Maps of Fundamental Soil Layers

Maps show a range of soil attributes derived from the dominant soils depicted in the 1:50,000 scale NZ Fundamental Soil Layers.

Interpreting the maps

Most of the maps show the most likely (i.e. modal) value from the classed soil attribute data. Even within small areas of the same soil, soil attributes can be very variable. You can click on a soil area to see our estimate of the range of values that might be expected for each soil. Since it is quite impractical to measure soil attributes for all soils, we also provide a guide to the technique we used to derive our estimate. These range from 'measured', indicating the the mapped soil has been measured, to 'general inference', indicating the soil measured was generally similar to the mapped soil, but we have no actual measurements to support the inference.

Soil Attribute Maps

Soil chemical attributes
Soil physical characteristics
Soil drainage parameters
Soil environment parameters
Soil moisture properties
References

The New Zealand soil map based on NZLRI polygons

FSL New Zealand Soil Classification

Regional soil databases were the key to generating FDLs. New Zealand was subdivided into several geographic regions and soil scientists were allocated a region for which they developed a ‘regional legend’, i.e. database. Regional data were correlated using the New Zealand Soil Classification (NZSC), referenced to the National Soils Database (NSD) and other relevant data sources, and then linked to the soil polygons in the New Zealand Land Resource Inventory (NZLRI). This layer holds the NZSC data upon which the remaining FSLs were based.