Soil Surveys

Soils vary considerably across the country, region, landscape, field, and sometimes even across a backyard. Each soil may have markedly different land use capabilities.Knowing how to use the information in a soil survey can save people from costly and, in some cases, dangerous mistakes.

A soil survey is a book of maps delineating the different types of soil that can be found across a landscape. They also include soil profile descriptions, a series of tables describing each soil's suitability and limitations for an assortment of uses, definition and explanations of terms and concepts used in the survey, and often a summary of the area's geology and land use history.