Soil Landscapes of Canada version (SLC) 3.2 Updates

Fields common to multiple tables

1. The name of the polygon relate key has been changed from SL to POLY_ID, to make it easier to understand the purpose of this field.
2. The soil MODIFIER fields have been increased from 3 to 5 characters, to accommodate additional soil phase variant codes in several provinces. Soil MODIFIER fields occur in the Component table, Soil Name Table, Soil Layer table, and the new Landform table.
3. The soil LU fields have been renamed to PROFILE, to prevent confusion about the purpose of this field.
4. The name of the soil relate key has been changed from SOILKEY to SOIL_ID, and it has been expanded from 9 to 11 characters. SOIL_ID is a combination of PROVINCE + SOIL_CODE + MODIFIER + PROFILE fields, and is provided as a convenient soil component linkage field between the Component, Soil Name, Soil Layer, and the new landscape segmentation tables. The increased width is a result of the expansion of the MODIFIER field from 3 to 5 characters. Within the SOIL_ID field, blanks in the MODIFIER codes are replaced with "~" characters.

Landscape Area Table (LAT)

1. In earlier SLC versions this table was called the Land Area Table.
2. Field names in this table have been renamed in order to improve clarity.

Ecological Framework Table (EFT)

1. This new table contains information formerly found in the PAT. It identifies the location of each SLC polygon in terms of the Terrestrial Ecological Stratification of Canada.

Component Table (CMP)

1. Several fields in this table have been eliminated, and others have been moved into the new Component Rating Table (CRT), which also has the new CMP_ID linkage field.
2. Fields that enable the link to the Soil Name and Soil Layer tables have been updated.
3. The CMP soil component records are now all in order by decreasing extent (PERCENT) for each SLC polygon number (POLY_ID). That is, the first soil component (CMP = 1) has the highest estimated land area (PERCENT), with additional component records (CMP = 2, 3, 4, etc.) representing soils with decreasing percentages of the land area of the polygon. While this was generally the case in previous SLC versions, SLCv3.2 implemented a specific new quality control check for this.
4. Additional checks were implemented to ensure that all national SLCv3.2 "agricultural" polygons that straddled provincial borders also have soil component records in both corresponding provincial SLCv3.2 CMP files.
5. The total number of soil components in some "cross border" polygons have been revised, to eliminate round off errors (i.e. PERCENT = 0) occuring in these polygons.

Component Rating Table (CRT)

1. This new table contains basic interpretations for each component, generated from the contents of the Soil Name and Soil Layer tables. Fields in this table were formerly found in the CMP.

Soil Name Table (SNT)

1. The Soil Order, Great Group and Subgroup codes in the Soil Name Table for all provinces but Saskatchewan have been rechecked and updated to conform to the Canadian System of Soil Classification Third Edition.
2. An additional check was made to ensure that data fields that identify a lithic, cryic or saline root restricting layer and layer number (RESTRICT_TYPE and ROOTRESTRI) in the Soil Name Table are linked to a valid root restricting layer number for the same soil in the Soil Layer table, with the appropriate horizon designation and attribute values.
3. The chemical property fields for the first, second and third parent materials (PMCALC1, PMCALC2, and PMCALC3) were renamed PMCHEM1, PMCHEM2, and PMCHEM3. The new names better reflect the range of values, which includes acidic classes as well as calcareous classes. The data field code sets are otherwise unchanged. The revised PMCHEM1 and PMCHEM2 data field names are also provided in the SLCv3.2 Component table.
4. Additional checks were made for more complete and consistent identification of soil parent materials (MDEP1,2,3, PMTEX1,2,3, and PMCHEM 1,2,3 fields). A soil with one, two or three parent materials should have valid values in all three of these parent material data field types.
5. The Soil Name Table also contains additional soil records for each province that do not occur in the Component Table. Some of these "extra" soils may occur with the Landscape Segmentation Table, while others are minor provincial soils that only occur in provincial detailed soil map polygons. A copy of the most recent provincial Soil Name file is used as the source for the soil attribute data in the Soil Name Table. The extra provincial soils in the SLCv3.2 Soil Name Table have also been updated from the SLCv3.1.1 Soil Name Table.

Soil Layer Table (SLT)

1. Duplicate soil component records have been eliminated.
2. Records for each soil have been reordered so that they appear in sequence.
3. Soils now have complete soil horizon data to 100cm depth, or to the depth of a significant root restricting layer, such as bedrock.
4. Additional checks were added to ensure that the sand, silt and clay percentages for each soil horizon were valid, and to ensure that the percentage of very fine sand was less than or equal to the total sand percentage.
5. The Soil Layer Table also contains additional soil records for each province that do not occur in the Component Table. Some of these "extra" soils may occur with the Landscape Segmentation Table, while others are minor provincial soils that only occur in provincial detailed soil map polygons. A copy of the most recent provincial Soil Layer file is used as the source for the soil attribute data in the Soil Layer Table. The extra provincial soil records in the Soil Layer Table have also been updated from the SLCv3.1.1 Soil Layer Table.

Landform Definition Table (LDT), Landform Extent Table (LET), and Landscape Segmentation Table (LST)

This is a new set of tables introduced with SLCv3.2 A similar Landform Table was provided for specific clients with SLCv3.1 and v3.1.1. The SLCv3.2 Landform Table is the first version provided to all clients with the official CanSIS download files. Significant changes from the previous SLCv3.1.1 Landform table include:

1. The tables have been restructured into a more normalized form, to make it easier to understand the data and how it was developed.
2. The soil MODIFIER codes were changed from 3 to 5 characters, to match the new 5 character MODIFIER codes used in the SLCv3.2 CMP, SNT and SLT.
3. A new, 11 character SOIL_ID was added, to provide a convenient linkage to the other CanSIS files.
4. New Landform and Landform segment identifier codes were provided, which can be used to link to the specific attributes of each landform segment as defined in the Landform Segmentation Table (LST).
5. Many specific bugs in the assignment of soils to specific SLCv3.1.1 landscape segments were identified and fixed in the SLCv3.2 Landform table. Many of these were in "cross border" SLC polygons, which had landforms and soil components listed for two provinces.

Updates for specific provinces