Soil Data Access is the name of a suite of web services and applications whose purpose is to meet
requirements for requesting and delivering soil survey spatial and tabular data that are not being met by
the current Web Soil Survey and Geospatial Data Gateway websites. These requirements include:
Provide a way to request data for an ad hoc area of interest of any size.
Provide a way to obtain data in real-time.
Provide a way to request selected tabular attributes.
Provide a way to return tabular data where the organization of that data doesn’t have to
mirror that of the underlying source database.
Provide a way to bundle results by request, rather than by survey area.
Our initial set of solutions addresses each of these requirements, at least to some degree.
The ad hoc area of interest requirement was addressed, at least in part, by providing web services and
applications capable of processing requests for spatial and tabular data, where an area of interest can be
expressed by either a variety of spatial filters, or by using a SQL query or Shape command capable of
referencing spatial entities represented in the underlying tabular data.
The real-time requirement was addressed by providing web services and interfaces that are capable of
servicing a request in real-time.
The selected tabular attributes and alternative organization requirements were addressed by requiring the use of
SQL queries and Shape commands in order to request tabular data. This combination allows tabular results to be
returned either as a single table or multiple tables.
The requirement to bundle results by request was addressed by virtue of the fact that, by design, the result of any
request for this suite of web services and applications is always bundled by request. In other words, as far as this
suite of web services and applications is concerned, no other bundling options exist.
In this initial release, requests for spatial data are limited to real-time requests for a relatively small area of
interest. Spatial data may be requested in GML2 and Shapefile format. Our intent is to provide support for large
areas of interest as soon as possible.
Unlike the Web Soil Survey and the Geospatial Data Gateway, the Soil Data Access suite is not currently capable
of returning both spatial and tabular data for an area of interest, based on a single request. For the Soil Data
Access suite, returning both spatial and tabular data for an area of interest can only be done by first defining
an area of interest and submitting a request for spatial data, and then by using the distinct set of map unit keys
returned by that request for spatial data to constrain a SQL query that selects the desired tabular data for that area
of interest. The Soil Data Access suite provides no option to return a predefined set of tabular attributes,
although we do provide a variety of sample SQL queries that can be adapted to one’s needs.
Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of soil survey information should contact the
NRCS office at the USDA Service Center that services the county
of interest. See also the NRCS Accessibility Statement.
