To better understand the planet’s topsoil, an international team of scientists has created the first high-resolution global maps of key soil properties.

The study, published in the journal The Innovation, includes contributions from researchers at the University of Florida. They say information gleaned could influence everything from agricultural management and sustainable use of resources to water and food security.

The researchers compiled more than 150,000 soil observations – including private research data – to reveal soil health properties such as organic carbon stock, clay content, pH and bulk density. It uses advanced Earth observation technologies and machine-learning models to generate maps with a 90-meter resolution. Researchers noted that level of detail is finer than any previous global soil dataset.

The maps are publicly available for researchers, policymakers and global development organizations, and they allow users to visualize and analyze soil characteristics across continents.

With ongoing weather-related pressures – such as floods and heat waves – and food scarcity, the project gives the knowledge to help manage soil. Findings reveal 64 percent of the world’s topsoil is sandy and susceptible to degradation. This highlights the vulnerability of global food systems. Additionally, soils under natural vegetation store up to 60 percent more organic carbon than cultivated lands. That difference has implications for soil fertility and ecological resilience.

“This information is necessary to understand how soil health connects to broader environmental and socioeconomic challenges,” said Sabine Grunwald a professor of pedometrics, GeoAI and landscape analysis with the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) department of soil, water, and ecosystem sciences. “By combining high-resolution remote-sensing data with predictive AI models, we can now assess soil variability with much greater accuracy. We can do this regionally and globally.”

The study shows the 10 largest countries by land area collectively store 75 percent of global soil organic carbon stock. However, the poorest nations face the steepest soil degradation. The finding supports the need for soil-informed policies that address equity, sustainability and long-term resilience, Grunwald said.

“This type of work is essential if we want science-based strategies for the sustainable development of both people and the planet,” she said. “We are mapping soil, but we’re also mapping social and economic opportunities that soil can support.”

More from New AG International

Read our March/April 2025 issue which had the theme Soil.

“Soil is often regarded as nothing more than dirt, something to be tilled, plowed and forgotten once crops are sown. Indeed, soil has been largely overlooked, and yet it is a crucial tool in cropping systems worldwide.“