Accuracy of regional-to-global soil maps for on-farm decision-making: are soil maps “good enough”?

Maynard, Jonathan J.; Yeboah, Edward; Owusu, Stephen; Buenemann, Michaela; Neff, Jason C.; Herrick, Jeffrey E.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-277-2023

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-277-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-277-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

Original research article

|

26 May 2023

Original research article |

| 26 May 2023

Accuracy of regional-to-global soil maps for on-farm decision-making: are soil maps “good enough”?

Jonathan J. Maynard, Edward Yeboah, Stephen Owusu, Michaela Buenemann, Jason C. Neff, and Jeffrey E. Herrick

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-277-2023-supplement

Data sets

Compendium of R code and data for Soil Map Accuracy Assessment on Smallholder Farms in Ghana. Maynard, J. J., Yeboah, E., Owusu, S., Buenemann, M., Neff, J. C. and Herrick, J. E. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7806564

Model code and software

Compendium of R code and data for Soil Map Accuracy Assessment on Smallholder Farms in Ghana. Maynard, J. J., Yeboah, E., Owusu, S., Buenemann, M., Neff, J. C. and Herrick, J. E. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7806564

Short summary

Accurate information on soil properties is critical for identifying soil limitations and the management practices needed to improve crop yields on smallholder farms. This study evaluated the accuracy of soil map information for agronomic decision-making. Based on four publicly available soil maps in Ghana, we found that soil map data significantly overestimated crop suitability, potentially leading to ineffective agronomic investments by smallholder farmers.