Updates to the New Zealand Soil Classification and Soil Description Manual
We are excited to announce that draft updates to our two core field standards for soils work are now available for review. The two drafts were released at the New Zealand-Australia Joint Soils Conference (‘Weaving Soil Science Across Cultures & Environments’, Rotorua, 2-5 December 2024).
The New Zealand Soil Classification was last updated in 2010. The large tranche of new fieldwork completed during the S-Map Expansion Programme has led to several new subgroups being identified. Additionally, some changes are proposed around classifying Anthropic Soils, making the classification more useful in human-modified environments. Lastly, an effort has been made to explain terminology more clearly and consistently.
The New Zealand Soil Description Handbook was last updated in 1995(!). The draft revision offers a substantial rewrite to modernise the text and make sure it can support the National Soil Data Repository, which relies on the Handbook to guide the database’s structure. At the same time, an effort has been made to keep the standard compatible with the NZSC, other New Zealand land and vegetation survey standards, and international soil description standards.
How to access the drafts
The new drafts are being hosted on GitHub, which offers open discussion spaces and lets us simultaneously generate the documents in multiple formats – as a website, a Word document, and an ePub for the Kindle fans. We recognise that GitHub might not suit all reviewers, so we welcome comments made using track changes in the Word versions.
The draft NZSC word document can be downloaded from here and the repository can be viewed here. The draft Soil Description Manual can be downloaded here and viewed here.
Please provide your feedback
We’re extremely keen to hear from other parts of MWLR as well as the wider soils community. If you work with or adjacent to soils and soils data, please consider participating! Feedback on both documents should be submitted either via their respective GitHub sites or directly to SoilStandards@landcareresearch.co.nz.
The deadline for comment is Wednesday, 30 April 2025.
