For large areas, like Washington State, download as a file geodatabase. Large data sets like this one, for the State of Washington, may exceed the limits for downloading as shape files, excel files, or KML files. For areas less than a county, you may use the map to zoom to your area and download as shape file, excel or KML, if that format is desired.Information for SOILS data layer was derived from the Private Forest Land Grading system (PFLG) and subsequent soil surveys. PFLG was a five-year mapping program completed in 1980 for the purpose of forestland taxation. It was funded by the Washington State Department of Revenue. The Department of Natural Resources, Soil Conservation Service (now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service or NRCS), USDA Forest Service and Washington State University conducted soil mapping cooperatively following national soil survey standards. Private lands having the potential of supporting commercial forests were surveyed along with interspersed small areas of State lands, Indian tribal lands, and federal lands. Because this was a cooperative soil survey project, agricultural and non-commercial forestlands were included within some survey areas. After the Department of Natural Resources originally developed its geographic information system, digitized soil map unit delineations and a few soil attributes were transferred to the system. Remaining PFLG soil attributes were later added and are now available through associated lookup tables. SCS (NRCS) soils data on agricultural lands also have been subsequently added to this data layer. The SOILS data layer includes approximately 1,100 townships with wholly or partially digitized soils data. State and private lands which have the potential of supporting commercial forest stands were surveyed. Some Indian tribal and federal lands were surveyed. Because this was a cooperative soils survey project, agricultural and non-commercial forestlands were also included within some survey areas. After the Department of Natural Resources originally developed its geographic information system, digitized soils delineations and a few soil attributes were transferred to the system. Remaining PFLG soil attributes were added at a later time and are now available through associated lookup tables. SCS soils data on agricultural lands also have subsequently been added to this data layer. This layer includes approximately 1, 100 townships with wholly or partially digitized soils data (2,101 townships would provide complete coverage of the state of Washington).-
The soils_sv resolves one to many relationships and as such is one of those special "DNR" spatial views ( ie. is implemented similar to a feature class). Column names may not match between SOILS_SV and the originating datasets.
Use limitations
This Spatial View is available to Washingotn DNR users and those with access to the Washington State Uplands IMS site.
The following cautions only apply to one-to-many and many-to-many spatial views!
Use these in the metadata only if the SV is one-to-many or many-to-many.
CAUTIONS:
Area and Length Calculations: Use care when summarizing or totaling area or length calculations from spatial views with one-to-many or many-to-many relationships. One-to-many or many-to-many relationships between tabular and spatial data create multiple features in the same geometry. In other words, if there are two or more records in the table that correspond to the same feature (a single polygon, line or point), the spatial view will contain an identical copy of that feature's geometry for every corresponding record in the table. Area and length calculations should be performed carefully, to ensure they are not being exaggerated by including copies of the same feature's geometry.
Symbolizing Spatial Features:
Use care when symbolizing data in one-to-many or many-to-many spatial views. If there are multiple attributes tied to the same feature, symbolizing with a solid fill may mask other important features within the spatial view. This can be most commonly seen when symbolizing features based on a field with multiple table records.
Labeling Spatial Features:
Spatial views with one-to-many or many-to-many relationships may present duplicate labels for those features with multiple table records. This is because there are multiple features in the same geometry, and each one receives a label.Soils Metadata