A unique national soil mapping programme for France

The Inventaire, Gestion et Conservation des Sols (Soil Inventory, Management and Conservation) programme was set up in 1990 and taken over by the GIS Sol in 2001. The aim of this programme is to capitalise on old soil data in a single format and to acquire new data at different scales, with the priority of completing national coverage at a scale of 1:250,000 in the short term.

The information gathered as part of this programme is used to create a cartographic representation of the spatial distribution of soils, in the form of Soil Cartographic Units (UCS), associated with a database in the DoneSol national format describing, in particular, the Soil Typological Units (UTS) of which they are composed. Data acquisition is carried out in accordance with the IGCS General Technical Specifications, itself consistent with standard NF X31-560, which describes the methods for acquiring, organising and validating inventory data. The IGCS programme is multi-scale and is organised into 3 sections:

• the Regional Soil Reference System component
• the Soil Knowledge of France section
• the Reference Sectors section

GIS Sol is concentrating its resources primarily on the Référentiel Régional Pédologique (Regional Soil Reference System) component, where there are major challenges in mobilising partners, both to carry out the work and to finance it..