosol Kastanozem Leptosol Lixisol Luvisol Nitisol Phaeozem Planosol Plinthosol Podzol Regosol Solonchak Solonetz Stagnosol Technosol Umbrisol Vertisol?

[dr-shorthair]

The Australian Soil Classification [1] has the following top-level orders:

AN Anthroposols
CA Calcarosols
CH Chromosols
DE Dermosols
FE Ferrosols
HY Hydrosols
KA Kandosols
KU Kurosols
OR Organosols
PO Podosols
RU Rudosols
SO Sodosols
TE Tenosols
VE Vertosols

Within each of these there is a detailed sub-classification system based on 'Families' and 'Classes' leading to hundreds (probably more than 1000) potential classifications.
A turtle file containing the definitions expressed as skos:Concepts is attached [2]

[1] http://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7428

[2] orders.ttl.txt

[cmungall]

Thanks! Would it be possible to include a dc:license/dc:rights on the ttl? Ideally we could do something like either bring definitions across (with provenance recorded as axiom annotation), or import this as a module

[dr-shorthair]

ah - that is an extract from a much bigger RDF which is still in prep. I wanted to make the names of the orders and the text in the skos:definition fields* available, because I think that is the likely source of a formal axiomatization similar to what has been done for the USDA orders.

The 'White Book' [1] is the ultimate authority. I sought and received permission from CSIRO Publishing to make the content available as an online resource. We haven't finished that yet, but I will take this conversation as a trigger to clarify the licensing.

*which is copied from the White Book.

[1] http://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7428

[dr-shorthair]

Currently stalled at CSIRO Publishing. But am still on the case.

[pbuttigieg]

Thanks for the update!

[dr-shorthair]

I've received permission from CSIRO Publishing and have added some metadata, including a license, in the attached.
ASC-orders.ttl.txt

[dr-shorthair]

Kudos to CSIRO Publishing for coming to the party promptly.

[dr-shorthair]

What is process to integrate these. Do you need a pull-request, or do you do the integration?

[pbuttigieg]

@cmungall can we do this en masse or do you think we should manually curate the alignment? It's well structured already, but alignment can be a tripping point.

The definition structure may need some restructuring (keeping the meaning and transferring verbatim descriptions to comments).