Soil Data: Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) for the Great Lakes (resolution: 30 arcseconds)

The Great Lakes Runoff Inter-comparison Project (GRIP) includes a wide range of lumped and distributed models that are used operationally and/or for research purposes across Canada and the United States. Participating models are Global Environmental Multi-scale (GEM- Hydro), Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-Hydro), MEC-Surface & Hydrology (MESH), Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC), WATFLOOD, HYdrological Predictions for the Environment (HYPE), Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and Large Basin Runoff Model (LBRM). The project aims to run all these models over several regions in Canada with Great Lakes, focusing on Lake Erie and Lake St.Clair, as the initial domain (GRIP-E). This project will also focus on identifying a standard, consistent dataset for model building that all participants in the inter-comparison project can access and then process to generate their model-specific required inputs.

This data set is collected for the project titled "Integrated Modelling Program for Canada (IMPC): Theme 1", which is a Pillar 3 project under the Global Water Futures Program funded by Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

Soil data were downloaded from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) v1.2. This dataset is a 30 seconds of arc resolution which corresponds to about 1km at the equator. More details on this dataset can be found at http://www.fao.org/soils-portal/soil-survey/soil-maps-and-databases/harmonized-world-soil-database-v12/en/. The region of interest (Great Lakes) was cropped and data converted into ASCII and NetCDF formats. Researchers interested in data can email Juliane Mai (University of Waterloo; juliane.mai@uwaterloo.ca)

Fischer, G., Nachtergaele, F., Prieler, S., van Velthuizen, H. T., Verelst, L., & Wiberg, D. (2008). Global Agro-ecological Zones Assessment for Agriculture (GAEZ 2008). IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria and FAO, Rome, Italy: Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN). (Unpublished Data).

https://www.polardata.ca/pdcsearch/PDCSearchDOI.jsp?doi_id=13046