Making the value of soil visible

This morainal Molasse hill near Meikirch is typical of the landscape found on the Swiss Plateau in the Canton of Bern. Geology and landform are among the most important factors shaping soils and their properties.
This morainal Molasse hill near Meikirch is typical of the landscape found on the Swiss Plateau in the Canton of Bern. Geology and landform are among the most important factors shaping soils and their properties. / Photo: Simon Tanner, HAFL

Making the value of soil visible

  • Our Objective

    To develop an innovative, time-saving method for mapping soil properties, thus creating a solid foundation for decision-making in various fields.  

  • Figures

    The project was launched on August 1, 2020 and has been concluded.

Summary

Soil provides a variety of important services, including nutrient and water storage, carbon sequestration, erosion control, a habitat for organisms, water purification, and resource provision. Access to standardized, high-resolution, and reproducible soil data is essential for agriculture and forestry, spatial planning, climate adaptation, and groundwater protection. It is also key for the physical, chemical, and biological protection of soil, as well as for biodiversity conservation. Until now, however, such data were lacking for Switzerland as a whole, including the Canton of Bern. Our project addressed this gap by providing comprehensive soil data for the Canton of Bern. 

The LANAT-1 project was carried out in collaboration with the Office for Agriculture and Nature of the Canton of Bern (LANAT).

Project Connections

Timeline

  • Completion of the project "Making the value of soil visible"

    Project Update February 25, 2026

    The project "Making the value of soil visible" has been successfully completed and laid important foundations for future soil-related work. The goal of the project was to test and further develop new methods and tools for efficient, high-quality, and large-scale soil mapping. Knowledge of the quality and properties of soils facilitates weighing different usage and conservation claims and making soil-relevant decisions.As part of a pilot mapping covering approximately 1,000 hectares in Wohlen/Meikirch, innovative approaches to digital soil mapping, modern field survey methods, new sampling and analytical procedures, and digital tools for data collection were tested. The results show that digital methods combined with high-quality field data can significantly contribute to making mapping processes more efficient, targeted, and robust. At the same time, important insights into quality assurance, knowledge transfer, and the organizational implementation of mappings were gained. Concrete recommendations for action for future large-scale soil mappings in the Canton of Bern were derived from this.For sustainable soil use, understanding their spatial variability is central. Therefore, the soil diversity of the Canton of Bern was systematically studied based on 42 landscape transects. Soil formation conditions, landscape forms, and the distribution of soils were analyzed and compiled in a pedological overview. This provides a comprehensive basis for understanding the soil geographical landscapes of the Canton of Bern for the first time. In addition to detailed landscape profiles and profile descriptions, a cantonal overview map of soil types was created at a scale of 1:25,000, which serves as an important basis for future mapping projects (accessible on the Geoportal).The findings from this project will be incorporated into the follow-up project “From Drill Bit to Irrigation Nozzle”. More information about this can be found here.

    Soil information survey at a soil profile pit in the Bernese Prealps.

  • Making the value of soil visible: deep dive

    Project Update February 17, 2025

    The project seeked to answer the following questions: What innovative approach can we use to collect key data supporting the sustainable use of soil as a resource in sufficiently high quality but at more frequent intervals than before?  How can we optimize the interaction of the different technologies, work steps, and stakeholders in a highly complex and large-scale project? How, and by means of what products, can we best put the documented soil properties to use as services that the soil provides for climate protection, biodiversity, spatial planning, and sustainable agriculture? The data will soon be made available on the geoportal of the Canton of Bern. In a subsequent step, the findings will be put into practice.The project is being carried out by the School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (HAFL) at Bern University of Applied Sciences, in close cooperation with the Swiss Soil Competence Center (KOBO). 

    Calibration day for mapping staff. Ensuring consistent quality in soil data collection requires knowledge transfer, the training of mapping personnel, and cross-verified calibration.

Team